The kitchen smelled like burnt popcorn and nostalgia. Elena sat at the island, her laptop open, while her fifteen-year-old son, Leo, slumped in a chair, thumbing through a feed of hyper-edited fifteen-second clips.
Leo picked up his phone, looked at the glowing screen for a second, and then flipped it face down. "Ready for the next scene?"
"It's like magic tricks," Leo said, finally seeing the strings. "Once you see how the bird is hidden in the sleeve, the trick doesn't work the same way."
"You know," Elena said, sliding a bowl of semi-charred kernels toward him, "there was a time when you couldn’t just skip the parts you didn’t like." Leo didn’t look up. "Sounds inefficient, Mom."
"Watch this scene," she said. "No phone. Just three minutes."