Default Destiny

Aisha’s thumb hovered over her phone, scrolling through TikTok with a ritual she scarcely noticed.

Videos appeared with uncanny precision: a meditation clip matching her mood, a review of a fantasy novel she had not yet discovered, a tiny rebellion against a hairstyle trend she had not known annoyed her.

“You might like this,” the app suggested, as if peering into her mind and holding up a mirror.

Seconds blurred into minutes. Then hours.

The algorithm did more than anticipate her interests; it shaped them, curating a version of herself she was only beginning to recognize. Each joke she liked, each tutorial she lingered on, each comment she saved nudged her identity, imperceptibly, like water carving stone.

For the first time, she paused.

Was she scrolling toward herself, or toward something designed to feel like herself?

Outside, the city hummed: cars, conversations, flickering streetlights. But its noise could not reach the deeper human longing for connection.

Long before screens, people gathered around fires, in marketplaces, at religious ceremonies, and at communal celebrations. They marked the seasons, mourned their dead, celebrated new lives, and enacted rites of passage. These gatherings gave people more than company. They gave them belonging, identity, and purpose.

Aisha swiped again.

The modern feed had become another gathering place, only this one could fit inside her palm.

The “For You” page was a digital campfire: click, linger, share, comment, like, subscribe. It offered the same thing older communities had always offered: the feeling of being part of something.

But this community was different.

There was no elder, priest, teacher, or neighbour deciding what she should see. There was an algorithm, learning quietly from every pause and every swipe.

A teen in a thrifted cardigan held up a dog-eared Pride and Prejudice, delivering opinions in rapid-fire bursts. K-pop fans flooded hashtags with fancams. Wellness influencers shared meditation routines, mental health tips, and journaling prompts.

Each video was a doorway into someone else’s world. Each community offered its own language, humour, values, and judgments.

Aisha found herself adopting some of them without noticing.

Late that night, she tried to read offline. A book lay open on her lap, but her eyes kept returning to her phone. One notification led to another until the room seemed to hum with digital life.

She began to notice the pattern.

The videos she lingered on. The subjects that made her angry. The opinions she repeated. The things she suddenly wanted.

Some of them felt like discoveries.

Others felt strangely planted.

Did she choose these interests, or had the feed helped choose them for her?

For the first time, Aisha experimented.

She came across a video she felt conflicted about and did not like it. She paused over a post that was trending in a community she had been following for weeks.

Then she put the phone down.

She stared at the wall, watching shadows stretch across the room.

Awareness itself was a kind of choice.

The next day, she left the apartment.

The city was as loud as ever, but something felt different. Conversations were not curated. Laughter was not optimized. Smells were not filtered for engagement.

She watched a child chase pigeons, a man struggle with a bicycle, and a woman sketching the skyline in a notebook.

Life was unmediated, imperfect, and chaotic.

For the first time in weeks, Aisha felt fully present inside it.

Back home, she set a thirty-minute limit on TikTok.

The first hour was agony. Her thumb twitched with a muscle memory she had never realized she possessed.

Then something unexpected happened.

Silence returned.

She remembered ideas she had abandoned. She picked up a pencil and began sketching. She wrote half-formed sentences in a notebook. She called a friend.

None of these things had been suggested to her.

That distinction mattered.

The pull of the algorithm did not disappear.

One evening, she clicked into a thread filled with conspiracy theories. Allegiance was treated as virtue, doubt as betrayal, and engagement as a moral obligation.

She scrolled for hours.

It was fascinating and frightening.

And then she recognized the pattern.

The same machinery that could lead her toward a book review or a meditation routine could lead her somewhere much darker. The algorithm did not care whether the thing holding her attention was beautiful, useful, destructive, or false.

It cared that she stayed.

Aisha began keeping a notebook beside her phone.

She recorded what she watched, what made her anxious, what made her angry, what made her feel inspired, and what she returned to without knowing why.

Slowly, the invisible became visible.

She began to understand that belonging could be both a gift and a tether. Communities could give us language, purpose, and connection, but they could also shape what we considered normal, desirable, funny, frightening, or true.

The internet had not invented that power.

Families, teachers, religious institutions, friends, and cultures had always helped shape identity.

What had changed was the scale.

The speed.

The invisibility.

An algorithm could watch millions of people at once and learn what kept each of them looking.

But knowing what held her attention did not mean owning it.

Weeks passed.

Aisha still used TikTok. She did not delete the app or pretend she had become immune to its pull. She simply became more deliberate.

Sometimes she returned to the feed for entertainment. Sometimes she lost an hour to it.

But now she noticed when she was doing it.

She chose what to follow. She left conversations that made her smaller. She sought out things that challenged rather than merely confirmed her.

And sometimes she put the phone down.

One evening, a wellness influencer appeared on her feed with a “life-changing reading challenge.”

The old reflex would have made her click immediately.

Instead, she hovered.

Why am I drawn to this?

What do I actually want from it?

She put the phone down.

Then she opened her notebook and wrote her own list of books she wanted to read, ideas she wanted to explore, and things she wanted to make.

For once, the prompt had come from her.

In the quiet of her room, the city hummed beyond her window: cars, conversations, distant music.

Aisha looked at the blank page.

There would always be voices telling her what to want. There would always be communities ready to give her belonging. There would always be systems designed to capture her attention.

But attention could still be interrupted. A choice could still be made.

She picked up her pen and began.

Collection: Literesque Prize 1, Creative Nonficion List
Style: Social Commentary