Vicarious at Midnight

At midnight, when I find myself awake, I don’t count sheep, I count worlds.

When sleep refuses to take me, prolly after trying out classic sleep tricks, my fingers already know where to go. They move impulsively, opening doors I’ve memorized by heart. Three apps live there, in one folder, waiting for me like familiar ghosts sent to haunt me till eternity. Pinterest, my Book app, and TikTok.

TikTok and Books are locked in some kind of rivalry so I really can’t settle on one. One flashes light into my eyes, fast and chaotic, just feeding me lives that aren’t mine. The other moves rather slowly, pulling me into stories where I borrow someone else’s heart, someone else’s problems and their courage too. Both keep me company. Both make the silence of the night feel less heavy and the shrill of cicadas less frightening. Both let me live vicariously, through faces on a screen or through characters inked into pages.

The Pinterest app on my phone literally sits in the corner like a mood board for a life I haven’t lived fully yet. I honestly scroll it gently, a little obsessively too, enough to imagine the aesthetically pleasing, soft rooms I come across, images/videos of quiet mornings, handwritten letters, and a version of me who sleeps on time and wakes up whole.

At midnight, these apps feel different and I honestly can’t tell why. They don’t just entertain me but they hold me like a duvet would during a stormy night. They make me feel less alone in the dark, less aware of time slipping by, less present in a body that should be resting. They sorta open portals too which I step into willingly, again and again.

Perhaps the reason I’m addicted to these apps at that time of the day is because of the escape they offer and the feeling I get, of being somewhere else when the world is too quiet and my thoughts are probably too loud for me to handle.

At midnight, I don’t scroll apps to pass time, I scroll to survive time itself.