Every night, they rock us to sleep. Digital family.

The air conditioner keeps the tiles cold to my foot’s touch. I press a button, the little vacuum cleaner whirs to life and starts to move around, quietly collecting dust and drawing a smiling face on its dark circular surface. I move it away from the wall and settle into my couch.

The couch is soft and comforting. A blanket waiting to keep me warm from the cold I’ve created. I tap. It glows to life. The warmest light of all. My lifeline. It’s where I keep my lover. It’s where I keep my family. It’s where I keep my friends. It’s where I keep my work. It’s where I keep my money. Where my life has meaning in the eyes of others.

I tap another button and the dark canvas that paints my dreams springs to life. Ready to show me a life my heart wishes to live. Full of troubles yet wholesome. Where the troubles are solved just by watching and waiting. The life I truly want. I watch on and wait for the soft bell that beckons me back to my lifeline. It is the happiest I can be. The wholesome digital life. Here. In my home.

Their voices and pictures feel like an everlasting smile. And the only time I can muster a smile is when I speak back through the digital skyline. I tap another button that brings me food. It brings me water. Disposable like the rest of my life. All that really matters: The glow. I love the glow. The glow that can be my proudest moments or my most shameful of desires. I watch on as the action increases.

The canvas paints an otherworldly world. A place where I can be one with nature. A place where I am accepted and understood. A place where it does not matter what war we fight in, what country we come from, what language I speak. Here, I am the English-speaking, American, war hero who always wins. Here, I am the English-speaking, British detective that solves the hardest of cases. Here, I am the English-speaking, American explorer who betrayed my people for the savages who become my new people. Here, I am the English-speaking star of my Oscar-winning story. I am living my dream. My truest human desire. I am living a real, true, and whole life. Free of the shackles of money, culture, tradition, and I can always start over. I can watch again. Live again. Over and over.

I pick up my tool to be a god. I choose the world I want to be a god of. I press a button, maybe even two. The black canvas flickers. It annoys me. Why must it flicker? Why must the illusion break even a little? It glows again. Do I want to control a mythological troubled father? Do I want to play god of an adventurer searching for treasure? Do I want to play god of the man who saves his kingdom and its princess? Or do I want to play god of the happiest jumping man I’ve ever known. I choose happiness. What a happy time. What an explosion of perfect color. Every challenge can be overcome. Everything mine to explore, run through, and take. I tell him to run with perfect glee. He runs. A fat man running. A fun man jumping. I am the god that beckons him forward and back into a somersault. I am the god that spins him out of control. I am the god that tells him to fall into the pit. An accident. I bring him back to life. What a world, the digital world. A man so ecstatic after his immediate and convenient resurrection. He never asks, only listens. He wants nothing more than to try again. His god beckons him to try and he will inevitably succeed.

What a perfect time with my digital family. It rocks me to sleep, every night, letting me live my ultimate dreams. It rocks me to sleep a god of my own world. It rocks me to sleep with my happiest of friends and the smiles of thousands upon me. This is what I see, this is what I feel. And so, it must be true.

I have lost myself. My dreams last days but I must live them in hours.

I blacken the canvas and silence the world. I walk on the now clean tiles and press a button. The smile fades back into the circular top. If only there were a button to empty the dust. If only there were a button for everything.

I slide into my bed and look at the same thing I end every day with. The same thing I start every day with. My first and last sight. A button for 7:00 AM.

Help me.