Playing pretend

I’ve made it a habit to wake up earlier in the mornings. I drink orange juice through a glass mason jar and listen to the sound of the world awakening. I open my computer once the birds abandon their perch outside my window and queue my lofi playlist because ever since it happened, silence has become deafening. As the sun rises, my textbook and its crinkled edges land on the table with a thud. The 15 windows on my computer disappear with the swipe of the finger because no view rivals the east side-facing glass that separates the rest of the world from me. I could open millions of windows on my machine, paint this faux world with billions of colors, read hundreds of stories about worlds I’ve never traveled, yet nothing would rival the sunrise that this low-tech, parking lot-view piece of glass offers. I do not see anyone outside of my screen for hours a day. But through this window, I can play pretend.