The Infinite Scroll

There’s diversion for all in a deep, dark black hole;

There’s perfect distraction in its infinite scroll.

Billy’s wasting his minutes and hours and days.

Suzy’s doing the same, in just different ways.

A friend doing this, and a friend doing that,

While Billy, he followed from his bed where he sat.

And Suzy’s the same from the school she attends;

Both heeding the scroll instead of the friends.

And their classmates the same, all parts of a whole,

All friends held apart by the infinite scroll.

Suzy thinks it’s a tool to help her find friends:

Over 10,000 follows—who knows where it ends?

Don’t like what you see? Billy, don’t bother waiting,

Cuz your algorithm’s already re-calibrating.

And grandpa’s the same, posting all about news,

Remarking on threads that don’t share his views.

And so the days take their invisible toll

By sucking out life via infinite scroll.

It’s not that the scroll is a thing that’s all bad,

It’s just the form’s twisted to make those folks sad.

They’re looking for something to fill in the hole,

And distractedly turn to the infinite scroll.

Then one day something happened; here’s how it unfurled:

The connection turned off in that part of the world.

It happens on Friday and lasts three whole days,

And it shakes these three people out of their ways.

Confused as they are, they wander outside,

And see with new eyes the place they reside.

Gramps grabs a smoke and his hat and a chair,

And settles out front with a distant, calm stare.

He remembers a time when this was the norm:

With nostalgia recalls the calm before storm.

Whatever was it that drove him away?

From the calm of a dose of some ‘nothing’ each day?

Or then if in something, in something surprised?

“I bet... it’s the infinite scroll…” he surmised.

And as he sat thinking, turning THAT in his mind,

Billy and Suzy came ‘round from behind.

They joined on the stoop, at first without sound,

Then they haltingly, clumsily all got around

To bringing up of bits of things on the mind

In spite of the fact the things rarely aligned.

But they stayed nonetheless, and the sentiments turned,

And that weekend there was a lot that they learned.

The more that they sat the more that they knew

That the depth of a person was something that grew.

The more you talk with them—with words or without—

The more there’s no end to the depths they’re about.

The sitting that weekend: it warmed those three souls:

Those three very human infinite scrolls.