The Sending | Short Story | 02.10.2017

The sending

Short story | 02.10.2017

I put my head down in shame, my thumb hesitantly lingering above the ‘send’ button. 
There I am, sitting on my couch, for lack of a desk to work at. It’s 3 in the afternoon, and I just created a generic message to send to a bunch of friends. The thought of sending it to the wrong person sends shivers down my spine…the thought of sending to anyone makes my heart race.

What will people think? Will they judge me? Will they read the message, scoff, head directly to the unfriend button, and then never talk to me again, ever?! Will the next time I see them be filled with the familiar sound of awkward silence. I mean, I’m probably overthinking it, but you know…

I sit there, balanced in the middle of the couch, with my cat to the left of me sleeping peacefully. She doesn’t have to deal with these things, the only judgment she’ll ever receive is from the mice gods after they tally up how many of the killings were hers.

I happily drift off into a daydream about mice gods, and then mice police, and then a mouse army, but a bang outside brings me back. What was that? Probably nothing…and then it hits me, I still haven’t sent this message, and I need to do it now, if I don’t, I’ll probably never do it. 

I pick up my, now sleeping, phone. I wake it, and unlock it, failing on the first try, I never quite know how to place my thumb so it can read my fingerprint. And there it is, the message, that frightfully generic message that I can easily copy paste. 

Before I even realise my thumb has taken to the natural instinct, and it’s heading to the send button at a frightful speed. Everything went in slow motion. Is this it? Is this the end of friendship as I know it, are people going to prosecute me and cast me out of society? 

It’s too late to stop it, my thumb hit’s the trusty digital button, and the text that was so safe, hidden in my little editable box get’s swiped into the conversation. Forever out of reach, left out on its own, only ‘friends’ can judge it now.

I sit there, staring at the screen, re-reading the text, reading:

“Hi there, Hope you’re well! As you know, I have a blog, but have been struggling to actually post anything…I’m finding it hard to figure out what I should blog about…have you got any suggestions? Thank you! X Sanne”

I suppose I’ll probably survive…