Before the Crack

 She always imagined herself as the beam holding up her family’s sky. But now she sits curled up before her laptop, shoulders slumped. The white glare of the fluorescent light presses against her shoulders, a false mercy, a light too clean to bear. The blue glow of the screen erases the last ripple from her face. Yet this is not mere exhaustion. Decay had begun quietly, years ago. The clients, once connected through the endless web, now faceless and blurred, dissolve in her mind like a strip of damp, faded film. The names that still flicker in her chat window follow soon after. When she turns around, the green icon of that social app flashes with its red warning. Dozens of unread messages await, like the eyes of trapped beasts. Group chats multiply like feverish cells. Her boss’s avatar lights up. A single minute’s delay in replying, and the muted notifications begin to buzz around her head like invisible mosquitoes. Here, work bleeds into life, and life into work.
In this tide of layoffs, if everyone could afford to quit, the world would have long been gnawed hollow by hunger. Yet her friends and relatives, whatever their incomes or despair, envy her for the supposed “freedom” of working from home. She leans back against the cold chair, feeling messages and words rushing toward her, as if she were standing beneath a waterfall, gasping for air. A mother of one of her students has just sent a string of long voice messages about her child’s college essay. She converts each clipped recording into text. The woman’s tone blurs in transcription; her emotions turn visible and toxic, like exhaust fumes. She tries to respond. To the anxiety, the complaints. But across the screen, even as she summons empathy and forces a smile, she is swallowed by formless nothingness. The last trace of warmth drains away.
Somewhere inside her, something watches. Silent. Numb. Waiting for the crack to widen. After all, who really cares what she thinks? What her clients want is simple: a “perfect” essay by their own standard, a pass to a prestigious school. A result. A service bought with money. She decides to detach herself from this mire, indifferent to joy or sorrow. Her hand finds the keyboard, its surface faintly hot. Each keystroke lands. Short. Dry. Like something fragile cracking open from within.