Update

by Meghana Mysore

The TV stations come alive:
Finally they have something worthwhile to say.
“8.0 magnitude…shattering…”—
adjectives and descriptions galore.

But how did she die?
One night, before bed, she was routinely checking
 her phone for updates. She hungered for the updates;
they were a kind of sustenance.
She was ‘connected’ on various mediums—Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest—
so she must’ve never been lonely.
Each night the updates would flood her screen, but she wasn’t
afraid of the flooding.
That night, she propped herself up on her pillow.
She’d lusted for more updates,
so she kept checking as the moon palled
and the rest of the world slept.
Refresh. Update. Likes? Favorites? Refresh. Update. Retweet? Retweet?

Retweet?

5:32 A.M. She checked again.
But this time, by accident, she deleted all her messages
And e-mails
And tweets
And Instagram photos
And Pinterest pins.
And the hurricane
swooped in like a preying hawk—
Amanda no longer liked her status,
Brad no longer favorited her tweet,
Emily no longer commented on her photo—

And it took
Every remnant
Of her being
Until there was nothing left.