Coming Thursday: Part 3 of The Village That Forgot the Moon
The stranger is gone. The well remains.
And in the silence he left behind, something deeper begins to stir.
Now memory fights back.
If you’ve been following the story, you know what’s at stake.
If not, it’s not too late to remember.
Now, here’s how I spend the rest of the morning.
I open the social media app without meaning to. Just muscle memory.
The feed’s already moving. Loud and fast.
A former classmate posts a quote she saw every day in college but only now understands. Something Marianne Moore said about liking people as they are. For a second, I want to believe her. I really do.
Scroll.
Next comes a self-proclaimed visionary looking for rebels who code. He’s building a digital ark. Needs dreamers fluent in disruption. He says he’s “crazy enough” to change the world. Just needs the right team.
Scroll.
Somebody quotes Mark Twain in Paris. He’s annoyed. So am I.
Scroll.
Some robotics VP drops a gem about leadership. “Translate technical wins into business impact.” I consider screenshotting. But, I don’t.
Somewhere in here, I forget what I was looking for.
A young journalist thanks her mentors. A health equity advocate posts, “poverty is policy, policy is violence dressed as law.” A mom beams about her son’s NFL coaching fellowship.
Scroll.
A motivational speaker on an airplane says she was told she couldn’t save anyone because she’s missing a hand. The algorithm pushes this hard. It wants me to cry or clap.
Instead, I keep scrolling.
The platform celebrates resilience. Dignity. Visibility. It wants your story in thirty seconds or less, told clean. It says that you’re not broken. You’re just one click away from becoming “a thought leader.”
Scroll.
Coco Gauff becomes a metaphor for generational wealth. A Black animator thanks her class. Her short film auto-plays, without sound.
A recruiter says the “K” in 401(k) doesn’t matter. A data scientist hypes some whatever-tech-week in Cincinnati. A journalist drops a memoir titled The Fixer. I scroll past it. Meant to go back.
Can’t find it now.
Between the legacy post and the Berklee Online ad, the thread dissolves.
I'm floating again. Career updates, childhood dreams.
Everyone’s launching. Or pivoting.
I’m still scrolling.