nonFiction

Iwan lee

River Dell High School

Tangerines in the dark

Notes from a Quiet Night

I was born into a world where silence had already fallen to glowing screens.

By the time I took my first steps, a smartphone was already pulsing in someone’s hands.

It didn’t just make calls.

It didn’t wait.

It slipped into our palms, our habits, and swallowed the quiet moments before we even noticed.

It no longer waited for me.

It reached for me.

Buzzed. Blinked. Demanded to be seen.

So many brands—countless, each one chasing my eyes, my attention.

Each one faster, smarter, more irresistible than the last.

I used to believe in free will. But how free am I, really, when the next video loads before I can even decide?

I’ve tried stepping away.

Closing the apps.

Turning off the vibrant screens.

But the silence that came didn’t feel like silence.

Inside me, a restlessness crawled under my skin every time it went dark.

A whisper—one that fills a room even in silence.

Something that kept asking, What are you missing?

Still, I told myself I was being productive.

I’m organizing.

I’m replying.

I’m learning.

I’m multitasking!

But really, my memories smudged, my attention broke, and by the time I set it down, another hour had vanished.

And underneath it all was the shadow that I didn’t want to name: FOMO.

It was the fear that the world was laughing at something I hadn’t heard yet.

The fear that the world would move on without me.

I felt it at midnight, staring at the chats that had ended.

I felt it when laughing at the memes I didn’t understand.

I felt it even the one time the power went out.

That day, everything became quiet—a different kind of quiet.

No Wi-Fi. No Internet.

And it wasn’t just any outage. A Nor’easter roared through New Jersey—branches crashing, lines snapping. Outside, wind and rain howled, but inside, time seemed to pause.

That evening, I remember my mom lighting a single candle between us.

The flame trembled, as if it wasn’t sure it belonged in this century.

The air smelled of citrus as my mom slowly peeled tangerines, gently placing the slices in my palm the way she did when I was little.

The juice stuck to my hands, leaving a lingering scent.

She didn’t say much.

It felt strange, to not have a screen in between us.

“Quiet night, huh?”

I nodded.

That night, she hummed a tune I didn’t know—soft, warm.

It filled the room the way the glow filled the shadows.

For the first time in a long time, I felt I wasn’t watching something.

I was part of something.

But the next day, when the power blinked back on, that quiet didn’t survive.

The world lit up at once.

Pings ricocheting like bullets.

Notifications pouring in like water through a crack.

And I still followed.

Scrolling. 

Tapping. 

Refreshing.

Again. And again.

The scent of the tangerines faded from my hand.

I wanted to change.

I just didn’t know how.

But I still tried.

Not to perfection.

Just honestly.

I set a timer.

Put it in a drawer.

Stepped outside.

At first, it felt too still, too quiet.

My fingers twitched for something that they couldn’t touch.

My mind raced with restlessness.

I kept reaching into my pocket for something that wasn’t there.

But slowly, something changed.

I noticed a cloud shaped like Yoda—my dog.

I smelled the breeze that carried the faint scent of tangerines.

I remembered the echoes of my mom’s humming.

I took a deep breath.

Once.

Then again.

Later, when I returned to my phone, its glow felt different.

Less like a leash.

Less like a limb.

More like a choice—something that belonged to me, and me alone.

In that stillness, I found myself—and somewhere, the faint scent of tangerines lingered.