The vacuum switched on in the other room. Pomo rolled over, clutching her yellowed pillow over her head. Her eyes hurt from having been open, staring at her computer screen for more than twenty-four hours. Her face hurt from allergies; her special sinus spray had worn off again even though she'd been using it more than usual. Her body hurt from slouching in her computer chair all night- she cursed the concept of posture and its distortion of the human form, making her lower back hurt.
Pomo's rage built as the monotone hummed. Any minute now, it would turn off, any moment. She squished her limited edition Black Cat Jack Squishmallow (Halloween Edition, with a tiny witch hat and even tinier pumpkin) tighter, which calmed her slightly. Still, even the magic relaxation properties provided by the patented Squishmallow squish couldn't chill her out entirely.
Pomo rolled out of bed. She used her nasal spray even though the taste would trickle down the back of her sinuses and fill her mouth with a taste like batteries. Then, she searched around on her desk for her AirPods, shuffling the empty cans in the low light cast by her round-the-ceiling smart LED strip, which was always set to pink.
Kawaii future bass playlist turned on, and the dreaded monotone was drowned out and replaced with bass-heavy anime theme song remixes. She curled up in her nest of blankets, pillows, plushies, and dirty clothes, then passed into oblivion once again...
...Only to wake to someone shaking her gently. She rolled, and her AirPods fell out and were swallowed by the commotion of the nest, getting lost in the blankets instantly.
"Wake up," it was her mother. "I need-"
"What the hell?" Pomo yelled. "Why can't you knock!"
"I did knock. You didn't answer."
"Because I had my headphones in. You were vacuuming."
"That was yesterday." Her mom stank of cleaning products. The tinge of toxic floral-scented chemicals clung to her Peter Alexander tracksuit.
Pomo rolled over and covered herself in her pile of blankets. Her mom got up and crossed the room, and Pomo listened for the familiar clink of her mom cleaning up the energy drink cans on the desk.
BEEP
Pomo sat upright. Her mom was holding the power button on the PC.
"Mom! What the hell! Don't touch that. What are you doing?"
"I need to use your computer," she said, sitting in the pink racer gaming chair.
"Use your iPad."
"It's not charged."
"Well, charge it!"
"I can't find the cable. I'll just be a minute." Her mom grabbed the white ergonomic gaming mouse and jiggled it on the pastel mousepad, staring at the screen. "The vacuum is broken, and I want to look up how to fix it. Why isn't the computer turning on?" she said, clicking the lifeless mouse several times.
"You just turned it off."
"But, the screen was off. I turned it on."
"It was asleep."
Her mom hit the power button and held it down for ten blistering seconds. Pomo's breath dragged in through her teeth as she watched the unnecessary pressure.
The screen turned on, and the login prompt appeared.
"What's the password?" her mom said, readying her pointer fingers to chicken-peck the code. Pomo leaned over and typed the password, earning her a dirty look.
"That should be a new rule," her mother said. "All passwords need to be written down. What if it was an emergency?"
"An emergency? On my computer?"
"What if I needed to use your computer in an emergency? I don't have the password."
"Well, just ask me."
"What if you're not home?"
"I'm always home."
"That's something we need to talk about tonight at dinner, too. Don't think I've forgotten to check in on your job search." She opened the start menu and hovered incredibly slowly up the list of programs. "Where's the internet? Don't you use the internet?" she asked.
Pomo pointed at the Chrome icon on the taskbar, and her mom clicked it four times, opening two browsers simultaneously. She moved the mouse down to the taskbar and looked down at the keyboard as if she were going to type. Still, the unopened browser was ignored, and the icon flashed orange on the taskbar, calling for attention.
Pomo bit her tongue. It was better to supervise, stay quiet, and let her mom figure it out alone. If she offered to help, her mother would tell her how good she was at computers and try to force her into volunteering at the old folks home again, teaching the elderly how to use their iPhones.
Her mother chicken-pecked the letters into the address bar. "Googlr," she typed and realised her mistake. Instead of hitting backspace, somehow, she managed to hit enter. Up popped a Google search result for the word 'Googlr,' which suggested 'did you mean Google?" Instead of clicking the suggestion, her mom hovered back up to the address bar and started typing. The top result was miraculously google.com. She went to click but somehow managed to select the link in the list below the proper entry, which redirected her to Google Images.
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Pomo's breathing stopped entirely. Her skin felt itchy as if she needed more allergy medicine. Still, she couldn't look away, both out of horror and out of fear that her mother would install something dubious by mistake like the last incident.
Pomo's mother moved the mouse slowly to the search box.
"My Vaccum Is Not working," she typed into the search at Google Images, but Pomo stopped her before she could hit enter.
"You should be more specific," Pomo said, breaking her vow.
Her mom let out a breath as if she was the one who was stressed and used the mouse to select the text in the box, highlighting it with blue, one letter at a time. When all of the text was highlighted, she mistakenly clicked to the side, undoing the selection. She got it right on her second try, then hit backspace with much more force than necessary on Pomo's white LED special edition Spring Pusheen keyboard with artisanal custom Pusheen keycaps, ordered from a guy on Reddit, removing the text.
"My Dyson Vacuum is not working," she typed. She hit enter, and results popped up. When she tried to click on the first link, she managed to click on it with her middle finger button on the mouse instead of her pointer finger button, which opened up the little menu. She clicked several times and somehow opened the link in a new window. Still, she had clicked so fast that it opened in the background, behind the window she was currently on, and she couldn't see it.
Pomo dug her nails into her palm, heart racing.
Eventually, her mother clicked the first link, and it opened up a help question on the Whirlpool forum. Why did that place always know everything? She ignored the scroll wheel on the $400 ergonomic gaming mouse and moved to the far right side of the screen in an attempt to select the scroll bar. Instead of grabbing the bar, she accidentally clicked below it, causing the webpage to scroll quickly to the chosen spot. Pomo let out a struggling breath.
"Don't you make fun of me. I taught you how to use a spoon," her mother said, just like every time this happened. Pomo admitted her mother had taught her to use a spoon, but it had surely only taken a short time. On the other hand, her mom had been failing to learn how to use a computer at least since they were invented who knows how long ago. It was not a fair comparison, but she kept her mouth shut.
The chrome icon flashed on the bottom of the screen, drawing Pomo's eyes to it. Her mother read the information on the forum page while Pomo zoned out, focusing on the pulsing yellow light of the ignored window.
Her eyes unfocused. This was her life now, this hell. It would last forever.
The cursor hovered over the chrome icon, drawing her out of her hypnosis.
She's going to do it, Pomo thought. She's going to make the blinking stop!
In a surprisingly fast movement, her mom quadruple-clicked on the icon, opening two new windows.
"What?" Pomo whispered.
"I wanted a new internet so I don't lose my place," her mom said.
Pomo blinked, blinked, blinked, blinked. Everything went back. She was in a room full of all the Squishmallows in the world, thousands and thousands of them. There was a soda machine that dispensed only her favourite 0-calorie energy drinks and a buffet that only served pizza with a side of all the popcorn she could eat and...
Pomo looked back at the screen. How long had she dazed off? How long had she been in the trance?
The screen was blindingly white. The entire computer had changed to light mode. Pomo squinted. There were now twenty Chrome windows open the one window that was open looked strange. Looking closer, there was an entirely new, three rows of icons. Forty-five different extensions had been installed. Her email notification blinked red. Sixteen surveys had been filled out to win a free iPad. The mouse cursor had been changed to a sword.
Beside Pomo, next to several empty pizza boxes, a mechanical whirring noise buzzed, then clinked. Pomo turned- it was the printer. With half-closed eyes, she watched as the printer spat out one page after another. Fifteen, she counted. Fifteen copies of the same forum webpage, complete with porn site advertisements on the sidebars.
Her mom grabbed the papers from the tray. "Thanks," she said. "I think this will help until your father gets home."
Pomo couldn't speak, still in her hellish daze. She couldn't move.
"Oh, I forgot," her mom said, returning to the computer. "Always leave things as you've left them!" She smiled at Pomo, unaware of her suffering, and reached down to hold the power button on the tower, shutting the computer down.
The screen went black, a dark reflection of Pomo's life.
She stood silently as her mother, who brought her into the world, walked toward the exit. In the doorway, her mother stopped and turned to face her. "Clean your room. It's a mess in here," she said, nose wrinkled.
Somehow, Pomo managed to stumble back to bed and crawl into her nest to hide from the world and the horror she had just witnessed.
She had barely fallen asleep when the vacuum roared to life in the other room. She pulled her yellow pillow back over her ears, trying to shut it out, but the hum grew louder. It wouldn't stop. She fumbled about in the bedding, searching for her AirPods. There was too much fabric, too many blankets, sheets, and a hoodie she didn't remember owning. She stood on the bed and lifted a sheet, then gave it a slight shake, hoping the missing AirPod would appear, but it didn't. She threw the sheet behind her, and there was a crash as it splayed over her desk, blanketing the obelisk formation of energy drink cans and knocking two over. Pomo grabbed another blanket and shook back and forth, knuckles white, as the vacuum whurred. Why did the printed repair instructions have to actually work? Goddamn the Whirlpool forums. She shook again, and a single AirPod was catapulted. She watched as it flew across the room. It hit the pastel purple wall with a slight plastic-sounding TINK, then fell into a mountain of clothes she'd ordered from Shein and done a haul video with but not yet put into the wash. That was three months ago.
She lifted another blanket with a Hello Kitty print, and the other AirPod fell out. With a sigh, she put it in her ear and toggled on her favourite 12-hour kawaii future bass playlist while searching through the pile of Shein for the other AirPod. She took each item from the pile and handled it carefully, kawaii future bass in one ear and the incessant hum in the other. When the pile had been entirely relocated on top of an even older Shein haul pile without result, she retreated to her nest. She curled up amongst the blankets, AirPodless ear stuffed into a pillow. The vacuum was still audible, but if she focused on the bass-heavy anime intro remixes just right...
The door opened, and her mom pushed through with the vacuum, but the vacuum only made it a few inches before stopping at the first obstacle on the floor. Her mom leaned over, grabbed the oversized cat onesie and threw it into the hall.
How long her mother spent picking up clothes off the floor and smacking the vacuum up against furniture, Pomo did not know. She was lost, deep in the pits of suffering, bass in one ear, vacuum hum and thunks and passive-aggressive sighs in the other.
After an unintelligible amount of time, the vacuum turned off, and her mom wheeled it out of the room.
Silence, finally (except for the future bass playlist.)
Alone, at last. Pomo let out a long breath, then uncovered her head.
Her mom had left the door wide open.