Lara was aware she was doomscrolling. Part of her wanted to throw her phone away, but she couldn’t stop watching those short videos that were made to grab her attention and keep her wanting more. Her eyes were stuck to the screen, and her thumb was programmed to ceaselessly swipe up. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” she wanted to cry. “Why can’t I do anything about it?”

It was 1:04 AM. She was in her spacious, fashionably furnished bedroom, sunk in a plush velvet sofa by the window. The sheer alabaster linen curtains were open, allowing the moonlight to invade her bedroom unimpeded. Everything in the bedroom seemed to be in its rightful place, except her. She was lying on the sofa when she should have been in bed, sleeping, dreaming, resting.

The more she scrolled, the angrier she became at herself, but every video postponed that anger another minute. Every last video she planned to watch was followed by another video, each more unfulfilling than the last. She kept wanting to watch one more, and she did. She scrolled.

Then, in the split second between the video she had just watched and the video she was about to watch, she imagined herself drowning in a lake of honey. The new video started playing, but her attention had now turned inward, and she saw herself sinking deeper into honey, and she wondered whether she could swim in honey if she were ever thrown in such a lake. She then thought, “Are the videos I’m watching supposed to be the honey I’m drowning in? I’m more like a fly stuck to a sticky flypaper.” But that thought was short-lived. She started imagining pulling herself out of the lake thanks to a rope that a good-looking stranger threw her way. The stranger looked like he was in his mid-twenties, five or so years younger than her. He was a muscular man with broad shoulders, wearing only swimming shorts. Thick veins ran down from his biceps and forearms and disappeared only when they reached his wrists. His whole body shone in the moonlight. And in that darkness, he was like the light a dying person saw at the end of the tunnel. Lara held on to the rope he threw and pulled herself out of the lake. When she reached the lakeshore, the sun replaced the moon in the sky. The moon seamlessly faded out as a hot Mediterranean summer sun faded in. The good-looking stranger extended his hand to help her stand up. “Thanks,” she said. “Welcome,” he said. She gazed into his ice-blue eyes. His face… she did not know what face to give him yet. But standing there in front of him, she felt the honey trickle down her body, and she realized she was naked, and she was naked because at that moment she desired to be… She made the man with the ice-blue eyes fulfill her wish. Her lust was the puppet master. She made him pull her towards him, made him lick all of the honey off her, and then she made him… Her phone rang, and she was pulled back into the real world where she was lying on the sofa by the window with her phone, which was now vibrating, in her right hand. Her left hand was in her underwear. The call was from an unknown number, and it was 1:09 AM, which meant it was either someone calling a wrong number or a call she did not want to answer. She wanted to return to the arms of the stranger with ice-blue eyes. She longed to go back. Before declining the call, she wondered whom it could be. She waited a minute to see if the same number would call again, but no call came. So, she allowed herself to drift back into her fantasies, and this time she gave the young man a face, the face of the bartender with the nice smile and ice-blue eyes who served her drinks two nights ago.