Wandering around the web is like living in a world in which every

Host: The café was a labyrinth of screens — flickering, glowing, breathing like a hundred miniature galaxies. Rain clung to the glass windows outside, refracting the city’s lights into constellations that didn’t belong to the night sky but to the circuitry of human obsession.

The hum of Wi-Fi routers, the clicking of keyboards, the murmured rhythm of half-heard conversations — it all created a strange, digital symphony. A space that felt both crowded and infinite.

At a table near the back, Jack sat in front of an open laptop, its light painting his face in blue isolation. Jeeny sat across from him, her hands wrapped around a cooling cup of coffee, her eyes reflecting a thousand pixels.

Between them, a small napkin lay flat, scrawled with a quote in black ink, almost like a warning.

“Wandering around the web is like living in a world in which every doorway is actually one of those science fiction devices which deposit you in a completely different part of the world when you walk through them. In fact, it isn’t like it, it is it.”
— Douglas Adams

Jack: (grinning faintly) “Adams really saw it, didn’t he? We built his joke into reality — every click a new planet, every link a new life.”

Jeeny: “Yes. But he also saw the danger in it. A world without boundaries, where every doorway leads somewhere, but you never really arrive.”

Jack: “That’s the beauty of it. Infinite doorways. Infinite choices. You can go anywhere — learn anything — be anyone.”

Jeeny: (tilting her head) “And yet, you’re still here. Same café, same chair, same cold coffee.”

Jack: (laughs) “Touché. But that’s not the web’s fault. That’s mine. The tool’s neutral.”

Jeeny: “No tool is neutral, Jack. Every device rewrites its user. The web doesn’t just give us new doorways — it changes the rooms inside us.”

Host: The rain outside intensified, turning the city into a blurred reflection of itself. The café lights shimmered on the glass, making it seem as though the world was splitting — the physical and the digital overlapping in restless harmony.

A faint notification ping came from Jack’s laptop. He ignored it, though his eyes darted to the corner of the screen like a man fighting an addiction he pretended not to have.

Jack: “You make it sound sinister. It’s not rewriting us — it’s expanding us. The web is the first real expression of collective consciousness. We’re all connected.”

Jeeny: “Connected, yes. But anchored? No. You mistake connection for coherence. Adams was right — every link throws you into a new world, but none of them know how to hold you.”

Jack: “That’s freedom.”

Jeeny: “That’s drift. Freedom without grounding becomes chaos. You’re not exploring anymore — you’re wandering through other people’s algorithms.”

Jack: “So what’s the alternative? Staying still? Building walls? Ignoring the universe at your fingertips?”

Jeeny: “No. Just remembering that a universe without a center collapses into noise.”

Host: The sound of typing filled the air — not from them, but from strangers scattered around the café, each lost in their own digital pilgrimage. Every keystroke was a heartbeat in a body that spanned the globe.

Jeeny watched the rain bead down the glass, then vanish — much like the fragments of thought that vanish every time a screen refreshes.

Jeeny: “You ever notice how the web feels like memory without meaning? All these pages, these thoughts, these lives — floating in an ocean of relevance that lasts five minutes.”

Jack: “That’s just evolution. Thought moves faster now.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. It frays faster. We’ve traded depth for velocity. We don’t think — we skim.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s how our minds adapt to the infinite. You can’t wade through an ocean by counting its drops.”

Jeeny: “But you can drown in it.”

Host: A flicker of lightning outside. For a split second, their reflections vanished, replaced by the outside world — the wet pavement, the blur of headlights, a man holding an umbrella that turned inside out in the wind.

Then the glow returned. Screens alive. Eyes tethered. Reality, resumed.

Jack: “You talk like the web’s a disease.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s a mirror. It shows us what we’ve always been — curious, restless, terrified of stillness.”

Jack: “Then what’s wrong with that? Isn’t curiosity the core of being alive?”

Jeeny: “Yes. But curiosity without presence becomes escape. We don’t wander to discover anymore. We wander to disappear.”

Jack: (leaning back) “So you think we should stop wandering?”

Jeeny: “No. I think we should arrive once in a while.”

Host: A brief silence settled between them — not empty, but charged, vibrating with all the unsaid things. Outside, the rain slowed. The café air felt cleaner somehow, as if the storm had paused to listen.

Jack’s hand hovered above the laptop trackpad. His reflection — fragmented, pixelated — stared back at him from the black keys.

Jack: “Sometimes I wonder... if all this connection is just another form of loneliness. Like shouting across galaxies and mistaking the echo for a voice.”

Jeeny: (softly) “It is. But every echo started as a call. Maybe loneliness isn’t the absence of connection — maybe it’s the price of seeking too much of it.”

Jack: “You make it sound tragic.”

Jeeny: “It’s not tragic. It’s human. The web just gave us more mirrors to see it in.”

Host: The hum of machines filled the pause again — a thousand invisible circuits running in the walls, the ceiling, the air. Electric silence.

Jeeny leaned forward, her tone gentler now.

Jeeny: “The web isn’t evil, Jack. But it’s infinite — and infinity without silence is madness. Every doorway leads somewhere, but we need a home to return to.”

Jack: “And where’s home, Jeeny? Offline?”

Jeeny: “No. Inside.”

Host: The clock on the wall blinked midnight. The café’s lights dimmed slightly, the sign outside flickering — OPEN fading to OPE — then glowing back again.

Jack closed his laptop. The sudden lack of glow made the world around him seem startlingly real.

He looked up at her — truly looked — as if seeing her for the first time in weeks, maybe months.

Jack: “It’s strange. The more I travel online, the smaller everything feels. Like every new world is just another version of the same room.”

Jeeny: “That’s because the web isn’t a map, Jack. It’s a mirror maze. The more doors you open, the more reflections you find. But none of them can step outside.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “And you can?”

Jeeny: “No. But I’ve learned when to stop walking.”

Host: The rain finally stopped. Outside, the city’s surfaces gleamed — clean, quiet, reborn. Inside, the air had changed; lighter somehow.

Jeeny’s phone buzzed on the table. She didn’t pick it up.

For a moment, the café existed outside time — no pings, no scroll, no feed. Just two people suspended between infinite worlds, breathing in the miracle of one that still held them.

Jack: “So maybe Adams was right. The web is that science fiction world — every doorway leading somewhere new. But maybe... the trick isn’t to stop walking through them.”

Jeeny: “No. The trick is remembering where you started — so you don’t forget which version of you walked in.”

Host: The clock ticked once more, quietly.

And as the café lights dimmed, the last reflections faded from their cups, leaving behind only warmth — the simple, analog kind that no algorithm could replicate.

Outside, the city blinked. Inside, silence breathed.

And somewhere between the circuitry and the storm, the spirit of Douglas Adams laughed softly — because once again, humanity had built its own galaxy of doorways, only to rediscover that the only one that truly mattered…

…was the door back home.