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Mom says it's like pointing when she was a kid, only nobody points anymore—not with their fingers, anyway. She had to demonstrate so I'd know what she was talking about, her index finger dangling in midair. It was just the two of us in the kitchen, and she was programming dinner at the cooktop.
I guess it's a bad habit, but I can't help myself. Maybe I'm too curious.
"Curiosity killed the cats," she tells me.
She had a cat when she was my age, before they all died out. Sometimes animals just become extinct, she says, like the panda and the polar bear and all the others I've only seen online.
"You're pointing with your eyes, and it's rude," she told me after we returned from the gym. Mom likes us to go at least three times a week so her butt will look good. I go to people-watch, and when she found out about that, I earned this present scolding. "You wouldn't pick your nose in public, would you?"
"They're all staring at their Slates. They never catch me looking."
"If they did, Bo, it would be so awkward. I just want to spare you from that."
She must have figured that being fourteen, I was already prone to enough awkwardness as it was.
"We look at each other, you and me." I bug out my eyes at her as she sets down our dinner on the table. My favorite meal: extra-cheesy macaroni with diced jalapeños. "Why isn't it rude at home?"
She glances at me and almost smiles, returning her almond-colored eyes to the spork she stabs into her dinner. She's thirty-two but looks ten years younger, though I'd never tell her that. You don't tell your mom she's the prettiest lady in the complex unless she's having an extra-bad day or you're okay with getting a lecture on why it's rude to look at other ladies for comparison—pointing my eyes where they shouldn't be pointing.
"It's different. You know that." She sighs before taking a bite. "How many followers on your FanFare now?"
"23,000-ish," I mumble around a mouthful.
"See? You're well on your way. Now what if word got out that you were looking at people? What'll come next? Will you start talking to them?" She chuckles.
"We talk."
She shakes her head. "People do whatever they want at home. And besides, I'm your mom. You don't have to impress me with your manners. But I do appreciate them."
"Maybe I don't want to impress other people, either."
"Typical teenage rebellion, is that what this is?" Another sigh. "Do you want to be a typical teenager?"
Heck no. But I'd never tell her that.
––––––––
At school, I know better than to press my luck. The teachers are trained to look up from their Slates at unpredictable intervals to make sure we're not doing the same. All of our lessons, assignments, discussions, and group projects are done via Slate. We could stay home and accomplish just as much—which is actually a lot; don't be fooled by the tone of my teenage angst-driven narrative. But my mom, who was a teacher before she started interviewing celebrities online and making a decent living at it, explains that part of the hidden curriculum in school teaches us how to behave socially. So they cram me and a hundred of my closest friends into a classroom six hours a day, and the teachers rotate through every period to make sure we remain glued to our Slates instead of looking around and actually talking to each other.
None of it is very hidden, if you ask me.
But you didn't. Nor did you ask what we do during our lunch breaks or PE periods, but I'll tell you anyway. During lunch, we link up for multiplayer games or chat, and during PE, we pack our Slates into our lockers—which feels like amputating a limb and leaving it behind—and climb aboard cross-training machines with built-in screens, like at the gym. The conditioning continues, training our eyes never to wander from what matters most: whatever is on the screen in front of us.
Mom once told me that when she was a kid, they used to play outside. It's a wonder her entire generation didn't die from skin cancer.
"Things were different then," she says.
Right. They had cats. And they probably looked at each other all the time.
Animals and social customs are both subject to extinction.
––––––––
She's got her bag packed, ready to go as soon as I step off the bus and dash upstairs to our unit. Another gym trip is in our immediate future.
"Can I trust you to be polite this time?"
The alternative? I'd have to stay home alone with my Slate. Give me a room full of people over that any day.
"Sure."
They never catch me. Their eyes are always focused on their screens, and they never consider the fact that a fourteen-year-old boy would find them more interesting than a game of Carnal Bludgeon II.
But now we come to the crux of the story, that which the entire tale hinges upon. And not to disappoint my literature teacher, Mr. White, it involves a bit of irony: Why do people bother going to the gym if nobody's looking at them anyway? Sure, there are health reasons, but why does my mom care about the shape of her rear end?
I called her on this once.
"I'm your mother," she said. "Don't embarrass me."
I can't be the only citizen in our sector who likes to people-watch, and someday soon, I'm sure I'll catch somebody else looking around who's not as careful as I am. We'll just see how awkward that moment is. It might even be kind of fun. Won't know until it happens, right?
But I don't contradict Mom. The last thing I want is her to leave me behind.
Maybe because I'm afraid of missing out.
Mostly because she's good company.