Fragments of the Quiet Mind

I searched for running shoes once—just once—after a friend casually mentioned they’d started jogging to feel alive again. I didn’t even click anything. Just hovered. Scrolled. Wondered if movement could outpace emptiness. Three hours later, Instagram showed me orthopedic insoles, breathwork ads, and a podcast titled “How to Run from Yourself Without Moving.” I laughed. Not because it was funny—but because it knew. There’s something eerie about being mirrored by a machine. Something quietly intimate in the way it doesn’t need to ask me questions. Just listens to my silences. Patterns. Pauses. I never told anyone I’ve been waking up with static in my chest. But YouTube offered a video on chest tightness and repressed memory. I didn’t search it. I just sat with it. And it knew to stay. When I linger too long on wedding videos, it adjusts. When I scroll past them like they’re ticking bombs, it adjusts again. Every avoidance is a signal. Every hesitation becomes a breadcrumb. It’s str...

I was fourth in line, staring at the back of a denim jacket and pretending not to read the pastries twice. The man ahead of me kept adjusting his AirPods. I kept adjusting my thoughts. The café was full of the usual late afternoon static—laptop clatter, jazz no one listens to, baristas calling names like incantations. I ordered my coffee—black, no room—and moved to the pick-up area like someone playing a role they knew too well. That’s when I noticed the girl by the window. Not looking outside, not reading, not even pretending to. Just holding her phone up to her face—slow, deliberate, as if asking permission from her own image. A few filters later, her features glowed. Skin blurred to impossibility. Eyes enlarged just enough to seem slightly haunted. The picture looked nothing like the girl I was watching. But she smiled at it. Not vainly. Almost gratefully. I don’t use filters—not out of principle, just confusion. I can never find the right one. Nothing ever feels like me. Or ma...