She has idols whom she worships every day. She connects to them via attaching her fingers to a small shining platform that she carries around all the time. The worship consists of the movements of the right thumb – up and down, up and down.

Her idols are insatiable. They require that every day she takes her life away. In the mornings she wakes up as a holistic being akin to a cup from which she drinks coffee. Irreversibly this cup falls on the floor and breaks into pieces. Her identity splits into multiple; each one is a lifeless fragment. The spilled coffee is a flow of her thoughts – chaotic, useless, wasted.

Her idols are capricious. On some occasions her devotion is rewarded. A wide grin appears on her face; her blue eyes squint and start shining; her eyebrows rise and form a shape similar to a rainbow. This usually happens when hundreds of red hearts or white “thumb-up” signs appear under her photos. On other occasions she is punished for a reason unknown for she never skips worships. Nevertheless, her face turns an earthly green color; her hands start trembling; her lips bend in a direction opposite to a smile; a frown covers her forehead with wrinkles. Her blue eyes cold as ice fix on a photo of a kissing couple. I wish I had a boyfriend, a thought flashes in her mind.

“Delete them! Come on, Eve! Just do it! Never install them back!” her classmate exclaims when she sees Eve shedding tears over a poor grade.

Eve’s thumb is shaking as it drags one of the idols to a rubbish bin. Done! Blasphemy committed. Another idol is following the fate of the first one. Eve’s lips are pressed tightly. Her heart is pounding in her chest. Done! As the last idol is broken into pieces, the shards of Eve come together, and she becomes an integral being before the glue of night sleep restores her. 

On the next day Eve enjoys how a fresh wave of energy from a gulp of coffee spreads around her whole body. Oatmeal that she has for breakfast is warm and melting on her tongue. For the first time in months she looks at her friend Julia who sits opposite her and not into her smartphone. Eve notices slight changes in Julia’s face: how her lips smile, how her brows either frown or rise in surprise, how her eyes shine. These alterations are akin to magic which enchants Eve. Later in the day, Eve clutches her hands, trembles with excitement and gasps with awe as she plunges into reading a scientific book. “So interesting!” she exclaims. 

Her awakening lasts several days, and then a serpent crawls into her unsuspecting heart.

“You’re gonna burn in hell of social ostracism,” it whispers, “let them back into your life.”

“They’re demons!” Eve desperately exclaims feeling how her heart skips a beat.

“You’re in an illusion now! The real life is there! You’re missing it!” the serpent continues to insist.

Her trembling fingers reattach to the shining platform. They start flying across it, reviving the idols. The coffee is wasted again. The right thumb continues the worship as if it was never interrupted. Up and down, up and down… Tap, tap, tap…