The Every

by Dave Eggers

On the subway platform, she’d dropped a wrapper, and before she could pick it up, an older woman with a phone had filmed the crime. Like a growing majority of tech innovations, the invention and proliferation of Samaritan, an app standard on Everyphones, was driven by a mixture of benign utopianism and pseudofascist behavioral compliance. A million shams—a bastard mash of Samaritan and shame—were posted each day, exposing swervy drivers, loud gym grunters, Louvre line-cutters, single-use-plastic-users, and blithe allowers of infants-crying-in-public. Getting shammed was not the problem. The problem was if you got ID’d and tagged, and if the video got widely shared, commented on, and tipped your Shame Aggregate to unacceptable levels. Then it could follow you for life.

“Now I’m thinking if I can just kill emojis, that would be enough,” Delaney said. “You see the Secretary of State use a few today?” Wes asked. “He was celebrating the anniversary of glasnost, and he used a dancing rainbow. On the official state account. Our species has no dignity. No path to dignity.”

“Well, sometimes I’ll text a friend—just something like a rainbow emoji followed by a two-way arrow and a question mark. You know, to let them know I’m happy and hope they’re happy.” “And then you wait,” Delaney said. “Right!” Shireen said. “And while I’m waiting…” “You wonder if they hate you and are plotting against you and will spread lies about you and ruin your life and you’ll want to die?” Delaney said. She expected a laugh, but the faces of Shireen and Carlo had gone gray. “I wouldn’t use those words, exactly,” Shireen said, “but—”

Just as Joan had warned, each time a new person spoke, that person felt it necessary to be more emotionally maimed than their predecessors, and to reach deeper into history—theirs personally or that common to humanity—for comparisons to what had happened and how they felt about it. Someone’s uncle had been a hostage in Iran and they now knew precisely how that experience had felt. Another countered that making Iranians, Khomeini, too, into stereotypical Middle Eastern villains, even for the purpose of a post-p36d (the incident’s initials had been lowercased to diminish its power) anecdotal corollary, was regressive and a retraction should be made. A retraction was made, among many regretful and healing tears.

“Each year, we spend more time examining each other, judging each other, mentally murdering each other. And we wonder why the pills continue to get stronger. We are numb and want to be number.”

The crime was what? The crime was a private moment—something apart, something for herself after thirty-seven years of marriage. But there was no more nuance, no more give, no more gray. Only absolutes.