The Digital Vault

AI generated image of a person on their phone while on the bus

The terminal is unusually quiet today, but it isn't the kind of silence you find in a library. It is a heavy, collective isolation. Almost every person in my line of sight is staring into a handheld glow. We are all physically pressed together on these plastic benches, yet we are mentally miles apart, locked in our own digital vaults.

I am watching a group of three teenagers sitting together. They are clearly friends, yet they haven't spoken a word to each other in twenty minutes. Their thumbs move in a synchronized dance, scrolling and tapping. Occasionally, one will tilt their screen toward another, a silent "look at this" that is met with a brief smirk before they both descend back into the glow.

Professor Matthews talks about how an observational essay is like a camera recording in real time (Matthews 117). If I am the camera, I’m seeing a strange new version of "human interaction" where physical presence is secondary to the digital stream.

Across from me, an older woman is the only one without a phone. She looks like a relic from another era. Her hands are folded over her purse, and she is watching the rest of us with a look that sits somewhere between curiosity and pity. There is a clear Conflict here: the tension between her desire for human connection—eye contact, a nod, a "hello"—and the invisible walls the rest of us have built with our devices.

I find myself wondering about her "version of things," as Anne Lamott puts it (Lamott 6). In her eyes, are we all just "scraps" of a society that has forgotten how to be present?

John D'Agata mentions that real knowledge is problematic because it’s so hard to nail down, and looking at this silent crowd, I realize he’s right (D'Agata 132). I see the phones, but I don’t know the stories they’re telling. I don’t know if the girl in the corner is texting a breakup or a job offer. I only see the "truth" of the blue light reflecting in her eyes.

When the intercom finally cracks through the silence to announce the 4:15 express, the "climax" is just a collective standing-up, a sea of people moving in unison without ever breaking their gaze from their palms. It’s a quiet, eerie resolution to an hour of shared solitude.

Works Cited

D’Agata, John. "We Might as Well Call it the Lyric Essay." ENG 211: Introduction to Creative Writing, 2025, pp. 129-132.

Lamott, Anne. "12 Truths I Learned from Life and Writing." TED, Apr. 2017, www.ted.com/talks/anne_lamott_12_truths_i_learned_from_life_and_writing.

Matthews, Araminta Star. "Introduction to Writing Creative Nonfiction: Hint—It’s Not What You Think." ENG 211: Introduction to Creative Writing, 2025, pp. 112-118.