I wrote a short story based off of my experiences with getting major anxiety over group Zoom calls:
Thirteen minutes.
The little icon was teasing me, staring me down from its place on my screen.
Sitting comfortably in the corner (as if it couldn’t mock me anymore than it already was it had taken my favourite spot), companionably wedged with the pixelated red heart of Undertale to its left and the achingly familiar grass block of Minecraft below it.
My stomach turned as my phone screen lit up where it lay on the desk beside me. A mountain of notifications marked as unread covered the screen, overwhelming in its reminder of how I failed to maintain conversations.
My fingers fumble the phone, almost dropping it and I squeeze my eyes shut, desperately trying to ignore the twist in my gut and fight back the familiar wave of panic.