She had posted it thinking she was asking for something—comfort, attention, a reason to feel real. But the message made her realize she had been giving something instead. She had held up a small lantern in a dark room, and someone else had whispered back, I see your light. Here is mine.
Why did she want to post it?
For a moment, nothing. Then the first notification: a like from an account she didn’t recognize, probably a bot. Then another. A comment from her friend Maya: This is gorgeous. You okay? A heart from her old coworker Derek. A save from someone named @solitary_walker. lets post it
Lena leaned back in her chair. The apartment was quiet except for the refrigerator’s low thrum and the distant siren of a city that never stopped moving. Outside, people were falling in love, quitting jobs, getting bad news from doctors, burning toast. All the ordinary apocalypses of a Tuesday. And here she was, about to broadcast her own small apocalypse to two hundred and forty-seven followers, most of whom she hadn’t spoken to since high school.
The photo posted. The caption floated up into the feed, landing between a sponsored ad for meal kits and a former classmate’s blurry video of her toddler eating a crayon. She had posted it thinking she was asking
The first was too angry. The second, too sad. The third tried to be funny about the whole thing, which felt like putting a clown nose on a tombstone. The fourth was honest, but honesty without art is just noise. The fifth was poetry, but poetry felt like hiding. The sixth was a single word: Enough . She deleted it. The seventh was the one she kept.
She took a sip of cold coffee and made a face. Here is mine
Validation? That was the ugly one, the one she didn’t like to admit. The little goblin in her chest that wanted the red heart notifications like a plant wants sunlight. See? Someone saw. Someone cares. The proof is in the pixels.