Gone

Over the decades, ever since the late eighties, society has shed its skins so many times it’s hard to remember what the original creature looked like. First the bleeding hearts 86ed smoking in bars to “stop cancer,” and that failed miserably. Then they went after drinking with the same zeal, and the drunks and drunk drivers never went anywhere. All that combined effort really did was gut whole industries, spark more bootlegging and contraband, and feed gang‑related crime.

Then the internet arrived and evolved faster than a fart blown away in a windstorm. And through all of it, I adapted. The brick‑and‑mortar world staggered toward collapse. Busking dried up because hardly anyone carries real money anymore. I adapted again.

Now the last scraps of the social internet are dissolving into niche, no‑attention‑span mosaic rooms where nobody reads, nobody lingers, nobody talks, just endless flipping through garbage and sucking down dopamine flash posts. I’m not sure I can adapt this time. I’ve grown too old to dance around the mulberry bush yet again.

Surfing the net is gone. Meeting up with friends is mostly gone. You can’t even build late‑night conversation circles in coffee shops anymore because they roll up their entrances long before the world is ready to sleep. Everything feels gone.