By Ivy Stevens

–   You’re on mute. You unmute yourself. You’re still on mute. You speak, but you cannot hear yourself.

–   Your video keeps turning itself off and back on. Your background looks a little blurry – did you leave motion blur on? You don’t think you left motion blur on.

–   “Can you hear me? Great, then just to finish what I was saying ah – oh – to continue te – my – ar – “

–   Everyone has been sent to breakout rooms, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone in yours. When you try to rejoin the main room, your Zoom crashes.

–   The others cannot see you. You move to some natural light. They still cannot see you. You turn on the overhead light. No better. You buy a ring light, and they still can’t see you. Your face is shrouded in darkness. The reflection of the ring light glows in your eyes.

–   One of the video streams is frozen. The rest of you joke about poor internet, a storm rolling through. Minutes later they’re still frozen. You move on without them, wait for them to rejoin. Their feed never drops. They’re frozen. Did they just move? Have they ever not been frozen? You start to feel chilly.

–   “Aw, is that your dog in the background? He’s such a big boy!” “I don’t have a dog…”

–   You have been in this room for hours. You have been in this room for days. You are hungry. You finished your tea days ago. There is no water. The heat is going.

–   You can hear a siren in the background of someone else’s video. Or is that outside your house? The siren gets louder. It’s coming from all directions at once. Your mind is filled by siren sound.

–   Occasionally your friend’s video seems to jump, and you mention it to him. “Its just a glitch”, he mutters through a clenched jaw. “Its just a glitch” He glitches again. His eyes grow haunted. “Its just a glitch”

–   Singing happy birthday