I watched a plastic doorbell scream at a shivering boy in the pouring rain, threatening to terminate his account while the homeowner sat invisible behind closed curtains.
It was 6:00 PM on a Tuesday, the kind of gray, miserable evening where the rain doesn’t just fall; it soaks into your bones. I was sitting on my porch, a habit I’ve kept since 1978. Back then, this neighborhood was loud. Kids playing stickball, neighbors shouting across fences about the game, the smell of charcoal grills. Now? It’s a ghost town. Blue light flickers in every window. Everyone is home, but nobody is here.
I took a sip of my coffee, watching the street. That’s when the beat-up sedan skidded to the curb next door.
The car sounded like it was dying—a high-pitched belt squeal and a rattle that shook the frame. Out jumped a kid. He couldn’t have been more than twenty. He was wearing a windbreaker that was too thin for the weather, holding a greased-stained paper bag like it was the Crown Jewels.
He was rushing. That’s the problem these days; everyone is running a race against a clock that doesn’t exist. He hit the slick concrete of the driveway, his sneaker lost traction, and down he went. Hard.
The bag flew. The sodas exploded. The tacos—or whatever fast food it was—scattered across the wet pavement.
The kid scrambled up, panic written all over his face. He didn’t check his scraped knee. He checked his phone. Then, he looked at the door. He didn’t knock. He pressed the camera doorbell.
I heard the voice clearly from where I sat. It wasn’t a person. It was that automated, tinny voice from the speaker.
“Motion detected. The homeowner is not available. Please leave the package.”
“I… I’m sorry,” the kid stammered at the plastic lens. “I slipped. The food… I can go back and buy more. Please don’t report me. I’m at 4.9 stars. Please.”
Then, a real voice cut through the speaker, distorted by the bad connection. It wasn’t friendly. “Are you kidding me? That’s my dinner. I’m contacting support. You’re done.”
The red light on the camera blinked off. The homeowner didn’t open the door. They didn’t offer a towel. They just swiped a finger on a screen inside a warm house and erased this kid’s livelihood.
The boy stood there in the rain, shoulders shaking. He looked at his phone, likely watching his rating drop in real-time, calculating the lost wages, the gas money wasted. He looked like he was about to break.
I set my mug down. My knees popped as I stood up—arthritic reminders of thirty years in construction—but I moved fast enough.
“Hey!” I shouted.
The kid jumped, looking at me like a deer in headlights.
“Get over here,” I waved him over. “Out of the rain. Now.”
He hesitated, looking back at the mess on the driveway. “I have to clean—”
“The rain will handle the grease. You handle yourself. Come on.”
He walked over, dragging his feet. Up close, he looked exhausted. Dark circles under his eyes, water dripping from a nose that was red from the cold. He stood at the bottom of my porch steps, shivering.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to make noise. I just…”
“Stop apologizing,” I said, pointing to the rocking chair opposite mine. “Sit.”
“I can’t. The App says I have to keep moving. If I stay stationary for too long without an active order, they shadow-ban me for the shift.”
I looked at him. I looked at the phone clutched in his hand like a lifeline. It was a prison cell that fit in a pocket.
“Son,” I said softly. “If the algorithm fires you for sitting down for ten minutes, it’s not a job worth dying for. Sit.”
He sat. He perched on the edge of the wood like he was ready to bolt.
I went inside and came back with a dry towel and a bowl. It wasn’t anything fancy. Beef stew. Potatoes, carrots, chuck roast, slow-cooked for six hours. The kind of food that sticks to your ribs.
“Eat,” I commanded.
“I don’t have any cash to pay you, sir.”
“Did I ask for cash? Eat.”
He took a bite. Then another. Then he was shoveling it in, abandoning all manners. It wasn’t just hunger; it was that hollow, empty feeling of running on caffeine and stress for days on end.
“When was the last time you ate something that wasn’t wrapped in paper?” I asked.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Two days ago. Rent went up again. My mom’s sick, so I’m covering her share too. I drive for two different delivery apps and do ride-share on the weekends.”
“That’s a lot of hours.”
“It’s seventy hours a week,” he whispered. “And I’m still behind. One bad review… one guy saying I spilled his drink… and I get suspended. I’m just a number to them. I’m replaceable.”
I looked at his car parked on the street. The front bumper was hanging off on the left side, held on by silver duct tape that was peeling in the wet.
“Your bumper,” I said.
“Yeah. Someone backed into me last week. Hit and run. I can’t afford the deductible to fix it, and if the App inspection sees it, they’ll deactivate my vehicle.”
I stood up. “Finish the stew.”
I went to my garage. I can’t code a computer. I can’t navigate social media algorithms. But I know how things are built. I grabbed my drill, some washers, and a handful of bolt screws I’ve had in a jar since 1995.
I walked out to his car in the rain. I didn’t mind the water. It felt real.
The kid ran out after me, towel over his head. “Sir? What are you doing?”
“Fixing it,” I grunted, lying on the wet asphalt. I lined up the fiberglass. It was cracked, but salvageable. I drilled three pilot holes, threading the bolts through to the frame. It wasn’t pretty, but it was solid. I gave it a hard yank. It didn’t budge.
“That’ll hold,” I said, wiping grease on my jeans. “Better than tape.”
We stood there on the sidewalk. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. The kid looked at the bumper, then at me. His eyes welled up.
“Why?” he asked. “You don’t know me. The guy next door… he wouldn’t even open the door.”
“The guy next door forgot that he’s human,” I said, looking at the glowing window of my neighbor’s house. “We’ve built a world where we can order everything without ever having to look someone in the eye. We want the burger, but we don’t want to see the person sweating to bring it to us. We want the package, but we don’t want to know the driver has a sick mom and a broken car.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.
“No, absolutely not,” he backed away. “You fixed my car. You fed me.”
“Take it,” I grabbed his hand and pressed the bill into his palm. “This isn’t charity. It’s a transaction.”
“For what?”
“For conversation,” I said. “I live alone. My kids moved three states away. Nobody sits on porches anymore. You gave me thirty minutes of your time. In my book, that’s worth twenty bucks.”
He stared at the bill, then at me. He didn’t say anything, but he nodded. A sharp, definitive nod. He shook my hand—a real grip, not a brush-off.
He got in his car. The engine rattled, but the bumper didn’t shake. As he drove off, he didn’t look at his phone. He looked in the rearview mirror and waved.
I went back to my porch and sat down.
The neighbor’s door opened about ten minutes later. A man stepped out, looking for his food. He saw the mess on the driveway. He looked around, confused, probably waiting for an update on his app to tell him who to blame.
I just sipped my coffee.
We are terrified of a recession. We are terrified of inflation. But the real crisis isn’t the price of gas or the cost of eggs. It’s the fact that we have built a society optimized for convenience but completely bankrupt of connection.
We are so busy trying to save five minutes that we’ve forgotten how to spend a moment.
The kid’s name was Liam. I know that because he came back today. Not to deliver food. He came back to paint my fence. He said he turned the app off for the afternoon because he realized the algorithm doesn’t care if he dies, but a neighbor might actually care if he lives.
America doesn’t need faster shipping or smarter doorbells. It needs more people willing to sit on the porch and look each other in the eye.
Sometimes, the most rebellious thing you can do in a digital world is be human.
PART 2 — The Fence, the Footage, and the Knock at My Door
Liam showed up the next afternoon with a paint-stained hoodie and a five-gallon bucket like he was reporting for duty.
Not delivery duty.
Human duty.
He parked the same beat-up sedan at the curb, bumper still holding like a promise. He killed the engine and just sat there for a second, hands on the steering wheel, breathing like he’d been running even though the car hadn’t moved.
Then he looked up at my porch.
And for the first time since I’d met him, he smiled before he checked his phone.
That’s how I knew yesterday wasn’t a fluke.
It did something to him.
It did something to me, too.
He climbed the steps, set the bucket down gently, and held up a brush like it was an apology.
“I know you didn’t ask,” he said. “But you said nobody sits on porches anymore.”
I leaned back in my rocking chair. The wood creaked the way it always does, like the house was clearing its throat.
“I didn’t ask,” I agreed.
He nodded, serious. “Still. I’m here.”
There are a lot of people in America who are “here” in the sense that they exist. They occupy space. They consume oxygen and streaming content.
But showing up—actually showing up—is rare.
I pointed at the fence line, the old boards faded and gray. “Start on that side. If you drip paint on my roses, I’ll throw you into traffic.”
He laughed—one short burst, surprised it came out of him. “Fair.”
He got to work.
The brush made that steady shhh-shhh sound against wood, a sound from an older world. Back when work had a rhythm you could hear. Back when you could look at what you did and know it was real.
I watched him paint for ten minutes before I noticed the twitch.
Not in his hand.
In his eyes.
Every few strokes, he’d glance down at his phone like it might bite him.
Like it might bark out some automated warning the way the plastic doorbell had.
I didn’t say anything at first. I just waited.
You learn, when you’ve lived long enough, that people will tell you what’s wrong if you give them a little space to breathe.
He finally exhaled hard, like he’d been holding it for hours.
“It already started,” he muttered.
“What started?” I asked.
He held up the phone so I could see the screen. A bright little map. A tiny dot. A countdown bar. A message that looked polite but felt like a threat.
INACTIVITY DETECTED.
To stay eligible, please resume active deliveries.
He swallowed. “It’s not even my shift. I turned it off.”
“Then why’s it yelling at you?” I asked.
“Because it doesn’t believe you,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made my stomach tighten. “It tracks patterns. If you’re ‘available’ too often and then you stop suddenly… it assumes you’re gaming the system.”
Gaming the system.
That’s what they call it when a human being tries to sit down.
I stared at the screen. “So you’re painting my fence and it thinks you’re committing a crime.”
He kept painting, fast now, like speed could placate the invisible judge. “If it flags me, I get fewer orders for a week. Maybe two. And I can’t afford that.”
I leaned forward. “Liam.”
He stopped the brush mid-stroke.
I tapped the arm of my rocking chair. “Put it in your pocket.”
His eyes widened, like I’d told him to jump off a bridge.
“Sir—”
“Put it in your pocket,” I repeated, calm as sunrise. “Or hand it to me.”
He hesitated, then slid it into his hoodie like he was hiding contraband.
The brush started moving again, slower this time.
But I could see it: even without looking, he could feel the phone.
Like a leash.
I went inside and came back with two glasses of lemonade and a plate of peanut butter crackers, because I’m not fancy and I don’t pretend to be.
He tried to refuse. Of course he did.
People who’ve been treated like they’re disposable always feel guilty when someone treats them like they matter.
“Drink,” I said, setting it down.
He drank.
And for a few minutes, it was quiet.
Just paint. Wind. The distant hum of traffic. The soft creak of my porch rocker keeping time with an old man’s breathing.
Then the neighbor’s front door opened across the way.
The same house. The same drawn curtains. The same blue light inside like a television glow was the only fireplace they had.
The man stepped out, and he didn’t look lost this time.
He looked angry.
He stood at the edge of his driveway in clean shoes that had never met mud, staring at Liam like Liam was a stain on the sidewalk.
Liam’s brush slowed.
His shoulders tightened.
I felt it in my own spine, that old construction instinct: Something heavy is about to fall. Brace yourself.
The man pointed at Liam without crossing the street.
“Hey,” he called. “You.”
Liam froze, brush dripping.
“Me?” Liam asked, even though he knew.
“Yeah, you,” the man snapped. “You’re the one from yesterday.”
Liam cleared his throat. “Sir, I—”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me,” the man said. His voice was sharp, like he’d been practicing it in his head. “I reported you. Like I’m supposed to.”
I set my lemonade down slowly.
Liam blinked. “I didn’t even deliver to you today.”
The man laughed once, bitter. “That’s not the point. You slipped. You ruined my order. Then you came back and loitered on this porch.”
“He didn’t loiter,” I said, finally. “He ate. He warmed up. He breathed like a human being.”
The man’s eyes flicked to me like I was an inconvenience. “This is exactly what’s wrong with people. You enable it.”
Enable it.
Like kindness is a drug problem.
He lifted his phone, thumb hovering, proud of it.
“I have footage,” he said. “My door camera recorded the whole thing. I uploaded it to the neighborhood safety feed.”
The neighborhood safety feed.
We didn’t used to have a “safety feed.” We used to have a Mrs. Delaney next door who knew everyone’s name and would call you if your garage door was open.
Now we have strangers posting clips of each other like it’s entertainment.
Liam’s face went pale. “You… posted me?”
The man shrugged, like it was nothing. Like it was weather. “If you’re not doing anything wrong, why do you care?”
That sentence should be printed on a billboard, because it’s the biggest lie we tell ourselves to stay comfortable.
If you’re not doing anything wrong, why do you care?
Because being watched changes you.
Because being recorded turns you into a suspect in your own life.
Because the people with warm houses don’t understand what it feels like to have one bad clip erase your paycheck.
Liam swallowed, voice cracking. “They can deactivate me over that.”
“Good,” the man said, and there it was—clean and casual. “Then maybe people will stop taking jobs they can’t handle.”
I stood up.
My knees protested, but my spine didn’t.
I walked to the edge of my porch, not fast, not threatening, just steady.
“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Did you ever have a bad day at work?”
The man scoffed. “What does that have to do with—”
“Did you ever make a mistake?” I pressed. “Ever spill coffee? Ever miss a deadline? Ever forget to reply to an email?”
He stared like I’d spoken another language.
“You know what happened to you?” I continued. “Somebody reminded you. Maybe your boss gave you a look. Maybe you fixed it. And you went home.”
I pointed to Liam. “When he makes a mistake, he doesn’t get a reminder. He gets erased.”
The man’s jaw tightened. “I pay for a service.”
“And he pays with his body,” I said. “His tires. His gas. His sleep. His risk.”
The man glanced at the mess on his driveway from yesterday, long gone now, washed away by rain and time like it never mattered.
“You’re making this dramatic,” he said.
Dramatic.
That’s what people say when they want to keep their comfort and still feel like a good person.
Liam set the brush down carefully, like any sudden movement might trigger something unseen.
“I’m sorry,” Liam whispered. “I offered to replace it. I slipped. It was raining.”
The neighbor lifted his shoulders. “Not my problem.”
And then—this is the part that made my blood go cold—he smiled, small and satisfied.
“Besides,” he said, waving his phone again, “support already responded. They said they’re ‘reviewing the incident.’”
Liam’s eyes darted to me, terrified.
Reviewing.
That means a human being might not even look at it. A system will. A score will.
A little silent number will decide whether his mom gets her medication this week.
The neighbor turned to go back inside, mission accomplished, conscience clean because a screen told him he was “right.”
Before he walked away, he threw one more line over his shoulder.
“You should be careful who you invite onto your property,” he said. “People talk.”
Then the door shut, and the curtains swallowed him again.
Liam stood there like someone had punched the air out of him.
I stepped down off my porch and came closer, lowering my voice.
“Is it that bad?” I asked.
He nodded once. He didn’t even try to be brave.
“They can deactivate me over ‘safety concerns,’” he said, barely audible. “Even if I didn’t do anything dangerous. Even if it was an accident. If enough people flag you… you’re done.”
I looked at the street.
Neat lawns. Matching mailboxes. Quiet houses filled with packages.
A whole neighborhood built on the assumption that the people bringing us things are invisible.
Liam rubbed his face with paint-speckled fingers. “My mom’s appointment is Friday.”
“What kind of appointment?” I asked.
He hesitated, not wanting to share, not wanting to sound like he was begging.
Then the truth fell out anyway, because fear will pry it loose.
“Specialist,” he said. “It’s not… it’s not cheap.”
I nodded. “Finish the fence,” I told him.
He stared. “How can I—”
“Because you need something solid under your feet right now,” I said. “Paint the fence. One board at a time. Let the rest wait.”
He picked up the brush again.
And that’s when my own phone—an old thing with a cracked screen—buzzed on the porch table.
A message from the local neighborhood group chat my daughter forced me to join “for safety.”
I didn’t like it. Too much noise. Too many opinions. Too many people brave behind a keyboard.
But I opened it.
The top post was a blurry clip.
Rain. A driveway. Liam slipping. The paper bag bursting like a small disaster.
And under it, a caption:
“DELIVERY DRIVER DESTROYS ORDER + TRESPASSES NEXT DOOR. STAY ALERT.”
The comments were already piling up like trash in a storm drain.
Some people were kind.
“Poor kid. It was raining.”
“That could’ve been my son.”
“Maybe someone should check on him.”
But the other comments—the ones that get likes faster—were mean in that lazy way people are mean when they don’t have to see your face.
“If you can’t do the job, don’t take it.”
“Zero sympathy. I’m tired of excuses.”
“Get a real job.”
“Stop ordering if you can’t handle a refund.”
“Why should I tip for ruined food?”
“These drivers are always scamming.”
Tip.
There it was.
The word that starts wars at dinner tables.
Half the country says, “If you can’t tip, don’t order.”
The other half says, “Why is it my job to pay someone’s wage?”
And while everybody argues, the kid in the rain is still the one wet to the bone.
Liam didn’t know it was posted yet.
He was still painting. Still trying to act like his future wasn’t being voted on by strangers like a reality show.
I walked over and turned my screen toward him.
His face crumpled in a way that made my chest ache.
“I didn’t trespass,” he said, voice shaking. “You invited me.”
“I did,” I said. “And I’d do it again.”
He stared at the clip like it was a death certificate.
“I’m done,” he whispered. “I’m done.”
“No,” I said, sharper than I meant. Then I softened it. “No, you’re not.”
He looked up at me, eyes red, paint on his knuckles, rain still living in his memory.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “Once you get labeled… it sticks.”
Labeled.
That’s the new scar.
Not on your skin.
On your profile.
I went back to my porch and sat down, not because I was tired, but because I wanted him to see something.
I wanted him to see an old man sitting calmly in the open.
Not hiding behind curtains.
Not whispering into cameras.
Just sitting where anyone could see.
I opened the neighborhood chat again.
My hands hovered over the keyboard.
I haven’t written many public posts in my life. I’ve built things. Fixed things. Held doors open. That was my language.
But sometimes, you have to speak in the language of the place you’re trapped in.
So I wrote:
“That ‘delivery driver’ has a name. Liam. He slipped in the rain. He apologized. He offered to replace it. He is painting my fence right now because he chose to be human instead of running for an algorithm. If you’re going to post his face, at least post the truth: he’s not a threat. He’s a neighbor.”
I stared at the words, then hit send before I could chicken out.
The response was immediate.
A storm.
Some people thanked me.
Some people argued.
Some people got nasty, the way they do when they think morality is a competition.
One comment stood out like a slap:
“Old man, you’re going to get yourself robbed. Stop being naive.”
Naive.
That’s what we call kindness now, as if trust is stupidity.
I felt something rise in my chest—anger, yes, but also grief.
Because when did we decide the default setting for a stranger is “danger”?
When did we stop seeing a wet kid on a porch and start seeing a crime report?
Liam kept painting, but I could see his breathing—fast, shallow.
His phone buzzed in his hoodie.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Then his face drained of color.
He pulled it out, thumb shaking, and stared.
His mouth opened, but no sound came out at first.
Finally, he managed: “They… they deactivated me.”
Just like that.
Not a meeting.
Not a warning.
Not a human voice saying, “Hey, let’s talk.”
Just a notification.
A sentence handed down by a machine.
He lowered himself onto the porch steps like his legs forgot how to hold him.
I moved slower now, careful. You don’t rush grief. You sit beside it.
“Show me,” I said gently.
He held the screen toward me.
ACCOUNT UNDER REVIEW
TEMPORARY DEACTIVATION
REASON: SAFETY + SERVICE INTEGRITY
Service integrity.
That’s what they call it when a person slips in the rain.
Liam swallowed hard. “My mom,” he whispered. “Friday.”
I nodded, feeling something settle in me like a decision.
I stood up, walked into my house, and opened the drawer where I keep my checkbook—because yes, some of us still write checks like it’s 1998.
I wrote one.
Not huge. I’m not rich. I’m an old construction guy with a paid-off house and a lifetime of calluses, not a miracle.
But it was enough to cover a co-pay and gas.
I came back out and handed it to him.
His eyes went wide. “I can’t—”
“You can,” I said. “Because you’re not taking it from a corporation. You’re taking it from a neighbor.”
He shook his head, tears spilling now, embarrassed by them.
“I don’t want to be a burden,” he said.
“You’re not,” I replied. “You know what’s a burden? A society that can’t see the difference between a mistake and a threat.”
He stared at the check like it was radioactive.
Then, slowly, he folded it and put it in his wallet with both hands like it was sacred.
We sat there for a moment, the fence half-painted behind him, the street quiet, the curtains still drawn across the way.
And then—because life always knows when to twist the knife—there was a sound.
A car door.
Footsteps.
A knock.
Not on the neighbor’s door.
On mine.
Three firm taps.
Official taps.
I opened it and found two people on my porch.
One wore a plain jacket and a badge on his belt.
The other held a clipboard.
They weren’t rude. They weren’t yelling. They looked tired more than anything—like they’d spent their day responding to fear that didn’t need to be fear.
“Sir,” the badge said politely, “we got a call about a suspicious person on the property.”
I felt Liam behind me go stiff as a board.
Suspicious.
A young man with a paintbrush.
A check.
A story.
I stepped out onto the porch so they could see me clearly.
“I’m the homeowner,” I said. “He’s not suspicious. He’s painting my fence.”
The clipboard person glanced at the half-painted boards, then at the paint bucket, then at Liam’s face—wet-eyed, exhausted, not dangerous, just terrified.
The badge officer softened. “You invited him?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yesterday he slipped in the rain next door. He got reported. Today he came back to do something decent. That’s the whole story.”
The officer exhaled, slow. “Alright,” he said, looking over his shoulder toward the neighbor’s house like he already knew. “We just have to check.”
He turned back to Liam, voice calm. “You okay, son?”
Liam nodded, but it was the nod of someone who’s learned that honesty doesn’t always protect you.
The clipboard person scribbled something, then looked at me.
“You might want to be careful,” they said, not threatening—almost apologetic. “People are… on edge.”
On edge.
That’s another way of saying we’ve trained ourselves to treat each other like liabilities.
They left a minute later, polite, professional, gone.
But the damage stayed.
Because the message was clear:
In this neighborhood, a young man on a porch is suspicious.
But a camera watching from behind curtains is normal.
Liam’s hands were shaking when I closed the door.
He stared at the street like it had changed shape.
“I’m sorry,” he said automatically, like it was programmed into him.
I turned and looked him dead in the eyes.
“Don’t,” I said. “Do not apologize for existing.”
He blinked, tears clinging to his lashes.
“I used to think the hardest part was the work,” he whispered. “The driving. The hours. The wear on my car.”
He swallowed. “But it’s this. Being treated like… like I’m not real.”
I sat back down in my chair and motioned for him to sit in the other one.
He did, slowly, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed.
I looked across the street at the drawn curtains.
And then I looked back at Liam.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said.
He listened like a drowning man listens to a rope.
“You’re going to finish painting that fence,” I told him. “Not because you owe me. Because you deserve to finish something that doesn’t vanish when a screen says so.”
He nodded.
“Then,” I continued, “you’re going to come back Friday and tell me how your mom’s appointment went.”
His throat bobbed. “Okay.”
“And tonight,” I said, voice steady, “I’m going to make a pot of stew big enough for two.”
He gave a broken little laugh. “I’m not—”
“You are,” I cut in. “Because this house doesn’t run on ratings.”
He looked down at his hands, paint under his nails, the same kind of grit I used to carry home.
The sun was going down behind the houses, turning the wet street orange for a moment, making everything look softer than it really was.
And I thought about the comments.
The arguments.
The way people fight about tips like it’s a moral sport.
The way they say “get a real job” while living off the labor they refuse to see.
The way a doorbell can scream at a shivering kid and nobody thinks that’s strange anymore.
So I’m going to say something that will make people mad, because sometimes the truth is supposed to.
If you can press a button and summon a human being to your porch, you don’t get to pretend you’re not part of their life.
If you can rate a person’s ability to pay rent with one angry tap, you don’t get to call it “just business.”
If you can watch someone struggle through a camera lens and still choose punishment over mercy, then you’re not “protecting your standards.”
You’re training your heart to forget.
And here’s the most uncomfortable part:
The system didn’t make us like this.
It just gave us a convenient way to be who we already were—without consequences, without eye contact, without shame.
Liam stood up, picked up the brush again, and went back to the fence.
One board at a time.
Like rebuilding something that should’ve never been broken in the first place.
Across the street, the curtains didn’t move.
But I felt it—somewhere behind that window, a finger scrolling, a screen glowing, a person deciding what kind of world they want to live in.
And for the first time in a long time, I realized something that scared me more than any recession headline ever could:
We’re not going to be saved by smarter technology.
We’re going to be saved—or lost—by whether we remember how to open the door.
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This story is a work of fiction created for entertainment and inspirational purposes. While it may draw on real-world themes, all characters, names, and events are imagined. Any resemblance to actual people or situations is purely coincidenta
