Upgrade
The carousel opens at 5:21am.
Not with music.
With a buzz in the mattress.
A notification coughs in my hand.
Good morning, champion.
Your rankings have moved.
I shuffle to the mirror.
It lights up like a judge.
My face loads.
Spins.
Buffers.
Behind my eyes, a leaderboard scrolls.
Sleep score.
Income.
Influence.
Focus minutes.
Unread messages.
Tasks due.
Tasks overdue.
I am trapped on a carousel that pretends it is progress.
A horse with a QR code.
A plastic lion that whispers, Upgrade.
Again.
Again.
Again.
I win small prizes.
A new badge.
A tiny confetti burst.
A number that ticks up like it owns me.
For eight minutes I am acceptable.
Then the glow dies.
The brain returns it to normal
like a bouncer removing a drunk from joy.
The next task steps forward in a neat suit.
It clears its throat.
It holds out a clipboard.
It smiles with teeth that are all deadlines.
I refresh.
I refresh like a nervous tic.
Thumb down, thumb down, thumb down.
As if the world is a one-armed bandit
and I am due.
My phone is warm.
My thoughts are warmer.
They pace the lounge room.
They pick up old conversations
and chew them into soft grey paste.
I open the app that tells me
how I am doing at being alive.
It shows my soul as a spreadsheet
with one cell that will not go green.
There is always someone above me.
Beaming in a kitchen lit for sale, not supper.
With a calmer heart rate.
With a partner who laughs on cue.
I pretend it is motivation.
It is comparison in gym clothes.
I do not just fear the scoreboard.
I love it.
I love the clean cruelty of a number.
I love that it never asks why.
I love that it lets me turn my life
into a contest I can lose on purpose
and call it discipline.
The carousel speeds up.
The animals blur.
The mirror throws my face back at me
with the lights turned up.
I see myself.
I see a man taking score
like a referee who hates the sport.
There is a moment, sometimes,
where the music drops out.
Not silence.
Just a gap in the feed.
In that gap I do something inefficient.
I sit on the floor.
I put the phone face down.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Air.
In.
Out.
No lesson.
No meaning.
Just a body performing maintenance.
My mind hates this.
It tries to sell me out of it.
It says, You could be improving.
It says, Just one refresh.
I laugh.
Dry, short.
Like a cough from the soul.
For a minute, the carousel keeps spinning
and I do not.
Then the phone buzzes again.
Not a task.
A medal.
I flip it over.
The screen is glowing soft and proud.
Breathing session detected.
New personal best.
Under that, a button.
Upgrade.