One of my favorite things to do is look at my phone. All the colors and sounds and words are so cool. Most of the time I don’t even open any apps—I just look at my home screen in awe, thinking about how far technology has come. Man, I love my phone.
Sometimes, though, after my eyes start to get all itchy and red, I decide I need to do something else. My mom always tells me that I should go outside and get some fresh air. I tell her that she sucks, and then I go on Twitter and tell my 133 followers that my mom sucks. She knows not to tell me to go outside. She knows that I fucking hate nature.
I just don’t get it! I look at trees and I start scrolling on the branches, until I remember that it’s not a touch screen and it’s just a lame fucking tree. There are a lot of awesome things in the world, like the iPhone 13, the iPhone 13 Pro, and the iPhone 13 Pro Max. Trees are not one of those awesome things. I fucking hate trees.
My mom always asks me where this hatred comes from. I tell her I’m working through it in therapy. I don’t really go to therapy. I just tweet “my phone is soooo cool” and then sit in a parking lot for forty-five minutes watching the likes roll in. Sometimes I get four of them. Whenever that happens, I tell her therapy went well.
I stopped going on Instagram because people kept posting pictures of nature. At first I would just report them, but I couldn’t list “I hate nature” as a valid reason. So, I started saying that they posted inappropriate photos of minors, but then someone from Instagram reached out to me personally and asked why I was following so many accounts that posted inappropriate photos of minors. I haven’t gone back since.
Maybe one day I will learn to love nature. Maybe one day I won’t faint at the sight of a shrub. But maybe before that my mom will die, and no one will be there to beg me to go outside. After that, it will be just me and my phone. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
—K. Walsh
