His real-life hobbies faded. Books remained untouched, and the guitar he used to love playing sat unnoticed in the corner. His friends noticed his detachment, the glazed look in his eyes when they tried to engage him in conversation. He was present in body but absent in mind, his thoughts lost in the labyrinth of the internet. The eternal source of information had consumed Ken, leaving him a prisoner in the digital world he had embraced.

Somewhere not far from Edinburgh, where narrow streets whispered tales of yore, you could often see an old woman named Morag. Her white hair framed a face that, despite the creases of time, retained an innocent beauty – like a delicate rose peeking through a morning frost. Morag resided in a snug flat adorned with knick-knacks and memories.

Each day, she would find herself perched by the window, knitting needles clicking like a metronome, her gaze fixed on the horizon. Her neighbours often heard her chattering away, regaling them with glorious accounts of her daughter, Adah, who she claimed had just called that morning. “She’s doing wonderfully, my dear!” Morag would exclaim, her voice imbued with warmth. Yet, despite the fervour of her tales, the phone remained silent, its screen void of Adah’s name.

Morag’s neighbours, charmed by her enchanting spirit, never questioned her narratives. They were delighted in her stories, woven with threads of love and longing. In her heart, Morag knew the truth – the silence of the phone echoed louder than any jubilant tale. Yet, in her solitude, she found solace in dreaming, crafting a world where her daughter’s love was always just a call away.

Lorna often spoke of her solitude to her husband, Louis. “I feel so alone,” she’d sigh, gazing out of the window. Louis, a practical man, heard these words as accusations. He worked hard, provided for them, and her loneliness felt like a judgment on his efforts.

One quiet afternoon, while sipping tea, Lorna had an epiphany. The solitude she was lamenting wasn’t about a lack of company, but a yearning for a past self. It was a longing for the girl she had been, unburdened by responsibilities, free to chase whims and dreams without the weight of expectation.

Her “loneliness” was a nostalgic echo, a desire to shed the mantle of adulthood and briefly revisit the carefree innocence of her childhood. It wasn’t a complaint against Louis, but a quiet conversation with her own soul. Understanding dawned, and with it, a sense of peace.

The fluorescent hum of the office was the soundtrack to Hagan’s existence. Every day bled into the next: wake, work, eat, sleep, repeat. He believed he was living a healthy life.

He started his days with a smoothie full of vitamins and minerals and went straight to work, where he would spend his day doing the same routine with projects, meetings, reports until the sun went down. He found solace in his organised schedule, the predictable rhythm, a comfort against the chaos of the outside world. He would sometimes even work overtime.

But Hagan hadn’t seen a proper sunrise in months. The sunlight, once a daily companion, was now a distant memory, replaced by the pale glow of his computer screen. He would be in the office by the time the sun rose and leave after it went down. When his colleagues would wonder about Hagan, he would say that he had to keep up with all the new trends.

Hagan considered his life healthy. He spent most of his day sitting down like a healthy human, only sometimes suffering from insomnia at night.