Sir: I was walking on Butler Street this morning when, quite suddenly and without any warning that I had noticed, my phone screen went blank.

This was the most appalling catastrophe I could remember, although I couldn’t remember much because how could I without my phone? Suddenly the familiar real world, the world I live in every day through my phone screen, was snatched away from me and extinguished, and in place of the rational digital universe that makes sense to me, I was plunged into a nightmare realm cobbled together from primitive material parts. Human-like creatures made of some sort of meat-like substance were marching up and down the sidewalk, some rationally gazing into phone screens, but others staring straight ahead of them like beasts, as though navigating in this surreal world of flesh and dirt could be accomplished with the eyes alone, without the assistance of Gemini or Siri. Most horrifying of all, some of them appeared to be engaging in unmediated conversation, mouth to ear, without the interposition of cameras and microphones.

What a dreadful state of things! I saw colors and heard frequencies the human mind was never meant to process. Above all, the mad world I fell into was appallingly huge, with a hugeness that could never be compressed into the sane dimensions of a phone. I felt cast adrift on some kind of body of water so enormous that one could not even see the other side of it, if such a thing were possible.

Now, my terror was brief, as moments later my phone started up again, and a reassuring message appeared on the screen to say that my operating system had been updated.

But what if it had been a real failure? What if the battery had discharged completely? What if one of the internal components had failed? The universe would have been destroyed at that moment, and I would have been forced back to the animal state of poking my way through a world of material objects by instinct!

Clearly there is a weak spot in the fabric of our reality that requires reinforcement. Immediate action is essential if we are to prevent tragedy. First, and most importantly, we must take steps to make sure phone screens are no longer capable of going blank. Even the thirty seconds during which my screen was black plunged me into depths of terror that must have taken years off my life. But second, while we are strengthening our electronic infrastructure. some temporary measures must be taken. I suggest that, if it is possible for government agents to venture into the world of the material without losing their sanity, the government should undertake to drape the most terror-inspiring sights, such as the uncanny bipedal meat agglomerations, with some kind of material popover, so that they cannot be seen without deliberately tapping on them. It may require effort, but think of the consequences if the effort is not made! Any mass-blanking event in our phone population would result in a epidemic of insanity, and insanity is fun only when it is experienced through social media. We must take steps now to prevent good sane Americans from falling out of the real world into the material world, and we must do it before the insidious forces of materiality have a chance to sneak up on us. —Sincerely, Japheth22843, Facebook.