Co had three views on his new film, and one of them was his own. He sat on the studio floor and refreshed the page again. The number did not move. He was twenty-eight, and he had spent two years making short films no one watched. He wanted his stories to change how people saw their own lives. Right now, they changed nothing. The film had cost him everything he owned. He looked at the camcorder on its tripod near the window, the one with the rounded lens and the side grip. He had bought it used, traded his old laptop for it, and shot the whole film through it. The footage looked good. The story was true. But truth did not upload itself into people's feeds. Outside his window stood the production studio where he rented editing time. The bright red play button glowed above the door of the place across the street. He knew every filmmaker in this city dreamed the same dream he did. He wanted more than views. He wanted to build a world where every building held a piece of his imagination. Three views would not build anything. Co pulled off his hoodie. Underneath he wore a plain white shirt with bold black letters across the chest. The letters said LETS TALK. He had printed a box of them, sure people would want to wear his brand. The box still sat unopened by the door. He stood and looked out at the wide two-story building down the block. Blue letters covered its front, and a huge social media logo hung above the entrance. That company posted other people's videos to millions of followers. If they shared his film, everything changed. He had emailed them once and gotten silence. So he stopped waiting. He grabbed the camcorder off the tripod and carried it out the door. He walked to the two-story building and pushed inside. A woman at the front desk looked up from her screen. "I made a film," Co said. He held up the camcorder. "Six minutes. It's the best thing I've ever done. I need you to watch it." She raised one eyebrow. "We get twenty of these a day." "Then I'll be the one you remember." He set the camcorder on her desk and pressed play. The tiny screen lit up. She watched. Her eyes did not leave it once. When the clip ended, she was quiet. Then she took out her phone and photographed his shirt, the black letters facing her. "LETS TALK," she read aloud. She looked at him. "That your channel?" "It will be," Co said. She slid a card across the desk. "Send me the file tonight. We post it tomorrow. But I want more than one video. If tomorrow works, you owe us a series by Friday." Co took the card. His hands shook. He had wanted one door to open. Now it had, and it demanded four more films he had not made yet.

The company posted Co's film the next morning. He sat on the studio floor and watched the number climb. Twelve views. Fifty. Two hundred by noon. He needed those viewers to follow his own page, or the film would fade and he would owe the woman four videos with nothing behind him. Views were not a following. He needed people to click his name and stay. So he built his page that afternoon. He wrote his channel name across the top: LETS TALK. He uploaded the film again himself. Then he stared at the follower count. It read zero. Co left the studio and walked. He needed a real audience, not strangers scrolling past. He passed a barbershop with a bold vintage sign, MARICEAU BARBER, and stopped. Through the glass he saw men waiting in chairs, phones in their hands. A place where people talked and shared. He went in. On the wall behind the register hung a bright plaque. LIKE. comment. SHARE. The words glowed in loud colors, a joke and a command at once. Next to it hung a movie poster. THE LIFE OF A HUSTLER. The credit at the bottom read: Directed by Mariceau Barber. The barber looked up from his clippers. He nodded at Co's shirt. "You make films too?" "I do," Co said. "One's live right now. On a page nobody follows yet." The barber cut his clippers off. "I put my movie on this wall so people would ask about it. Cost me nothing but the print." He pointed at the plaque with the loud letters. "Ask for the share. Every time." Co pulled out his phone and held it up. "Then watch mine. Right here." He played the film for the room. The men lowered their own phones. When it ended, the barber wiped his hands and typed Co's page into his own phone. He turned the screen to the others. "Follow him," the barber said. "And share it before you leave." They did. Co watched his count move on his own screen. One. Six. Fourteen. The barber posted the film to his shop page, and the number jumped again. By the time Co stepped back onto the sidewalk, his page held sixty followers. Not millions. But real ones, with faces he had seen. Co stood outside the barbershop and refreshed. Sixty-two now. Sixty-five. The page was alive. Then the woman's demand came back to him. Sixty-five people had followed him for one film. On Friday they would open his page and expect the series. Four videos. He had none of them shot. He had spent the whole day chasing followers, and now the followers were the problem. They were watching. And he had three days to give them something to watch.