I wake to an alarm I set on a good mood and immediately regret it in a normal one. The room is the same shade of blue as last night, only flatter. The fans keep time. The monitor shows the ghost of my face before it decides to be a screen again. I rub my eyes, then rub the space behind them where the system lives like a folded card.
For three seconds, I am just a person who slept. Then the numbers begin knocking on the door I left ajar. I reach for the mouse before my brain votes on it, and the tab blooms open like a plant that knows where the sun is.
The third short nudged past two hundred while I slept. The first sits around one fifty. The second is ninety-something and stubborn. Followers have climbed to forty-two. It is not a lot. It is not nothing.
[Timer: T-66:04:21]
The brackets appear like a teacher clearing its throat. I breathe out through my nose and nod to a thing no one else can see.
"Morning to you too," I say.
[Good morning, user]
"Do you sleep?"
[N/A]
"Lucky."
[Opinion recorded. The likelihood of mission success improves with regular sleep.
I make porridge because it feels like an adult choice. Halfway through stirring, I realise I forgot to buy milk. I eat it with water and a banana that tastes like it is thinking of being bread. My phone shows a message from Mum sent at 3 a.m. A photo of a staff-room muffin and a caption that says "fuel" with two hearts. I type "proud of you" and send it before I can overthink the shape of the words.
The loop on the windowsill picked up the dawn birds. A magpie gargles as if it has opinions on jazz. I open the editor and cut around it. The magpie becomes a small flare at the end of a bar. I add a finger-drum pattern on the desk, then hate it, then pull it back to half volume, and it behaves.
A comment pops up on last night's post.
@sootsprite: neat textures. Bio is empty. Put a sentence in, also an icon. Big circles hate grey letters
Another arrives underneath it before I can answer.
@sootsprite: Sorry, that was bossy. Hi. I like the kettle
I click through. The profile is a cartoon dust cloud with grinning eyes. Past comments show a habit of tidying messy threads. I type and delete twice. Then I type again.
"Hi. Thanks. Will do."
I open my profile and see the blank circle that makes me look like a missing person. I do not have a good picture of myself. I have seven bad ones from years ago that all feel like costumes. I scroll my camera roll and stop at a shot of the kettle handle, black and curved and weirdly elegant in the morning light. I crop it tight until it becomes a graphic shape and set it. In the bio line, I type "loops from small rooms" and add a kettle emoji because the system told me last night that replies improve retention and maybe emojis help too.
[Tip: profile completeness improves conversion]
"I know," I say.
[Acknowledged. Reinforcement increases compliance]
"Do not say compliance to me before coffee."
[Noted]
I drink coffee and forget to taste it. The follower number stutters at forty-four and then forty-seven. It is like watching rain start when you cannot tell if it will become a storm or a polite mist.
I reprint Short One with a quieter kettle and a softer hi-hat. I removed two frequencies that sound like a mosquito. I fixed the title so it reads like something I would click. I updated the description so it is not an apology for existing. I hit update and feel the itch in my brain that says I did something even if no one else can see it.
Another comment arrives while I am pretending not to watch.
@busstopbarry: Bio works. Icon slaps. More of this
I realise I am smiling and feel embarrassed, then annoyed at myself for feeling embarrassed alone in a room.
[Tip: scheduled consistency outperforms bursts]
The brackets arrive like a hand tapping a calendar.
"I know," I say again, but softer this time. "Help me pick times, then."
[Available discovery peaks observed for account category: 12:15, 19:05, 23:40 AEST]
"Lunch, commute, insomniacs," I say.
[Correct]
I draw three boxes on a sticky note and write LUNCH, NIGHT, LATE next to them. Under LUNCH I write "desk drum + magpie tag." Under NIGHT I write "kettle ghost + hum." Under LATE I write "window sill sirens, keep soft." The act of doing it knocks some grit out of my head. The boxes look like something that might be ticked. My brain is a dog that likes tricks.
I clean bowls properly. It takes longer than I expected. When the bench is clear, the whole room looks like it has taken off a tight shirt. I open the door to the corridor and hold the phone out to catch the stairwell door thunk. A neighbour comes up, and I pretend to check the mail, so I do not have to say hello with a microphone pointed at my life. The lift stops on my floor and speaks in a flat female voice. I record it saying going u,p and then the beep that follows. Back inside, I drop a coin into a mug and capture the thing it does that sounds like a little bell with manners.
I make the LUNCH post early and set it to go live at 12:15. A small thrill runs through me in the same place where panic usually sits. I reply to two old comments like I were a person who knows how to talk. The kettle icon looks friendly at the end of my sentences. A spam bot invites me to join a follow-for-follow pod, and I block it fast enough to feel competent.
A message drops under the second short from SootSprite again.
@sootsprite: Made a tiny fan list. Not a server. Just a list. If you want, I can clip the best 10 seconds and push to duet ladders.
I hover on the reply field for a full minute while my brain tries to decide if letting a stranger help is dangerous or necessary. The system waits, which is somehow worse than it talking. I type "Yes, please. thank you. please no cringe captions," and send it.
Another bracket lands.
[Tip: Collaboration increases visibility. Trusted collaborators reduce perceived risk]
"You are not helping by calling him trusted when we met two comments ago."
[Confidence in a collaborator is not guaranteed. Early signs positive]
"Fine."
I plug a small mic into the phone and sit on the floor with my back against the bed. I rehearse saying hello to a camera. My mouth goes dry and makes a small click on the first syllable. I try again with water. I try again with the camera pointed at my shoulder, so only my hands are visible, tapping on the desk. That is easier. I talk briefly about how I made the new snare. I deleted the whole thing because my voice sounds like I am taking a hostage.
The lunchtime post goes out. I listen to the apartment breathe and do not refresh for five minutes. It feels like sainthood. When I finally look, the view count hops in twos and threes. A duet pops up with a kid in Brisbane tapping along on a cereal box. Another duet is a woman in a nurse's uniform nodding along while she pours a cup of tea. I look at the time and wonder if Mum is on break and if she would find this one funny or sad.
A DM arrives from SootSprite. It is a screenshot of a tiny spreadsheet with three rows. Handle. Time zone. Notes.
"Idle idols draft," he writes. "The Name is a joke till it sticks. Two volunteers to tag when you post. One mod who likes keeping things neat."
I type "you are terrifying" and then "I mean thank you" and send both. He reacts with a kettle.
Followers climb past sixty. I make myself stand, stretch, and walk to the window. The light catches on a bus stop shelter and makes a hard rectangle on the footpath. A boy hits it with a basketball, and it rings like a cheap gong. I record three seconds of it through the glass and save the clip for later.
The system announces itself again, less like a teacher now and more like a metronome that someone moved closer to my ear.
[Tip: Practice improves outcomes. Try breathing exercises before recording]
"You giving me yoga now?"
[Breath control is relevant to performance. Recommended resource: four-count inhale, four-count hold, four-count exhale, four-count hold]
"I know box breathing," I say, mocking a calm I do not own.
[Then perform it]
I sit with my feet flat and my shoulders doing what Mina's shoulders did for six seconds that night she danced to my loop. I inhale for four. I hold, but my brain uses the hold to panic about the hold. I exhale for four and go dizzy because my body forgot how to be a bottle this morning. I try again. On the third round, I feel something unstick in my ribs. My tongue is less thick in my mouth. The next time I hum into the mic the note does not slither out from under me.
I save the take even though it is not special. It is a record of a body remembering a trick.
The afternoon slides by in rings. The kettle icon makes me happier than it should every time I see it on my profile page. My bio sentence looks like a good idea I might live up to. At 19:05, I post the NIGHT clip and step away withthe discipline I had to wring out of muscles.
While I am not looking, SootSprite posts a ten-second cut of my best loop with the caption "kettle core." I hate him for it for three seconds and then laugh because it is accurate and because three strangers duet it with their own kitchen percussion. One uses a whisk. One uses two forks. One uses their thumb on a cheese grater. The comments on those duets brought two more followers to me, then six.
A notification pings from the application page for Launchpad: Live. It did not send me an email. It knows I leave emails to rot. It slides a banner into the feed that says auditions this weekend, new intake, sign before Friday. I thumb the banner away like a fly. It floats back into my brain with padding on its feet and sits down without asking.
Another comment from a stranger appears.
@northshoreanna: This sounds like when you wait outside a venue and the band is still warm. Keep going
I reply Thank you and mean it. I reply to a second one with a kettle emoji and hate myself, then decide a language has to start somewhere.
The follower count nudges to eighty-three by eight thirty. The system lets the number sit in my vision like a neat brick.
[Timer: T-58:11:37]
I picture the number I need, and it is too big. I picture a hundred, and it is a thing with corners. I picture one hundred and fifty, and my chest warms the same way it does when I put on a clean shirt straight from the line.
I try a story instead of a post. Thirty seconds of the desk, the windowsill, the sticky note plan. I type "two down today, one to go, late set" and tag the time. It feels like leaving a note on a fridge for a friend to see, except the friend is a half-made crowd and a cartoon dust cloud with mod powers.
A message chimes. It is Mum again. "How is your thing?" she writes, refusing to pry.
I record a voice reply before I can talk myself out of it. "Good," I say. "I mean, started good. I will call tomorrow. Promise."
I listen back and wince. I sound younger than I feel. I sent it anyway.
I do the LATE clip at the window with the phone set to the lowest gain. The sirens do their bend at the end of the road, and for once, they are not angry. They sound like someone stretching. I make the loop short and let the hum sit at the end like a light that does not want to go to bed. I queue it for 23:40 and try not to count down in my head.
At ten thirty, a DM lands from SootSprite.
"Going to sleep. Set an auto if any weirdos turn up," he writes. "You got this."
"What would weirdos even do with a loop and a kettle," I write.
"Make tea," he writes. "Or be thoughtful. Sometimes surprising."
I leave the message on seen and stare at the dot for a while until it becomes a hole and then closes.
I do the breathing again because no one can see me and because it helped. Four in. Hold. Four out. Hold. The second hold is easier now that I am used to the shape of it. My shoulders loosen the way they do when the light on Parramatta Road is yellow, but no one is angry about it.
At 23:39 I convince myself that checking a minute early is surrender. At 23:40 I pretend I am above caring. At 23:41 I fail and look. The count bumps in twos. Someone in Perth is awake and enthusiastic. Someone in Singapore says the siren hum made them think of rain. A person with a flower for a name writes, "This put my baby to sleep, thanks," and I feel like I should apologise and also be proud of an accidental lullaby.
Followers kiss one hundred and slip away, then come back and stay. One hundred and three. I exhale, and it sounds like the kettle when it gives up on boiling and accepts its job as a room heater.
I get up and put shoes by the door for the morning. The habit looks like a plan. I set an alarm that will ruin my future self and leave the phone face down on the desk. I write a fourth box on the sticky note wall and label it OUTSIDE. The word looks larger than the ink says it is.
The system waits long enough that I think it has gone to sit on a shelf and be silent. Then it gives me two simple lines in the tone of a coach who understands I cannot hear more than that today.
[Status: progress acceptable]
[Recommendation: accumulate momentum]
I point at the wall of boxes and nod like a person who knows what that means.
"Tomorrow," I say to the room.
The fridge clicks. The lift dings for someone else. The fans keep time. I brush my teeth with a focus that would have passed exams once. I leave the curtain a hand's width open so the day cannot sneak up on me with a knife. I turn the monitor off, and the desk becomes a plain without a horizon.
In bed, with the hall light off and the door half closed, sleep comes with its little catalogue of objects. Kettle. Coin in mug. Magpie. Lift voice. Breath in fours. A kettle icon that looks friendlier than a face. A cartoon dust cloud. A banner with lights and the first door on the first real stage, somewhere on the other side of this week.
[Timer: T-55:58:02]
"Yes," I say to nobody.
Which, tonight, is the same as saying it to myself.