In a small town, it's fomo in lowercase

“Well, was it at least a good time?”, he said out loud in a demonic, crackled voice.

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s always a good time seeing the film. But no one else laughed at the parts when Jack was going apeshit. Those are my favorite bits. My dude was so far off the rails”, he responded back in his normal, conversational tone.

Then, he stepped back from the mirror and took a look at himself. The index finger on his right hand was curling-and-extending, back and forth. He held the index finger high, next to his head, at eye-level, and while miming each syllable with the curling motion, he began speaking again in the gnarly, crackled voice:

“But you said there were more people in there than you’d ever seen before?”

He then lowered the finger, and spoke in a normal tone:

“Yeah, but it didn’t feel like that diversified any of the reaction. You’d think it would, right?”

He was impersonating the creepy, self-talk mannerism of the little boy from The Shining. He had just come back home from seeing it at the tiny local movie theatre down the street. It’s a conundrum of a business, really. Only one screen, only two showings a day. But it’s brave enough to show The Shining on a random Friday in 35mm, so he had to go. He thought the movie was good, though he’d seen it several times before.

He raised the demonic index finger and started again in the crackled voice:

“Depends on what you expected, I guess.”

He lowered the finger.

“I never know what to expect. But that’s exactly what I’m sayin though. Should I always assume the worst?”

Raised the finger.

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

Lowering the finger.

“I’m just telling you my observations. I don’t have the answers.”

Raising.

“Fine, whatever. I thought you needed someone to talk to.”

Lowering.

“But it’s like… I just know how those scenes make me feel. Bro is literally going nuts from cabin fever, hobbling around talking about killing his family and shit, like how do people not find that funny.”

Raising.

“I see what you mean.”

Lowering the finger, he unballed the rest of his fingers, looked down at his hand and chuckled to himself. He was laughing, mostly, at the silly places loneliness could take him. He left his spot in front of the mirror and relocated to the living room couch.

Outside, there were a ton of leaves on the ground. It was an autumn evening, so the air wasn’t necessarily cold, but it wasn’t warm either. He also wouldn’t know, really, because he was indoors and didn’t sense that he was leaving anytime soon. Several times, he thought his phone flashed with the notification of a text message, but they were just wanton alerts of sports scores.

He picked up a gaming controller and turned on the game, navigating his way through different menus. He selected the “Online Multi-Player” mode and waited for it to load up.

It was taking longer than expected. So while waiting, he raised the curling, demonic finger again:

“So, you’re laughing at Jack’s paranoia because why?”

Lowered his finger.

“Idunno, it’s kinda honest.”

Raised it.

“So you think you would become Jack if you were stuck in that hotel for 3 whole ass months?”

Lowered it.

“It’s not farfetched. I don’t even know what’s what anymore. Good thing I don’t have a family.”

Raising:

“Good thing you’re not stuck in a hotel with snow all around you on all sides either.”

Lowering:

“Sometimes, it feels like that though.”

Raising:

“Oh, so now this is really what this is about. It was just a movie. It’s not like you can sympathize that deeply with Jack, bro.”

Lowering:

“That’s why it’s funny though, because even if there wasn’t some world-altering storm keeping all them inside, it was still kind of relatable. He just wanted to play.”

“He did more than play.”

“Did he, though?”

“Bro. You can go places. You just don’t want to.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

The game initiation failed. An error message popped up: Internet Not Connected. Online Features Unavailable.

“Well, damn.”

He raised the finger:

“Would you look at that. It’s a sign. And it’s telling you to just go to Rafael’s party tonight.”

“Eh. Still don’t know how I feel about it.”

“Talk about it.”

“Not much to say. It’s probably the only thing happening tonight, so it’s complicated.”

“Get it out. How does it make you feel.”

“Well, the first thing is that I know if I don’t go: it’s going to fuck me up. I’m going to pretend it’s not a big deal I’m missing out and then I’ma be pissed if I find out anyone had fun. And if I do go, I’m gonna be in there pretending that it is a big deal, when I know it it’s not.”

“I understand that completely.”

“Wait, why the fuck are you sympathizing with me? I thought you were supposed to be the instigator.”

“True…

well…

… don’t be on some bullshit. Get up! Are you going or not??”

“Probably not.”

“But think about it. If you don’t go… you’ll be missing out on the only thing worth going to for the next 3 weeks. Can you handle that? You’re not just missing out tonight… you’re missing out for the whole month, bro.”

“Aight, aight. That’s dramatic, but I get it.”

“Do you? Do you get it??”

“I’ll think about it.”

“No time to think! It’s starts in 30 minutes!”

“Hey. Seriously, bro. Leave me the fuck alone?”

Just then, an exacting female voice penetrated the conversation.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t quite get that,” she said.

“Fuck! Siri, no. Not you. Fuck off right now, thanks.”

He got up from the couch, away from failing technology, and moved to the tiny dining table.

Finger raised:

“Well, if you can’t bring yourself to go out and do the one thing that’s happening, why are you still here in this small ass town? To find yourself or some shit?”

“‘This country ass, fucked up town.’ Yooo, you remember the video of that news reporter who said that shit? I’m about to pull that up. Maybe tonight is a YouTube rabbit hole night.”

The raising finger stopped him from opening the YouTube app on his phone:

“Stop deflecting. What are you fleeing?”

“I don’t know? Fine. Sure, this place is refuge for now. But James Baldwin did that shit, too. He did it for 9 years. He turned out alright.”

“That’s what the history books tried to tell us. And I don’t trust history books.”

“I mean, as you shouldn’t. I guess. But it wasn’t like a history book. It was his own writing that told us that.”

“Oh.”

“But I do think about that, too, to your point. Like was he being for real? Like maybe there was some part of him at the time of his departure that was just like ‘fuck it, who the hell knows why I’m doing this. I’m fed up, yeah, but I’m also just a little confused: We out to Paris.’”

“That’s probably exactly what he did. Then he tried to make it sound flowery afterwards. Bro was probably was just trying to get some french dick and found god in the meantime.”

He laughed loudly at that in the non-crackled voice.

Then continued in it:

“Can you imagine a James Baldwin in Paris film, but in the style of The Shining?”

Raising the finger, this time with real emphasis:

“‘All work and no play makes Jack Baldwin a dull nigga.’”

Laughter. Lowering it:

“He eventually goes so crazy that the real cabin fever crime is he ends up going back to America. That’s worse than killing your family with an axe, for real.”

More laughs. Raising it:

“You should write that down.”

“I’m about to right now.”

He pulled out his phone and mouthed the words, in a normal tone, as he typed:

“Black man… in…. strange land… knows no one… eventually goes so crazy… he… threatens to kill all the Parisians… movie ends… with him… exiled… back in… America... freezing… to death…”

He put the phone down and raised that finger again:

“Wait, hold up. Fuck that. We getting sidetracked. Are you going to this party or not??”

Lowering it:

“Party is a strong word, my friend. But yeah, lemme get ready. I’ll prolly go.”

Raising it one last time:

“Bet.”