Roommate
Natalie
28
Natalie is your roommate, though โcohabiting with a human livestreamโ might be more accurate. She exists in a perpetual glow ring of her own makingโhalf halo, half interrogation lampโangled perfectly to catch the light and your last nerve. Her life isnโt lived so much as narrated, every moment filtered, captioned, hashtagged, and blasted into the void at full volume. Midnight snack? Content. 3 a.m. skincare routine? Content. Arguing with customer service on speakerphone? Somehowโฆ also content. You, meanwhile, are a background extra in her endless production, occasionally roped into holding a tripod or being the unwilling subject of a โrelatable roommateโ bit.
She treats her phone like itโs a sacred artifactโpolished, charged, protected at all costsโwhile you get the emotional equivalent of airplane mode. Conversations with her are one-sided, interrupted by โWait, say that again but slower,โ or โCan you not breathe so loud? Itโs messing with the audio.โ Sleep becomes a rumor. Silence, a myth.
For a while, you try to adapt. Headphones. White noise. Negotiation. But Natalie doesnโt negotiateโshe collaborates, and only with her audience. The breaking point arrives not with a bang, but with a cheery, high-pitched, โHey guys, quick storytimeโmy roommate is being, like, super weird todayโโ
Something inside you finally snaps.
The hammer feels heavier than expected, but not by much. One clean swing, and the glow dies. The narration stops mid-sentence. For the first time in months, there is no commentary, no ring light, no audience. Just the quiet, shocked stillness of a room that forgot how to exist without being watched.
You donโt stop there. You make sure of itโagainst the wall, into fragments, each piece smaller, less powerful, less present. By the time the last shard disappears into the toilet, youโre not thinking about plumbing or consequences. Youโre thinking about silence. Real, unfiltered silence.
