The phone buzzed. A low-battery warning popped up, dimming the celestial glow. 20% remaining.

I looked up from the screen. The bus was quiet, the streetlights of the city blurring past like streaks of rogue comets. Everyone else had the newer, larger screens—the iPhone 6s or the massive Galaxies that looked like tablets in their hands. They had more space, more clarity, more everything.

I’d downloaded the wallpaper on a whim during a lonely Tuesday in 2014. It was titled "Infinite Reach," a high-res shot of a star nursery somewhere in the Sagittarius Arm. On this tiny screen, the stars were just white dots, but if I squinted, I could imagine the heat of those newborn suns.

My iPhone 5s was a relic, held together by a prayer and a hairline crack that ran through the center of a swirling purple galaxy. Every time I swiped to unlock, the glass bit into my thumb, a sharp reminder that I was still tethered to this world, even while my eyes were lost in another.

The pixelated edges of the nebula on my screen didn’t match the depth of the void I was feeling. 758 by 1136. It was a specific, cramped resolution—the dimensions of a digital window I’d been staring through for three years.

But as I looked back down at my cracked little universe, I realized I didn't want a bigger window. I just wanted to be where the stars were. I pressed my thumb against the glass one last time, felt the sting of the crack, and watched as the screen finally flickered into black.

Should we continue this story by focusing on , or