Den of the Brain Wurm

I don’t know how the app is open and I’m staring at it. It’s as though my mind is on autopilot, the phone is back in my hands and I’m scrolling.

I’m not even conscious of it anymore.

There’s an itch in my ear, and I scratch it before continuing to scroll, meaning to get off but something is compelling me to continue on.

To see what I haven’t seen before.

A stockpile of dopamine relinquishing with every swipe upward, new and impossible possibilities around every dark corner.

Something slinks by my eye and I rub it.

Just a hair.

I continue on, scrolling and scrolling because… I don’t know why.

It just feels good.

Until it doesn’t.

I put the phone away and feel the whirl of what I had just seen take hold, weaving a narrative of the world in the blink of an eye and it doesn’t feel good.

Nothing about what I had seen lends to anything that makes rational sense.

But…

The phone is back in my hand again. I don’t remember picking it back up. It’s like some form of diabolical magic. A low crooning sound emits from somewhere, and though I’m concerned, it is a comforting sound. My ear itches again and I go at it again and this time I swear I feel something slurp back into my ear canal.

Something with scales.

This horrifying thought is bypassed when I see the controversial thing a celebrity said at an awards show. I read the responses, the crooning sound growing louder.

Something definitely shifts behind my eyes and I know it is something inside my head, and instead of putting the phone down, possibly looking for help, I continue sifting through the detritus of unmitigated mind-vomit, a comforting heat developing where my worry should be.

It’s all ok.

It’s all going to be fine.

The slumberer tells me, in riddles that I can’t fully parse out.

A flash of a red eye, the pile of shimmering dopamine this scaly monstrosity sitting upon is the wealth of my own making.

Seized by the intruder.

A being that slays reason.

Obfuscates practicality so that it may feed.
For here in the den of the brain wurm, nothing can be trusted, and the only light that can win out is the one you bring with you.