Falter Kingdom. Michael J. Seidlinger

out and go back to the video clip.

      My night begins when there’s no one else who I need to talk to. Don’t have to keep up appearances; it’s just the glow of the computer screen and me. It’s just this room and me. Being here is sort of a sanctuary, late at night.

      I like watching the unboxing videos the most. But other videos—especially video game walk-throughs and retro stuff—work just as well. Most popular videos on the site are music videos and other trending pop culture stuff. But I skip even the recommended viewing clips. I just like the simple stuff.

      Kind of wish I got ahold of some beer earlier. Mix these videos, beer, and the quiet of a darkened room and that’s about as close as I can get to feeling calm.

      But yeah, there’s something medicinal about unboxing videos. The best are the ones where they take their time, cutting through the cellophane all carefully, meanwhile treating even the inserts and thin brochures that come with the camera, or phone, or game system, as equal as the fragile new device.

      This is one of those videos. I’ve watched it before.

      Watching the guy pull the phone out from its factory-sealed bag, I can almost forget about graduation. I can almost forget about all the insanity that’s getting around at school.

      But there are some things I can’t quite push from my mind.

      Like, okay, I could really talk, and I mean really talk, about the stuff I find so fascinating, the stuff I won’t even talk about here. I can do that, but whenever I do it’s kind of like seeing people’s eyes glaze over.

      I’m not even saying anything insane, at least I don’t think I am, but it happens. I talk a different kind of talk and suddenly no one’s listening.

      That’s society. That’s life.

      That’s what I think about at three A.M., when sober and streaming videos instead of sleeping.

      It’s best to just keep to things that work, things that everyone can relate to and talk about. With so many views on this unboxing video, I think it’s pretty smart to say that I’m not the only one watching unboxing videos. I’m not the only one vegging out on streamed videos.

      We’re all doing it. Some of us just aren’t getting the most out of it.

      Everyone’s enamored (I love that word), but no one’s making the most of what these videos can do. No one’s really connecting with the existential (another word I love) power of these videos. It’s not just the opening of a brand-new phone or game system; it’s a glimpse of the future. It’s like every single thing that’s being opened is the first in what’ll be one long life of ownership and possession. And, man, there’s something so compelling about being there for that first look. Okay, now I sound like I’m insane.

      My eyes half open, I bring the laptop with me to bed, under the covers, and I can almost forget about graduation. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the kind of stuff I’ve been trying to ignore all day. I see the kind of stuff that started this morning.

      This time it’s the bedroom door opening by itself.

      It started with one of my mom’s vases found shattered to pieces in the hall. Mom thought it was me, stumbling half asleep at night, who broke it. I’m not that clumsy. Still, she installed night-lights in the hallway like they would help.

      The door cracks open, maybe three inches, just enough to see one of the night-lights: no one at the door.

      The door closes as gently as it opened, the sound of the door clicking back into place.

      The whole thing lasts maybe ten minutes. But yeah, some things I can’t just push aside. Some things make it harder to veg out on videos.

      Stuff’s been happening all day. It’s all so exhausting to think about.

      What’s causing it, well, yeah, about that...

      I’ll get to it. Just let me watch one more video.

       1

      IT WAS AN HOUR OR SO BEFORE SCHOOL LET UP FOR THE weekend, but Brad, Blaire, Steve, and I were late for final period so were like, Fuck it, and walked the trail that led from Meadows through to the southern tip of the city and beyond. Walk far enough and you’ll see all the buildings let up and some sense of a forest pulling in, taking over.

      The spring weather in full effect, I felt pretty good. Getting out of final period made this work for me so damn well.

      The fact that Brad always has a cooler full of beer in the trunk of his car didn’t hurt either. I usually wait until someone cracks one open before cracking into my first, but that day, it was different.

      “You guys hear?”

      Brad was driving me crazy, spreading gossip like an attention whore, a walking tabloid.

      Brad brought along some dude I don’t really know named Steve, and they were going on and on about the latest on Nikki.

      Nikki Dillon. She’s the “hot” girl—has been since sophomore year.

      Nikki Dillon—the one who seemed to have a new guy every week. Not because she slept around; the world knows it’s more like she just lets guys audition to play that role. Doubt anyone ever gets in her pants, which makes the whole world only want to know more, everyone talking about the latest.

      Like clockwork, I’d hear about it just like I was hearing about it now.

      Brad with the “Yo, so I heard from Kev who heard from James who heard from Greg,” and then it goes on like that, a stepped-on piece of gossip that I shouldn’t care about.

      But it’s Nikki.

      Everyone is at least somewhat interested in hearing about the latest on Nikki. And Blaire is no different. Blaire’s been a bud of mine since sixth grade. She and I might have given it a shot if: 1) I hadn’t met Becca, and 2) Blaire lost that thing I can’t stand. She has this way about her that makes it so that we never get along. Let me make better sense of it.

      I mean, Blaire’s great. She does my homework and I do hers for the subjects where we falter, the stuff I’ll never need and the stuff she’ll pledge, later in life, to be against (she thinks extracurricular activities are a waste of time).

      Blaire just, I don’t know, seems to see through the front I put up. And by “front” I mean I’m usually not really listening to people.

      It’s okay.

      It’s true... I’m really not.

      I kind of do this thing where I listen, but I’m also paying more attention to how the conversation works. There’s a sense to every conversation, even the ones that are nonsense. There’s a rise and fall to everything said, and there’s momentum that I pay attention to all the time, watching where it’ll go next. And on that day, hearing Brad tell us about Nikki’s latest guy, I listened but I also sipped from a can of beer. And beyond that, I walked the trail, my gaze to the ground, listening to how Brad and Steve traded gossip that couldn’t be true with this sort of mutual enthusiasm that I almost felt jealous about not having.

      But I had the beer so I had a perfectly good excuse.

      Blaire looked at me, that judging look.

      I offered a can. “Want one?”

      “Um, yeah, okay.”

      I knew what she was thinking. “What?”

      Blaire shook her head. “Nothing.”

      Here we go again. Either I kept asking or she’d just tell me.

      I took another gulp.

      She didn’t even open her can.

      Blaire sighed. “I’m just saying, when are you going to tell her?”

      Why now? But then why did I even need to ask? I already had the answer: because it’s