After a year of Zoom-based interactions, the means through which we express ourselves and interact with others has changed significantly. To mark the impromptu transition to the cyber realm, I have catalogued ten of many unexpected observations.

1. Every background is a hidden object game.

With all respect towards privacy taken into account, backgrounds make an ample first impression. Details like book covers, room décor and wall hangings hint at someone’s interests. On a scale from “deep-cleaned” to “disorder”, the amount of effort devoted to backdrop prep suggests how people might handle their image.

Depending on the situation, a heavily curated office space or casual living room setting…

Some moments are buried like candles within the earth and this was one of them. A cold light cascaded along the room, the blue of porcelain dishes and an offbeat sky. Pale walls, crumbling at the edges, smudging away like blackboard chalk.

A dream then, with all its butter malleability. Clay-like in all the important aspects, yet steering the hand as one would a theatre marionette. A reality that only humbled in the aftermath, jarring wakefulness with its newfound absurdity.

This understanding did not trouble me at the time, walking those too pale walls, the low ceiling a cave without…