This is what my world had come to.

I wondered why we’d bothered leaving the house. We were sitting at right angles to each other, supposedly the most intimate position. But that doesn’t work unless you actually look at the other person. I was doing all the looking, or at least all the looking that wasn’t directed at product from some startup trying to hook enough eyeballs so that it could pimp itself to a media conglomerate’s shareholders.

PROFILE BY RICHARD RISEMBERG 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 87

The café was just loud enough, with the whine of the coffee grinders and the somewhat more pleasant whine of the singer-songwriters from the ceiling speakers. You could hold a conversation without necessarily broadcasting your personal woes or wonders to the world at large. But nearly everyone in the café was hunched over a glowing screen. Blank eyes, slack lips. Anna too.

I wondered why we’d bothered leaving the house. We were sitting at right angles to each other, supposedly the most intimate position. But that doesn’t work unless you actually look at the other person. I was doing all the looking, or at least all the looking that wasn’t directed at product from some startup trying to hook enough eyeballs so that it could pimp itself to a media conglomerate’s shareholders.

I hoped the kitchen would hurry up with our sandwiches. Maybe Anna would give the waitress a thank-you and I could sneak a word in before she returned to her screen thralldom. It was a lot to hope for.