After the power surge, Mama got stuck inside her laptop. It was awkward at first, having to leave the tabs open while I was at school so she would have something to do. When I called the IT guy, He said,

“Trust me kid, people get trapped in their phones, computers, and tablets all the time.”

“Yeah, I know, but how do I get her out?”

There was a long silence on the phone.

“Well, when most people get sucked in, they don’t ever come back out. You might get lucky if you cut the wi-fi, but even that’s a long shot. It’s everywh-“

He went on about how neurons in the brain create a bridged connection with the wireless fidelity through electromagnetic dissipation. The alternating frequencies of the exit nodes pixelate the mind and body and form a static suction that entraps the human conscience.

I started to bring her everywhere. I brought her to the coffee shop in the mornings before school, to class while I was taking notes, on the bus when I went to the city. She even met my girlfriend for the first time last December when we were studying at the library.

Mama became more involved in my life than she ever had before. But, it’s not the same. I can’t keep carrying her around, I can’t keep getting entangled in black wires when I try to hug her, I can’t keep talking to this 13.3 inch LED-backlit display hoping that I might find her in the complex numbers of some binary code.

Maybe I’ll just swallow the laptop whole, maybe then, we can both be happy.