The Bright Side of Going Dark

by Kelly Harms

  Instead of typing that, I zap the worst trolls and then do my breathing exercise. In four, hold four, pause four, out four. Then I post an artful picture of Cary’s dining room with the mountains out the windows and start to type the caption.

  Even on my #honeymoon, there are times when I feel overwhelmed by all the tasks ahead. I was reminded to take time out for meditation after breakfast.

  I pause. A new notification pops down from the top of my screen. It says no offense but ur posts r so boring zzzzzzzzz.

  No offense.

  Something in me gets loose. It starts working my thumbs.

  But rather than sit and do nothing like you entitled nitwits, I’m going to try some more practical ways of pursuing my goals, such as working harder instead of killing hours of every workday on social media, saving money instead of buying everything I see advertised on some influencer’s feed, and being alone with my thoughts instead of forcing someone else to create constant sources of entertainment for me in every second of my day.

  Consider this: maybe if your relationship with technology requires you to sit prone in a mindless trance for forty-five minutes per day to recover, you should just get off of social media for pity’s sake and go take a nice walk!

  I get hold of myself. Do another round of square breathing. Switch off my phone. Remind myself there is a reason I’m not a real influencer.

  I won’t actually post my little rant, as nice as it felt to type it into the prompt. It’s not that I don’t believe what I’ve written. It’s just that I realize how impossible what I suggest is for most people. Most people don’t want to work all the time or pinch every penny or spend hours alone with no company. They want to scroll Pictey, or whatever their internet poison is, and online shop and exchange messages endlessly back and forth with strangers, because they actually think, in that moment, that it might make them feel better. And probably, it often does.

  I have met these people, in the comments, the DMs, the tags. I think I once even could have been one of those people. Before. But living that way—all the fear and comparison and feelings and vulnerability—was unsustainable for me, and back then they didn’t know about mindfulness and resilience. They knew about Prozac. In very high doses. Doses I keep high intentionally, even years and years after my last depression, because without them, the world might still be too scary.

  I think about Jessica now. I remember how frightening it felt in those early days to be drugged up to the gills and handed fistfuls of Valium and told to go home and get on with it. I couldn’t sleep, but I couldn’t get out of bed either. It didn’t feel like anything I took was working, and I was afraid of myself, and I was ashamed of what I’d done, what I’d wanted to do. My father was terrified, my mother was disgraced, and my little sister was confused. I suppose in that time, a little Daily Activity in Nature would have helped me a great deal. A center for suicidal ideation and a resilience checklist would have meant the world.

  I throw down my phone and pull on my Costco travel pants, which feature four-way multistretch and a few zippered pockets for my things. On top I wear one of my favorite shirts, a soft, well-worn cotton T-shirt with a nice scoop neck in an appealing shade of dark green. When Jessica opens the door, I pose with hands on hips. “I am cute and ready to cycle!” I tell her with as much fake enthusiasm as I can bring. I stuff my phone in one of the numerous pockets. “Let us go get some gentle healing activity in the cortisol-soothing environs of nature!”

  She laughs at me, which means she can’t tell I’m upset. “Yes, let’s. Are you done here?”

  I nod. “I’m done.”

  “Good. Hand over your phone, and I’ll put in our destination. We need to get to the outfitters in the next twenty minutes or so to make our tour.”

  “It’s a tour?” I ask as I obey her instructions.

  “Yes,” she says. “We’re getting a private guided tour of the Vail Pass—both up- and downhill. Hopefully the guide has a cute butt, because we are going to be staring at it for the rest of the day.”

  I’m not sure how she predicted it, but the tour guide is a handsome fellow indeed, his skin as brown as mine is white, his eyes sparkly, and his voice a pleasant, lilting southern accent. He grew up in North Carolina, put himself through NYU as a bike messenger, and now is a biochemist in Denver. I find his short, broad frame and not-insignificant biceps to be attractive enough to reduce my earlier upset. Normally I would be satisfied to enjoy these attributes from afar, but being Mia Bell has made me bold. And besides, Jessica has given this man’s employer my credit card number in exchange for guiding us through a very well-marked path the width of a golf cart with no turns or spurs and no possibility of getting lost. So that means talking to me is probably the true nature of his job.

  “Why are you doing bike tours, Tim?” I ask him as soon as our bikes are fitted to our satisfaction and we are underway. “Don’t they impinge on your personal time?”

  “Not at all. I’d be out on my bike right now anyway, but I’d be alone. This way I have company, and I get paid for it,” he tells me happily. “Plus, I’m on my second year of a postdoc.”

  “Ah,” I say. “Well then.”

  “What does that mean?” asks Jessica, who can bike much faster than me and sort of drops back whenever she wants to be in our conversation, only to leave at every quiet lull.

  “It means he is at or below the national poverty line,” I tell her. “And he’ll soon be totally unemployed.”

  “Not totally,” he corrects. “I will still be a guide for Summit Cycles.”

  “I note that you have a very sunny disposition,” I tell him. “Was this in evidence before you became a regular practitioner of daily activity in nature?”

  He smiles. “There is no before that,” he tells me. “I grew up biking outside. I never stopped. That said, I’m pretty cheery in the summer in general.”

  “Of course, that phenomenon is well studied as it relates to vitamin D,” I tell him.

  “Sure. But unless I had my D levels tested monthly throughout the year, we couldn’t separate my pleasure at cycling outdoors from the benefits of the extra vitamins I make as a result.”

  I nod. “I do not generally go into nature,” I tell him. “I live in Silicon Valley. I go into my office.”

  “But I suspect you are not at or below the poverty line,” he notes with a smile. “Or soon to be unemployed.”

  “Good point,” I say cheerfully. “Also, I like my job very much. It’s quite rewarding.”

  “What is it you do?” he asks. I notice Jessica is dropping back again. Eavesdropping.

  “I work at a social media start-up,” I say, but just as I do, we roll out of the last bit of town, and the mountains that have appeared distant seem to rear up before me. “My goodness, what a sight!”

  “That’s Devil’s Back,” he says, pleased. The mountain is rounded, with snow over the top and lines cut into the trees for skiers.

  “It’s enormous.”

  “It’s a baby compared to the others we’ll pass.”

  “I can’t help but notice we’re going slightly uphill,” I say, because though it’s only been twenty minutes, I am starting to notice some signs of exertion, such as being exhausted. “I am not going to make it fifteen miles at this grade.”

  “Ah! When was the last time you rode a bike, may I ask?”

  I shrug. “When I was ten, maybe? It does seem to be just like riding a bike, as they say.”

  “Perhaps you have never shifted gears before?” he asks.

  “Conversationally, yes,” I say. “On a bike, no.”

  “Well then. You’ll be very pleased to learn how to do so. Let’s start our lesson off the bike,” he says.

  Carefully I pull over and try to teeter off my bicycle. Not carefully enough. I fall, and the bike falls with me. We both land in a clatter. A hot flush of embarrassment creeps up my cheeks, and I think, This is why I don’t do social activity. Or outdoor activity. Or activity.

 
But I’m unhurt, and Tim is just standing there with a hand out and a big grin on his face that, if possible, makes him look even more attractive. “Thank you for getting that out of the way. Until someone falls off, I spend the whole ride wondering when someone’s going to fall off and how they’ll handle it. It can be anxiety provoking.”

  I look at him with a raised brow, but he’s not joking. I nod. “You’re welcome,” I say. I struggle to my feet, but my phone escapes one of my many pockets. When I reach down to get it, the screen wakes, and there are three hundred notifications. “My goodness!” I say. “Jessica! Did you post something new?”

  She bikes back to me. “What?”

  “Why did we just get three hundred comments in the last thirty minutes?” I ask her. “Did we post something new?”

  “You posted at the inn, didn’t you?” she asks.

  “I don’t think I did,” I say. “I started to, but I got a bit stuck on the caption.”

  “Oh. Ok. Well, the natives are probably just restless. I’ll go take a peek.”

  She takes out her phone and unlocks it. She’s quiet for a second. I smile at Tim weakly. “Sorry. Show me how to shift gears,” I tell him.

  He starts giving me the lay of the land. One of my handlebars operates the big gear; the other is the nested one. It’s very straightforward in mechanics, but I’m a bit concerned about the prospect of shifting while biking, which is apparently a key part of the technique. It seems like it’ll be a bit much, as I am already pretty focused on balancing, pedaling, and steering straight ahead. I am about to suggest to Tim that he shift my bike to the most appropriate gear and then give it back to me when Jessica says loudly, “OH SHIT.”

  I look at her. “Oh shit?” I say stupidly.

  “Um, Paige?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Might you have just told everyone on the internet to get off social media ‘for pity’s sake’?”

  I reflect. “That does sound like something I might say. For pity’s sake is meant to sub in for Pete’s sake, which usually refers to Saint Peter. Saint Peter is himself a substitute for the word God or Christ, which would be, to some people, blasphemy.”

  “You’re focusing on the wrong part of that sentence,” she says.

  “Oh, the part about social media. I guess I might say that, too, though never in public,” I add. “That would be detrimental to the success of my place of employment.”

  “And, um, also the health of your current client?” she says. “Because right now people are starting to threaten her well-being.”

  “Threatening Mia?”

  “They seem to feel insulted by your last post. Did you complain about having to create constant sources of entertainment in every second of your waking day?”

  “Oh, I didn’t post that!” I say. “I was having a moment of frustration. I never hit post.”

  Jessica puts her arms out like she wants to scream. “Obviously you did,” she says. “Because I can see it. Paige, did you pants post this?”

  “Pants post?” I ask. “I can’t even imagine what you mean.”

  “Did you leave that ‘moment of frustration’ on the screen before you put away your phone?” she asks. “Or delete it completely, like a sane person would do? So that there was no way it might accidentally get posted, through a mistaken swipe or click?”

  “You don’t think . . . ,” I ask.

  “I know,” she says. “Look for yourself.”

  I unlock my phone.

  Oh, the horror.

  Comment after comment insulting me, calling me names, expressing hurt and betrayal. Making fun of one of my most used idioms. There is a new hashtag trending. #ForPitysSake. There is a meme that starts out, HEY NITWITS. It seems to be in use entirely to warn people that @Mia&Mike is just using her followers for sponsorship money and fame. I roll my eyes at this. “Well, of course she is,” I say to myself. “What did they think she was running, exactly? A nonprofit?”

  Jessica shakes her head at me, and I can tell she’s really upset. “Paige,” she says. “This is bad. What you said is kind of mean. I mean, I’m a Mia follower. Is this what you think of me? That I’m an entitled nitwit who should quit the internet and go for a nice walk? And jeez, why are you taking your anger out on meditation? When did meditation ever hurt a soul?”

  I put my hands to my face. “Jessica, I’m so sorry. This wasn’t directed at you. For some reason I was becoming upset over the comments Mia gets every day. Not just the ones you see but all the really mean ones I have to delete every ten minutes, or so it feels. And now I realize everyone is complaining because no matter what I say, they just want to complain, and they think I’m some anonymous person with no feelings and no problems. Whatever I say, they compare it to their own lives and find their own lives lacking, even if I’m literally telling them to enjoy their lives!”

  I sigh. “There’s just so much need and sorrow and just plain whinging in every thread, no matter what we post or when or how often. Back at that café in town, you said we were creating content! But we’re really creating discontent!”

  I exclaim the last bit very loudly, and Tim suddenly speaks. “That’s a great line,” he says. “Content. Discontent. Can I post that on Twitter? I’ll give you credit.”

  I point to him, arm outstretched. “YOU SEE!?” I exclaim to Jessica, though there is absolutely no through line from what she and I are talking about and what he just said, beyond that they are both about social media.

  She shakes her head, having none of my nonsense. “I can see you’re upset, but you need to take this post down. You’ve just spread your own upset to a lot of other people. That’s not the goal, is it?”

  I go quiet. Here I am trying to care for my sister, and I’ve upset people, and probably one of the people was her. “No. Of course not. But . . . ,” I begin. “The original goal was . . .” My voice drifts off. I can’t quite remember what the original goal was beyond finding something to do with myself until I got reinstated at work. “The reason I started on @Mia&Mike in the first place,” I admit, “was because of what you posted on her feed.” I lower my voice and confess the operating assumption that has driven so much of my behavior the last couple of weeks. “There’s a part of me that feels like it’s the fault of people like her, influencers, that you were feeling the way you were. I thought once you saw what was on the other side of the curtain, their power over you would wane.”

  By now Tim has disappeared so completely that I wonder if we’re out on our own out here. I still don’t know how to shift the gears on my bike. “I’m sorry, Jessica. I’ll take it down.”

  Her shoulders slump. “Thank you,” she says, but her tone is flat, her affect low. Is it her meds? I wonder. But of course not, I realize. It’s not always about the meds. It’s the words I’ve said to her.

  When it comes down to it, it’s me, not Mia, who has made her feel poorly.

  I unlock my phone again. I navigate to my Pictey app and to the post. I look at it again. My goodness. I really was in a fit when I wrote it. A fit I promptly forgot as soon as I began to do gentle activity in nature. I must be sure to thank Jessica for that suggestion, after I—

  My phone bloops.

  “What’s that?” Jessica asks. “What’s happening?”

  “It’s a direct message,” I say. “Not a DM request but just a DM,” I go on. On Pictey, only people you’ve approved can send you DMs. Anyone can send a request, but you don’t see what they wrote until you accept it. They go into separate mailboxes. There are very, very few people Mia has ever approved to go straight into DMs.

  I go into the mailbox. Then look up in surprise.

  “It’s Tucker,” I say.

  “Tucker?” she repeats. “Why would he be DMing her when he’s on a honeymoon with her?”

  The shit hits the fan is one of those very young idioms that is American in origin, and likely military at that. It was only first seen in print in 1948. Its British military cousin is things go p
ear shaped, and I also enjoy its more morbid relation, tits up.

  At this moment, on the bike trail between Copperidge and Vail, the pear-shaped shit goes tits up. I’ve blown up a stranger’s feed and drawn the attention of her ex-fiancé. And I never told Jessica that Mia was jilted. Mia lied about it online, of course, so Jessica still doesn’t know.

  I open the message. It reads:

  Mia, I just saw your post. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you finally said all those things. They’re exactly what I wanted you to say to me when we were together. I NEEDed you to say those things. To acknowledge what a cesspool this life can be, and challenge it a little. Give a little push to the people you had such an opportunity to reach, rather than just acting like their trained seal. That was all I was asking you for.

  Were you listening all along, and I just didn’t give you enough time to get there? I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I have missed you every day since I got home. I’ve stalked your feed and wept every day and waited for a sign. I’m praying this is the sign. Mia, let me see you. I’m going to the airport right now. I can be in the mountains by dinner. Your metadata says you’re still in Summit County. I assume that means you’re at your mom’s.

  Please, meet me at your mom’s house, Mia.

  Just give me a chance to tell you how sorry I am in person. Give me a chance to make things right.

  Love,

  Tucker

  “Paige?” Jessica asks as I stare at my phone in shock. “What is it?”

  “Jessica,” I say slowly. “I believe I need to quickly bring you up to speed on a number of issues that are going to become pressing in the very near future.” I look around the spot we’re standing, in a man-made canyon almost as old as this state, between rises of grasses, trees, rocks, snow, blue sky, and clouds. In such a pass, you can look only forward or backward. There is no other way out.

  “The first item,” I tell her, deciding solidly that I will move forward, “is that we need to find Tim. To my own surprise, I don’t seem to actually know how to ride a bike. Perhaps the event of my childhood was, ever so slightly, exaggerated.”