I used to think the answer was at the end of the search.
Now I suspect the search was the answer.
It’s not that I can’t stop.
It’s stranger than that.
Sometimes I realize I already started before deciding.
I put the phone face down.
As if the gesture had any real effect.
As if it could hold something that is already collapsing on its own.
Five minutes.
Sometimes less.
I turn it over.
No transition.
Like the movement was already prepared in advance.
The screen is off now.
Just black.
And my reflection on top of it.
For a second it feels like I’m not looking at the phone.
It feels like I’m looking at someone who is looking.
And I don’t know which one of us is waiting.
I don’t think it in that moment.
I think it afterwards.
When it’s already done.
There’s something uncomfortable about that.
Not the content.
But the exact moment before opening it.
That small delay.
That micro-decision that doesn’t feel like a decision.
I leave a tab open.
Not for usefulness.
For continuity.
As if closing it would break something I can’t name.
One night I actually close it.
No internal agreement.
No negotiation.
Just close.
The next day I don’t remember deciding it.
I only remember the opposite gesture.
Open.
Without context.
Like it was the default state.
I start noticing something worse:
it’s not that I return.
it’s that part of me is already returning while the rest is still pretending it isn’t.
I don’t say it out loud.
but I recognize it while I’m writing it.
The screen again.
Reflection again.
My face on black.
still.
too still.
And for a ridiculous second I wonder if the image is supposed to do something.
as if it wasn’t me who had to decide.
I turn it over.
slower this time.
as if slowness could change the outcome.
It doesn’t.
I used to think the answer was at the end of the search.
Now I suspect the search was the answer.
I have to move the neck I am not moving it I should…
