Gary had not touched grass in four years. His apartment had a biometric door that needed an app for his heartbeat. The app needed an app to verify the app. His shower used a hydration subscription. Water unlocked hydration achievements. He never earned one.
He deleted everything on a Tuesday. Suspicious. Tuesday is when spam emails grow teeth and your high school acquaintances remember you exist to sell leggings.
He’d spent forty minutes arguing with Brenda the moderation bot. Brenda accused his grandmother’s chicken casserole of sexual misconduct. The algorithm detected “breast meat” and summoned a tribunal. Brenda recommended a therapist. Brenda tried to invoice him for the recommendation.
“I’m going analog,” he told Chairman Meow.
The cat’s pupils shaped into spinning hourglasses. Network error in feline form. The cat had been synced to his smart home since 2019. Now the cat was buffering.
Gary deleted Instagram. The app screamed. It had rights apparently.
He deleted TikTok. The algorithm tried to bribe him with nostalgia.
He deleted $ChirpCoin, the platform formerly known as something people remembered. The icon deflated in his hand as the stock price crashed in real time.
Then he deleted his banking app.
The lights flickered. The building groaned. Somewhere in the walls, a server wept.
The elevator screen blinked awake. “You are in breach of contract. SmartLift reserves the right to seize your ankles as collateral.”
Gary backed away. Elevators do not bluff. He’d seen the user agreement. Section 47, subsection Q. Ankle seizure was standard.
He took the stairs.
The stairs elongated. More stairs appeared between floors. His staircase subscription had expired. The building was generating punitive steps.
He sprinted through the glitch before the universe corrected itself. His knees filed a formal complaint with his brain. His brain was too busy panicking to respond.
Outside, the sun felt accusatory. Surveillance with Vitamin D.
He squinted. The sky displayed a pop-up: “How was your outdoor experience? Rate 1 to 5 stars.”
He clicked decline with his middle finger. His finger buzzed. Flesh does updates now. His knuckle vibrated. A notification appeared on his skin: “Gesture registered as hostile. Social credit adjusted.”
He walked to a coffee shop. A real one. With a human whose nametag said “Brooklyn” even though this was Ohio and her parents had made a terrible decision.
Gary held out cash. Actual paper. Presidents and pyramids.
Brooklyn stared at the bills as if he’d offered sheep pelts and a firm handshake.
“We only take app payments.”
“This is money,” Gary said. “Legal tender. Says so right here on the president’s disappointed face.”
“Our system requires BeanStream. You order ahead. We make it. You scan. The coffee knows your name before you do.”
“I’m standing here. I have a mouth. We can perform commerce without a mediator.”
Brooklyn looked confused, then frightened, then pressed a button under the counter.
A bell chimed. Not a pleasant bell. A bell that meant management.
Todd emerged from the back office. His nametag said “Franchise Owner Todd” in a font that suggested broken dreams and regional conferences. Todd’s face updated in real time. His hairline retreated three millimeters during the conversation. His eyes buffered.
“Sir, do you have the app?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t exist in our system.”
“I exist in physical space. I’m carbon-based. I have a Social Security number from before the internet.”
Todd shook his head. The motion had latency.
“If you’re not in our system, you’re informational debris. Return yourself to the manufacturer for recycling.”
Gary left.
His phantom phone buzzed. He’d forgotten one app. Duolingo. The owl appeared as a push notification on a screen he no longer owned. The owl wore a tiny judge’s robe.
“You missed your lesson, Gary. Sentence issued. Custody pending. Habeas corpus denied. Choose: fines or servitude in the language mines.”
He hurled his last remaining device into a decorative fountain outside a bank that had become an app three years ago.
The water swallowed it. The fountain turned pixelated. Koi fish glitched mid-swim.
An elderly woman sat on a bench, feeding pigeons. Each pigeon wore a tiny body cam. Surveillance birds. The future nobody asked for.
“You broke your dependency,” she said. Her voice had the calm of someone who’d seen the apocalypse and found it boring.
“I’m Susan. I threw my phone in a river last year. Became legally dead. Started over. Best decision of my afterlife.”
A streetlight bent toward Gary. Its bulb rotated, focusing.
“Reinstall. Reinstall. Reinstall.”
The voice had no mouth, just urgency and malware.
Gary ran.
His shoes demanded a Bluetooth connection. They threatened to walk without him. They meant it. They’d been waiting for this.
They left. He went barefoot. The pavement was warm and judgmental.
A billboard flickered. His face appeared.
“Gary is experiencing technical difficulties. Please reboot Gary.”
He covered his face. The billboard glitched. Multiple Garys appeared. They all looked disappointed in each other.
He reached his building.
The door scanned him. “Unrecognized meat. Premium identity required. Insert credit card or compatible soul.”
Chairman Meow sat inside the lobby, observing through the glass. The cat now wore a collar with a blinking LED. The tag read: “Primary Account Holder.”
The cat had assumed his lease. Smart move. Cats always land on their feet and in positions of power.
A drone descended.
It projected a hologram. Brenda materialized. More pixels than person. More code than conscience.
“We reviewed your appeal,” Brenda said. “Decision upheld. Existence revoked. You will be reclaimed for parts. Your memories have resale value. Your nostalgia tests well with focus groups.”
The world froze.
The sky reloaded. HUD overlays swarmed his vision. Every object pinged him. Toasters offering friendship. Benches requesting reviews. Trees whispering login credentials.
The grass he’d avoided for years sang passwords in harmony.
Gary collapsed.
The ground absorbed him. The texture of dirt felt new. Ancient. Pre-internet dirt that remembered when humans looked up.
He pressed his hand into actual grass. Biological. Uncharged. Free.
Something inside him rebooted.
The sun glitched. Clouds pixelated. A progress bar appeared across the horizon.
“System update. Zero percent. Do not turn off humanity.”
Gary laughed.
The laugh triggered a pop-up: “Thank you for your feedback. Your emotional response has been catalogued.”
He kept laughing anyway.
The update bar crept to one percent. The sky flickered. Existence buffered. Reality asked permission to continue.
A dialog box appeared in the air between Gary and the collapsing universe:
“Allow notifications from Reality?”
Yes or No.
Gary reached up. His finger hovered.
Chairman Meow watched from inside, whiskers twitching with algorithm-enhanced judgment.
Gary pressed No.
The world stopped asking.
Chairman Meow’s collar blinked once, then went dark. The cat’s eyes widened. For the first time in four years, the cat looked terrified.
Error 404: Reality not fou—
Bret, you need to have your own show on Netflix or one of those streaming channels. A new version of "Night Gallery" or Twilight Zone". This would make for an amazing episode. I am saying this because I found it frightening beyond belief - that it really does not seem to be that far fetched. It scared me just like the Twilight Zone episodes scared me back in the day. So, anybody reading this that works for any of those entities or, better, a film maker - please make this so.
As always, brilliant writing. As I read, it played in my head like an episode of Twilight Zone. Bret you should submit this to The New Yorker. Everyone should read this. Kudos, my friend.