There is a particular dead-eyed, mind-numbing exhaustion I feel at the end of every video meeting I’ve ever attended. Zoom is exhausting for many reasons, but the most important one is that it is missing a fundamental piece of social interaction—joint attention.

When I’ve felt depressed or isolated in the past, fiction has been a source of escape and catharsis. But during this lockdown, I've been struggling with stories. I've been streaming less television, reading fewer novels, and watching fewer movies than ever before. I've got a case of "narrative burnout."