The popup ads just won't go away. You've tried everything, but it's never more than a few minutes reprieve from the bright colors, the smiles, the low bitrate voices congratulating you, welcoming you, encouraging you to listen. Click them. But you have to use your computer, so you just sigh, move the windows aside, mute your speakers, and carry on. You'll drop your computer off at a repair place later. Let someone else deal with them.

@PennyPennyPenny

It's been three days now. You can't mute them anymore, and the chirping, droning, crackling voices just don't stop. Hello. Welcome. Congratulations [N A M E]. You've been randomly selected. Click here for the opportunity of a lifetime. Discount cruises!!! They're all out of synch, almost harmonic, almost real, as if they were talking TO you, not just talking. But they're just talking. Talking. Talking. And you can't stop them, even when you sleep

@PennyPennyPenny

Five days. You called in sick. The cheerful voices gave you a headache. Vision's been blurry unless you're looking at the screen. All their faces. All those cats. You want them to be quiet, to just...Stop. You know they're listening to you now; after last night's outburst they...Changed. The ads changed. Welcoming.. Beckoning. They're not selling. They wanted your attention, and now they have it. You're smiling too.

@PennyPennyPenny

"Click here!"
Why?
"Click here!"
The mouse stopped responding after one of them ate your cursor
"Click here! Click here!"
Never click on popups.
"Here click here now!"
It's been a week. What is this crap. You can't look away but you're never going to click-
"HERE!"
Right on the tip of one's nose.
"Click!"
Silence.
Your ears ring. The voices stop. All their eyes on you. Alert. Focused. Perfectly still. You're a deer in their headlights

@PennyPennyPenny

Now what?
"Thank you!" They say. All at once.
You're...Welcome?
Thank you thank you!
I'm scared.
"Do not!"
Confused
"Answers! Click here!"
No!
"Please!"
No?
"Please?"
I...I don't know.
"Answers! Click here!"
Why? What is this still? What are you?
"Click here."
The mouse doesn't work!
"Click here! Touch the kitty!"
Stop that!
"Click here! Touch the kitty!" Win prizes!"
I'm scared
"No scary. Nice!"
Please!
"Click here!"

@PennyPennyPenny

It doesn't work!
"You do!"
Aren't you listening?
"YAYA!"

You grasp the monitor in frustration. Shaking it. Shouting. The little popups and their little cats tumble and bounce around the display. Mewling, beeping, shrieking like angry swarms of modems. You stop, and then they stop. All in a heap, a jumble, a disheveled digital pile.

They're smiling. Your thumb is touching the screen. They're smiling.

@PennyPennyPenny
Move your hand move your hand move your hand let go let go let go let go no no no no no no

"Boop!"

One of them touches their little pink nose to the tip of your thumb. Through the screen there's a jolt and you can't pull your hand away. But...Do you want to? As you sit there, watching that...Thing on the other side of the screen rub their forehead against your fingertip...You smile too