Dark Mode

Diary of an Iterating Engineer

I crossed the hallway at night
lost in some other world
when the dark suddenly noticed me.

Not scary.
Just present enough
to interrupt whatever was in my head.

My hand found the switch
before I decided it should.

The light came on.
Too bright.
The kind I complain about
twelve hours a day.

Still,
I let it stay.

I went back to my desk,
opened my screen.

Black background.
Green and blue text
Calm Contrast.
Doing that quiet little dance
assuring things are running fine.

And without thinking about it,
I relaxed.

A dark room unsettles me.
A dark terminal comforts me.

In one, I stand still.
In the other, something waits for me to begin.

The light in the hallway works,
in a way screen light never does.

It redraws the room.
Edges return.
Corners remember themselves.
My eyes find somewhere to rest.

The screen does the same thing,
just differently.

Not by adding light,
but by agreeing on limits.

Maybe it isn’t darkness
I’m reacting to.

Or light.

Maybe it’s the moment
the world pauses long enough
to tell me
where I am.