Werehouse — where wild stories grow

This is the story of a boy, now a man, who came into the world with a scream and a bang. His mother was shocked, as was clear to see, when she named him Screenface, for his face was a screen.

Screenface was in the media, then, called a thing, a boy then a thing again. For fifteen bright minutes the world knew his face, then the cameras found something newer to chase. The questions grew quiet, as questions will do, and Screenface and Mum slipped back out of view.

Screenface was gifted, some said too much, as if he had knowledge others could touch. Not many did, mind you, but if they had tried, they’d find the wonders that only a connected device can provide.

With no mouth to speak or smile to see, the life he lived grew lonely. Online, it was different. His friend list was long, it spread across country, app, channel and blog. Yet none of those thousands had ever once seen the boy who was crying behind his own screen.

By twenty-one, worn down and displaced, he fled to a town where he might be embraced. He sought an accomplice, a lady, a light, a friend to keep warm in the dark, lonely night. That’s when he saw her, in that corner alone, texting a friend on her bright new smartphone.

He lit up his face and found her so fast, her online accounts — a new friend at last.

Our man had fallen, he’d fallen quite hard, as often you do when love’s on the cards. In an ideal world it may have gone better, but this was the way he chose to impress her.

Her screams were immediate. Wouldn’t yours be? A man stood before her, his face a bright screen.

Now a heart is a heart, and it beats just as fast, even if his face was made mostly of glass. And beat it did as Screenface ran quickly, pursued by an angry gang of police officers for disturbing the peace, who wanted him locked up without a release.

“This was not part of the plan,” was the next thought thought up by our screen-faced man.

He went to the river and started to row, to the nothing, the nowhere, the darkness, I’ll go.

His Screenface went blank, his thoughts were his own, and in this fine moment he was truly alone.

In a town not unlike the one he fled from, a face bathed in light, a search had begun. Screen next to screen, she searched high and low for that young online man who made her laugh so. He disappeared from the grid, vanished sans trace, that boy that she liked that hid well his face.

She offered connection, a way to begin, a gentle, soft promise to plug him back in. But he only looked up, and the screen on his face showed a single word in a warm, glowing space. Offline.

He brewed her some tea. She sat for a while. He spoke with his silence. She answered with a smile.

And the world moved on, as it often will do, with updates and likes and a thousand new views. But deep in the woods, under oak trees and pine, another story begins. And this one’s offline.