Spinning the wheel for our little livestream

We were all in our little boxes on the screen, a bit tired from the week. I shared my screen and there it was, this silly wheel I'd made just for us. It wasn't about winning anything, really. It was just a reason to look at each other and share a few minutes of something else.

The quiet before the spin

I remember clicking the button and the wheel starting to whir. For a second, no one said anything. Everyone was just watching that little cursor blur, waiting to see where it would stop.It’s funny how a simple animation can pull a group’s focus together like that. You could feel the collective pause, the shared breath held. It wasn't suspense, exactly. It was more like a tiny, shared moment of possibility.

When the game is just the excuse

The wheel landed on 'One-Minute Story'. The 'game' was for someone to start a story and we'd each add a sentence. But the real point was listening to each other's ridiculous contributions.We ended up with a saga about a detective duck and a missing rubber ducky. The story itself was nonsense, of course. But the sound of people trying not to laugh while coming up with the next line was the whole thing.

The sound of a smile

You could hear the smiles in their voices, that specific tone people get when they're grinning at their screen.

What was left when the timer ended

The minute ran out and we left the duck detective in a cliffhanger. We didn't even declare a winner. The wheel had done its job—it gave us a structure to be silly within.We just sat there for another minute, the formal part of the 'event' over. Someone made a comment about the duck's accent, and we all chuckled again, the tension of the workday completely gone.