UPDATE

Chapter One: End Of An Era.. Well, The Holidays...

Status: Forever Alone

Mood: Tired and Moody

Last Date: Never

“It’s alive!” my mother calledas I trudged sloppily down the stairs from my bedroom. She was in the kitchen, cutting up some capsicum and preparing dinner.

“It’s about time!” my father yelled jokingly from the dining room. He was sitting at the dark mahogany table with one leg crossed over the other.

And they were both staring at me.

“Mmm,” I muttered groggily, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I was definitely not in the mood to have a goody-goody family chat with my parents. I just wanted to eat my dinner, have a shower and get back into my room.

“What do you even do up in your room all day?” my father wondered aloud. To be honest the answer wasn’t really that complicated: technology. No, it was not like I was a part of ‘Anonymous’ plotting my revenge against the government for releasing the SOPA bill. I pretty much just sat on my laptop at my desk and wrote stories, or scrolled through my newsfeed in Facebook like a mindless zombie, or I was texting someone or I was reading on my Kindle.

I shrugged at my dad and he sighed. “You kids and your technology these days.”

Hypocrite much, Dad? Seriously, how many adults own Galaxy SIIIs or iMacs ‘these days’ yet still seem to get up teenagers every two seconds about us having our eyes glued to a screen?

Okay, maybe I spent an unhealthy amount of time engrossed in the activity occurring on the brightly lit screen that was my laptop, but what was technology made for if not to be used?

I just looked at him for a moment then pulled my phone out of the pocket of my bright pink jeans. I placed it on the table top and started scrolling through photos on 9GAG.

I could practically hear him roll his eyes at me as he uncrossed his legs and grabbed my phone, dragging it towards him over the tablecloth. He pressed the Home button then held the lock button until a red bar came into view.

A familiar red bar.

“Dad!” I whined, as he slid the bar across my screen and turned my phone off.

“No phone at the dinner table,” I grumbled, sliding the phone back over to me. I picked it up lazily and shoved it into the pocket of my jumper. Dad raised an eyebrow at me as if to say, ‘Don’t get moody with me,’ and I shot him a look that said, ‘I’m not!’ although I really was.

“Dinner’s ready!” my mother sung, carrying a tray of roast lamb towards the table. Dad and I sat up straight as she placed the tray carefully into the centre of the table, pulled off the teddy bear oven mitts and retreated back into the kitchen to retrieve the salad. I grabbed a plate from beside the lamb, keeping my eyes fixed on my father as he pulled out his BlackBerry and started to check his emails, thinking, ‘You’re such a hypocrite.’

Now, at this point you’re probably thinking that I eternally hate my parents for something they never did or that I’m just super emo, but that isn’t the case. I love my parents, as annoying as they are, it was just hard to get along with them after I’d just had an exhausting argument on Twitter with an illiterate keyboard warrior over homosexual marriage and why she thought it should illegal everywhere. Long story short, it ended in me super spamming her account and a few angry hackers on her case. I was kind of regretting the decision when it dawned on me that it could get me into some big web trouble, fast, and that seemed to have gotten me into some kind of depressed funk.