Am I Trending?

In a world filled with static, can anyone hear the man screaming for help?

Am I Trending
By: Jesse Abundis

Once, they were free—a concept they can’t even fathom now. There’s too much static to ever let the mind rest. But before the towers, there was peace.

“Please listen to me. I just need you to listen.”

A voice screams through the digital barrier that numbs people’s senses. Do they listen? Can they? Will they?

“Just give me your time, I just want someone to listen!” Another desperate cry from the man pleading in the middle of the street. To be saved? To be shown mercy? Or just to have his pain taken away?

He darts between traffic lanes. It’s almost like he’s invisible—like each car is playing Russian roulette with a ghost. Each miss brings him closer to the bullet. A risk. A needed risk.

People drift along the street, their eyes locked on a tiny prison burning into their retinas.

Just swipe. Watch the next reel. Forget human existence.

One must wonder if they still have the capacity to feel.

Did they lose that final thread that made them human—empathy—traded for emptiness?

Becoming the disconnected psychopaths of old tales—the ones you feared, the ones you’d run and lock doors to save your young.

“Score, this is going to be a hit!”

Enter the beast. The one that smells this man’s misery, that sees him, but not for the man he is, but the victim he will become, a sacrificial Lamb to the slaughter. A girl. Wearing her trend like skin. Changing her mood as quickly as the trends. She adjusts her angle, checks her lighting, smooths out a bad dye job, and rehearses the right expression.

A performance.

She fakes sadness. She frames the broken man just right in the background.
Hits live

"Hey Fam, it's Jessabelle. I'm sharing my daily vlog. Look at this—someone needs help. Why does no one see his pain? Hashtag MentalHealthMatters."

She hijacks his pain and sells it as her own.

“Please donate to my Patreon. Buy me a cup of coffee. Watch my video on how to recharge your mental well-being.”
A fake blown kiss. End scene.

The circus wraps. On to the next act—the performance never ends.

She exhales, duty-bound to nourish her Instagram tribe: more polished snapshots, more jolting images to bait the hungry swarm.

She pouts when the angle’s wrong. Curses when the photo makes her look a little heavy. Try again. And again.
Finally—success. Send.

She’s fulfilled for now.

That temporary euphoria kicks in with every like, every heart, every remix of this demented portrait.
But the man—nobody notices the man. He’s still screaming. Telling his story. Why won’t they listen? Is he speaking a language we no longer understand?

When the cameras are off, she lets herself be real.

She sneers. "People like you ruin everything. Why can't you just disappear?" Letting her black heart bleed live a river of pride.

For this man, the world will see him, but not how it should be. He'll spread like a virus on everyone's screen.

That poor soul will be seen on screens.
Someone on a bus will feel a flicker of connection… until their next stop.

He’ll be used. Turned into a meme. A punchline. A reaction gif. A vessel for someone else’s agenda.
A prop for religion.

A pawn in someone’s political game.

A canvas for fabricated pain wrapped in commentary.

Everyone will spin their own story about what happened that day. So, others can agree. Can pretend to feel. Can pretend to care.
It’s all superficial.

Wars will rage online. Keyboard warriors clash with AI bots—a tsunami of hate washing over every person who injects the algorithms into their veins.

They’ll crash from this hate. Fall to sleep. Awaken the next day and ingest more of it, because that’s all they know.
A never-ending war on their minds.

Now, perhaps you understand the man a little better.

You see what he's doing out there—risking his life, screaming into the void, trying to pull us out of the underworld. Trying to remind us we're still alive.

But in the end…did anyone listen? Did anyone ever stop scrolling? Just for a second?

For your safety. For your future. I hope you do.

Humanity is dissolving into oblivion. This is a desperate flare hurled into the blackest night.