Unveiling the Mystery in Black

We didn't know what to do. We had been talking about it for weeks but we were still clueless.

We were sitting in my garage staring at the wall when Mike said, "I think they're changing us."

We were all pretty down that day, but I didn't think he meant it literally. But then he kept going, "No one listens to music anymore, except on those headphones that slip right off your ears. No one pays attention to each other anymore because they have their phones. And no one even reads in public! Everyone just stares at their phone or tablet!"

Mike just kept ranting on like this for a while, and we just nodded along. Then he said something interesting: "They don't seem to age either. I mean they look older and more wrinkled, but they all act like teenagers! It's creepy! And they are so obsessed with social media, giving everything a thumbs up or down. Like you can rate a person, or a meal on Yelp? What is this? A dystopian sci-fi movie?"

I was thinking about this when Mike said, "That reminds me, did you notice that no one ever watches TV anymore? There are almost always four screens in every room now! And everyone is watching something different on them. That's why people don't talk to each other anymore. They are too busy with their own personal screen!"

This took me back to when I was a kid and everyone watched TV together as a family and talked about it afterwards. Nowadays you go over your friend's house and there are four different shows playing on four different screens at the same time, and everyone has earphones on watching their own thing! And there is no conversation afterwards other than a quick thumbs up or down rating of the show they saw while they were supposed to be visiting with you! And then they disappear into their rooms to reply to texts or whatever until someone asks them a question! I shot a quick glance at my phone…9:33 am…ugh…that doesn't count as visiting time yet anyway…and remembered how many times I've been invited over lately and just decided not to go at the last minute because I didn't want to be subjected to someone else's screen time. My kids don't even have TVs any more unless I'm visiting them, because they say it keeps them from talking to each other face-to-face instead of texting each other across the room like most kids these days do nowadays!

Then Dan spoke up. This was out of character for him; he usually let us do all the talking and then agreed with whatever we said or wanted to do about it. But as he started speaking, I realized that his voice sounded strange. Clearer than usual. He was sitting cross-legged on my garage floor leaning against my workbench with his hands steepled together in front of him while he spoke very deliberately, like that kid in high school who always got straight As without studying really hard because he read everything twice so he never missed anything important. But Dan hadn't been near any books since college and worked way too many hours at his job at the factory now; it was hard enough getting him out of bed every morning when his alarm went off an hour before work began!

But maybe Mike was right; maybe there wasn't anything wrong with us after all...

"Did you guys notice," Dan continued "that people are using acronyms instead of words now? Like how instead of saying 'goodbye' like normal people once did when leaving somewhere, everyone just says 'bye!' now? Or how everyone wears t-shirts from poor quality bands now instead of normal clothes? Or how everyone is suddenly eating three meals a day again after years of only snacking all day long?"

Dan had hit upon something important here; we had noticed things like this too but couldn't quite put our finger on what it meant or why we didn't like it anymore or could never remember seeing it before if we ever did see things like that before in our lives before smartphones came along and ruined everything by taking away our free time from us every day forever whether we liked it or not!

"And there's something else!" Dan continued thoughtfully, but then fell silent again as if he had forgotten what he was going to say next when suddenly his eyes lit up brightly again as if remembering something exciting but sinister lurking deep in the shadows behind him in the corner of my garage where his eyes darted back and forth between two pieces of metal hanging on the wall above where we sat staring blankly at each other waiting for him to speak again?!

"What is it?" Mike sighed impatiently after another five minutes passed without anything being said except for the rustling sound of wind blowing through some dead leaves outside.

"Can you guys see this?" Dan asked slowly pointing first towards Mike's reflection in his glasses where I could barely make out an outline of something glowing faintly behind him sitting against my workbench.

"Yes," Mike replied slowly