90s

The afternoon the modem screamed a little faster and the whole house held its breath.

The screaming beige monster that printed your book report one agonizing dot at a time, and the perforated paper-strips you weren’t allowed to tear off too early.

You remember the fat black remote with too many buttons that somehow ran the whole living room.

You remember hauling your whole computer across town just to sit in a room and frag your friends.

You remember the fat glass monitor that hummed, glowed, and bit your knuckle with a tiny lightning bolt.

It was a chunky little square of plastic that decided whether the computer would even wake up that day.

You walked away from the computer for ten minutes and came back to find it had grown wings.

You remember the long beige bar on the floor with the little glowing button, the one that ran the entire family universe.

You remember the little black box on your dad’s belt that buzzed once and changed his whole face.

You remember when all the knowledge in the world fit on one shiny disc, and the loading screen had its own theme music.