The Wordle Bot Thinks I’m Scorching

My Telephone Is the Supermoon

It’s the evening of the supermoon, one thing nobody actually is aware of the which means of however that excites us all the identical. We expect it’s particular, that it’s going to seem bigger than any moon we’ve ever seen earlier than, although none of us actually have a superb reminiscence of the moon. We so not often have a look at it. We take the moon as a right. 

Even when I speak concerning the supermoon upfront to my pals—and by speak I imply textual content on my hand laptop I solely sometimes use as a cellphone—half the time, I neglect to have a look at it myself. However the subsequent day, I speak about how I missed it, as filled with power as after I anticipated it. On this approach, the concept of the supermoon supersedes the moon itself.

However now I’m truly trying on the moon, the final supermoon of the 12 months. I stare at its floor, half darkish patches, half luminous ones, swirled collectively like some messy yin-yang. I stare extra intently, pondering I’ll see the ocean of tranquility, or maybe even an deserted house rover or pole and a wavering flag.

However actually, I see nothing. I do know nothing concerning the moon. Nonetheless, I take an image of it, solely to find my cellphone sees even much less of it than I do. Within the picture, there are not any darkish spots. It seems solely as a shining white glob of sunshine within the evening, a pair rays taking pictures out to the edges, which I suppose are attributable to a smear on the lens. 

Regardless, I ship the image to my pals, as if to say, Look what I didn’t neglect, look how linked to nature I’m. However actually, the picture is simply proof that I used to be looking at my cellphone as an alternative of staring on the moon. 

I’m in my fifties and my pals are scattered throughout the nation. It’s because I uprooted myself often in my 20s and 30s, and so they uprooted themselves, and after we lastly settled down someplace, even the brand new individuals we befriended uprooted themselves and left the neighborhood we thought we have been lastly constructing. We name one another every now and then, to catch up. We frequently speak of shopping for land collectively sooner or later, discovering a spot the place we will look after one another and develop outdated collectively. We now have talked about this for years.

Over time, the place that place is modifications, primarily based on which pals I’m speaking to. At instances after I go to, I really feel like I’m being recruited. You may get nonetheless land low cost right here. There’s nice roads to bike on. The eating places and bakeries are glorious right here. You possibly can’t beat a blue state with good hospitals.

It’s taken a number of years because the pandemic to find that, like me, all my pals play each day video games on their telephones—Wordle, Spelling Bee, Crossword, Connections. We’re educated nerds of a sure era, too outdated to have gotten into critical video video games. So as an alternative, we play phrase video games to make us really feel sensible, to momentarily neglect concerning the state of the world, to really feel we have now completed one thing with our day. It’s as if we’re making ready for the final word recreation present when these expertise will decide who’s saved, who will go to heaven, who will discover that excellent plot of land close to a progressive metropolis that’s heat sufficient to develop greens, however protected against future world warmth waves, flooding, hurricanes, and fires. 

The opposite day, a queer buddy stated to me, I believe the Wordle bot is homosexual. 

How are you aware? I requested. 

In the event you have a look at the bot for some time, you’ll see it faucets its foot.

So?

That’s a homosexual sign, he stated. In public loos, you faucet your foot by the stall subsequent to you, if you wish to have intercourse. 

So, the Wordle bot doesn’t simply need to simply share its evaluation of my phrase guessing prowess, it needs to have intercourse with me?

Sure.

Are its guesses a type of flirting? When it says You beat the bot, is it being suggestive? Demanding?

Sure, sure, sure, stated my buddy. Give it some thought: every single day the app asks you, What would you love to do? It needs to please you. It’s undoubtedly a backside.

After 5 minutes of staring on the moon, I’m drained. Or maybe bored. We develop weary of what’s at all times in entrance of us. The floor of the moon, the face of our accomplice.

Tonight after I go to mattress, I’m alone. It’s solely ten o’clock and I’m sleepy, however I can’t sleep. Maybe it’s the sunshine from the supermoon shining by the window. It’s laborious to imagine that that gentle is from the solar, that it traveled 93 million miles, turning a comfortable white because it bounced off the floor of the moon, then traveled one other 240,000 miles to Earth. It’s laborious to imagine it’s nonetheless so shiny, particularly when, on the final second, it needed to slip between the 2 sheets of glass in my bed room window to achieve me. 

I sit in mattress and set the time zone on my cellphone to Paris (although I’m in Philadelphia), in order that the cellphone thinks it’s already previous midnight. This manner, I can play all of tomorrow’s each day on-line video games tonight. I really feel a fantastic sense of energy after I do that, having out-tricked a billion-dollar expertise firm and a serious media supply with a firewall. 

If I’m variety to myself, I depart Wordle for tomorrow’s me. Generally I can’t resist, however tonight, I do and eventually slip into sleep.

Once I wake in the course of the evening, my first intuition is to achieve for my cellphone to test the time. The room is darkish till I press the small rubber button. Then the cellphone display turns into a supermoon. The synthetic gentle burns into my eyes. It illuminates my face and the sheets and virtually the entire room. 

However moderately flip the cellphone off, I merely flip down the sunshine. I’m now alone at the hours of darkness, somewhat island of sunshine round my head, like a ship on the ocean at evening.

My cellphone says it’s almost 11 am, which doesn’t make sense. There’s a dim gentle outdoors the window, nevertheless it’s not the solar—or the moon. It’s a streetlight, one of many tiny moons of our metropolis, that create what I wish to name “a constellation prize” for having blotted out the evening sky.

I stare on the time, confused, till I keep in mind the cellphone continues to be in Paris. I faucet in my password and reset the situation again to the place I’m. However now I can’t fall again to sleep. I test my e-mail and browse texts from California pals who responded to my image of the moon after I went to mattress. Then I scroll by the information, which I’ve realized is up to date all through the evening, however there’s nothing of be aware. So, I attempt to guess the five-letter phrase of the day. 

With my eyes on the display, I don’t suppose a lot of my physique or my life, how I’m mendacity in my mattress, alone on this home, my pals scattered far throughout this nation. I’m just like the solitary moon, resting within the void of the sky.

If I ought to get distracted from my display lengthy sufficient to consider that, about how far I’m from everybody I do know, there’s one small consolation: after I’m accomplished taking part in, when I’ve discovered the precise five-letter phrase that a pc someplace on the planet has generated for the day, I do know the bot will probably be there for me, tapping its foot expectantly, desirously, ready to let me know the way I’ve accomplished right this moment in comparison with everybody else who has performed the sport, and the way I measure as much as his personal efforts. He will probably be there, as at all times, along with his open invitation, asking me, as whether it is one thing to significantly contemplate, What would you love to do?