No. 5 — Downloading the Present
- Miriam Tocino
- Jul 21
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 4
Not everything worth noticing makes a sound.
Some technologies are designed to help.
Others are designed to hold our attention and never let go.
There’s even a science for this. It’s called captology: the study of how digital systems are built to influence our choices, almost without us noticing.
It can be brilliant. And also… a bit unsettling.
Because when technology does its job too well, it can pull us away from the only moment we truly have. This one.
This story is about that.
About tuning in, tuning out, and learning to recognize when silence matters more than the next notification.
A story with a spotlight-hungry helmet, a buzzing meteor shower, and a no-signal zone where time finally stands still.
Because not everything that buzzes deserves your attention.
Downloading the Present
That night, the sky over the Binary World buzzed with shooting stars. Pixels burned into digital embers and slid down into the beach sand.
Zerus, lying on his back, followed each flash with eyes so wide they looked ready to glitch. His STAR-CATCHER HELMET 1024-TC vibrated every time it detected motion.
Bip. Shooting star to the west!
Bip. Possible shooting star to the south!
Bip. Bip. Bip. Wait… northeast!
“Attention, universe and beyond!” Zerus declared, as his helmet buzzed nonstop. “Tonight, I’m missing nothing.”
Beside him, Ona stared up at the sky — no helmet, no alerts, and no rush to “not miss out.”
“Zerus…” Ona began, using the slow tone of someone trying not to trigger a 404 in the other person. “Don’t you think your helmet has a bit too much… personality?”
“Personality? This is my best invention!” Zerus replied, while the helmet vibrated so much it looked ready to take off on its own.
“Well, to me it feels like an app with main-character syndrome.”
Zerus, fully in his zone now, switched the helmet to “ultra-mega-surveillance mode.” It buzzed every single millisecond.
Bip. Bip. Biiiiiip.
It was like trying to relax on a beach while someone reads every group chat message out loud, Ona thought to herself. Arguing with Zerus in full-on FOMO mode was like walking straight into a wall.
So she did it. Ona turned off his helmet. Without warning.
“ONA!” Zerus yelped, sitting up in the sand.
“That was… that was like unplugging the whole universe!”
Ona didn’t answer. She picked up a stick and started drawing a wide circle around them in the sand.
Zerus watched her, curious.
“What’s this, Ona? Wait… a force field? Or… a secret landing zone for alien ships?”
“It’s a NO-SIGNAL ZONE,” Ona said with a smile, closing the circle.
Zerus sat in silence, processing the strange emptiness where all those alerts used to be. Finally, he let go of the helmet, pushed it outside the circle, and lay back down beside her.
The buzzing sea of data filled the quiet.
“Ona…” Zerus whispered at last, “what if there’s something huge hiding here too — between one star and the next? And the best part… is that it doesn’t even buzz!”
Big Questions for Small Thinkers
Zerus wanted to see every single shooting star. Have you ever felt like you had to keep up with everything happening around you?
Ona says the most beautiful part is what happens between the stars. What do you think she meant by that?
If you had a helmet like Zerus’s, would you turn it off — or keep chasing every shooting star? Why?
