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Easy Way Out

“Easy Way Out”

By Chris Heron Smith

Evening began to fall upon the quaint old building of Manhattan Comprehensive. Streaks of the setting sun came through the big classroom windows and leaked into the hallways. Breaths of autumn pushed themselves through the places where windows were pulled down, but did not get far, absorbed quickly into the smells of sneakers and sweat, unidentifiable school food and dust. A few day students lingered at their lockers, laughing about something that had happened in their last class. A couple others wiped their hands on their jeans as they left the bathrooms, too eager to be on their way than wait to dry them.

As the only night high school in the city, and possibly the country, the thick brick walls held students and their teachers late into the evening. While their peers were home spending time with their families or out having a good time with friends, they pushed through their lessons. The only light came from the cheap yellow bars on the ceiling, a further reminder of their imprisonment, and from the blue of their phones, into which they tried to escape their suffering.

Mara had been at MCNDHS for about two years now, and felt incrementally annoyed. As she tuned in and out of the lesson, she twisted the front locks of her hair that were once bright purple but had faded into an obscure gray. She stared at the hole developing on her knee, and thought about how she hadn’t gotten new clothes since her last school, hadn’t even cared to. Though at the beginning it had been a fresh start here at Manhattan Comprehensive, a second chance after the conflicts at her old school, she was having a hard time changing her habits and was making progress slowly again. Each semester she felt a little more bitterness towards friends that had moved on, and those teachers that treated her like a kid. She almost hadn’t come today, but until she had her diploma she knew she could not end this cycle of frustration or her aunt’s apartment, and so here she sat in Chemistry.

In her periphery she saw students raising their hands and looked up from her phone and around the classroom. A handful of students were raising their hands at every question the teacher asked. I’m even more behind than I thought, Mara thought to herself. Lately it seemed more people were passing their classes and graduating and leaving her behind. She turned back to her blue screen and relaxed instantly. Pictures, updates, games. On her screens there was no judgment, no pressure, no reminders of the work she needed to do or mistakes she had made.

The sounds of the students blurred around her as she fell into her chats. When the bell rang she put the phone away and walked to the door, bumping into a few of the students who had been participating in class. She recognized one of them as Sharon, who had a young son, and was also taking the class for the second time.

“Hey, it’s Mara, right?” Sharon said. “I noticed you been out for a couple days. Everything okay?”

Mara nodded and blushed slightly. She hadn’t expected anyone to notice she hadn’t been there. “Oh yeah, I’m good. It was just a hard week, you know? And taking this class again is really blowing mine.”

“That’s understandable. But just think how much easier it will be to pass it this time!” Sharon smiled at her encouragingly and gave her shoulder a small squeeze. The other two students agreed with her.

“You guys were really on it tonight. I used to never see students excited like that here.” She paused and felt awkward for a moment, not sure where she was going with this. “What’s, um, your secret?”

Josh, a somewhat new student, laughed. “We just decided to be more proactive and enjoy life a little more.”

“Oh that’s cool,” Mara looked around. “Like a spiritual thing?” She thought of her old teacher who always told them to meditate.

“Nothing like that,” Sharon said. “But there is something that can help.” The other two looked at her quickly.

Mara noticed the interaction and thought maybe they had a connection to adderall or something, like rich kids use to get through big tests. It wasn’t normally something she’d mess with, but these students looked pretty healthy. “I can keep a secret.”

“It’s no big deal,” said Joshua. “We downloaded a phone app that has really helped out. It gives you motivation to keep moving in your life, and help improve your relationships too.”

“Oh yeah, does it really help?” Mara asked doubtfully. “I don’t see you guys on your phones very much.”

They all laughed. “That’s probably true,” said Joshua. “But the best parts of life are all around us, aren’t they?” He took a bite of a candy bar and rolled his eyes back in exagerrated delight. “Mmm, chocolate is delicious every time.”

“Uh sure, I guess,” Mara replied reluctantly.

“But we haven’t forgotten about you guys entirely, have we?” He patted his phone that was zipped into the mesh outer pocket of his bookbag, ignoring the small flashing green light indicating a message.

These students are a little weird, Mara thought to herself, but maybe they are on to something.

✦

Mara jiggled her key in the lock, lifted it up and then shoved her hip against the door to open it. The apartment building was always clean, but the super never showed up to fix things until they had actually fallen apart. As she stepped into the hallway the savory smells of garlic, cilantro and baked chicken overwhelmed her. “Oh crap,” she mumbled, and started to walk back out.

“Ah finally! Shh,” Mara’s aunt called out to her after hushing her girlfriend. “Do you have the cream?”

Mara could picture them chopping chicken and frying onions, one of them pausing every once in a while to push the hair out of her eyes with her wrists. “Ah I’m sorry, I forgot,” she said and then paused. “Do you still want me to get it?”

Within the hour the birthday celebration was on. Her cousin was several years younger than herself, and the room was packed with teenagers, people from church and neighbors. It was a convivial affair as usual; the food was delicious and everyone was laughing and having a good time. Mara kept eating to avoid getting stuck in conversations which would inevitebly include questions about school and her plans. As she filled her plate again she remembered how she wanted to learn some of the traditional recipes her aunt made. Lately she’d been eating too much dollar pizza and random snacks on her way out. Soon I will learn, she promised herself, and took another bite. After apologizing to her cousin for not having gotten her a gift, Mara snuck off early to bed.

As she fell asleep she made a vow to make a better effort from now on. Even though she was in a frustrating step in her life, there were still things to enjoy and others to look forward to.

✦

After the holiday weekend Mara returned to school feeling recharged but restless. It was miserable outside. Rain beat upon the wide windows and traffic outside made a steady hiss down Second Avenue. Mara focused on her English work, finishing the assignment early and then another that was past due. At lunch she ran quickly in her hoodie to the maekup shop to look at hair dye. She chose a bright teal, and some polish for her cousin.

As she was walking into Chemistry she saw Josh ahead of her, his phone still blinking through his bag. “Hey!” Mara said to him and smiled gratefully. “Can you show me that app you were talking about?”

As class started the download finished and Mara flipped through the setup.

Do you give permission for this application to access your browser?

YES.

Do you give access for this application to access your social media?

YES.

Do you give permission for this application to access your contacts?

YES.

Do you give permission for this application to access your passcode and fingerprint?

YES.

“Oh crap, that’s weird,” Mara said, and quickly pressed the NO button.

✦

She felt hollow. Words fell around her and filled her body and her bones with the voices of others. A cyclone of images flew around and into her mouth and ears. She rolled numbly over neon squares and onto a dark plane.

“Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Mara found it difficult to think both out of sheer terror and the lack of words in her vocabulary to comprehend what was happening to her. She groped her arms and legs and felt nothing but static.

“Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

✦

Maya awoke on the dark plane. She could hear the muffled sound of her aunt kissing a cheek and then a thud. Slowly a glimpse of her cousin appeared, sideways. “Oh thank you, I love the color!” she said in her direction, holding the bottle of nail polish up to the light. Then, through the same fog, Mara watched someone walk over to her cousin, bend down, and hug her. It was herself.

“Noooo! Let me out of here!”

An alert appeared as a shadow in the distance and then jumped down in front of her:

10% BATTERY. PLUG IN TO POWER OUTLET.

“Please! Please help me!” Mara tried to scream. She called out to her aunt and her cousin, but the only message relayed was the green blinking of an unread message. The static that had been her only physical sensation began to fade. She felt herself falling down and watched her limbs lose their edges and melt into the darkness. The endless black flickered into silver boxes and then into nothing.

✦

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. An eddy of light began to build up around her and slowly Mara developed consciousness again. She squinted hard and watched her own legs and arms form. How long? Where? She began to admit the situation to herself. She -or some version of herself- had been sucked into her phone and was stuck.

As she looked around, boxes of light jumped around her. Applications. Something, someone, was using her phone but had blocked the camera. She watched and willed herself closer to apps. It wasn’t hard and soon she was moving between the games and websites that she had been using yesterday. Suddenly she had an idea. She moved as quickly as she could to Instagram and with a flood of relief, made a post with a picture from the birthday party:

HELP! I AM TRAPPED IN MY PHONE! PLEASE CONTACT MY FAMILY!!

Amost at once, a few friends liked her post and an old friend responded:

OMG mar you are so hilarious. Hit me up i miss you!

In terror, Mara watched answer appear: Totally, let’s hang out! I’ll call you later.

Then the post disappeared and the app closed, forcing her back to the main screen. A familiar face appeared and Mara watched in terror as a voice whispered loudly, “Behave, or I’ll have to reset you. You weren’t doing a very good job, and now it’s my turn.”

Distress overcame Mara as she watched her own body greet Sharon and Joshua. They hugged as if long lost friends. She felt sick, white with rage. She could no longer come to any other conclusion than that her phone was using her.

✦✦✦

“Next let’s please welcome one of our special alumni!” the MCNDHS vice principal said into the microphone at the forty or so students before her, about a third of whom were staring into their screens. The teenagers were in danger of not graduating in time, and the school had called a special motivational assembly. The young woman stood up from where she sat with other alumni and walked forward. “Mara graduated college and is now studying to be a doctor at SUNY. She is here to offer some words of support to those of you who are struggling.”

“There’s no easy way out,” the young woman said, concluding her speech about the importance of human connection and determination. “But if you’re serious about giving up control and really being a better version of yourself, there is something that once gave me a head start in a difficult time.”

She pulled out her phone, a recent model, and showed them an application that had been growing in popularity. “Now go ahead now and take out your phones.”

Even those students who had been falling asleep perked up at this instruction and reached their hands into their pockets.

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