Cell
I lost my telephone again. I’d had it for some six months after losing the old one on a bus – and I guess that in its own sentient way this new one knew that his time had come too - it was time to slip away quietly on the bus.
I’ve heard about cell-phones exploding in somebody’s ears, cell-phones protesting their status as objects or objects of statushood through self-immolation, severing major arteries in their violent departures. My cell-phones however, prefer to slink off quietly, stay behind on the bus and hope for a kinder owner. Maybe an owner who will use them for more than just ordering pizza or, when the mood falls in, a kebab.
I don’t mind losing a bit of equipment or electronics or gadget, whatever they’re called these days. Material things have never meant that much to me. I’m glad for my comic book collection, but I’ll get rid of them if I have to, my Lois and Clark DVDs are still wrapped in plastic, I enjoy the idea of things rather than the thing itself. At the same time, I don’t like the thought of someone else touching my stuff. Not the tangible stuff per se, but the photographs I’ve taken. They’re not special by any means, but they’re a glimpse into my personal life. Neither do I like the idea of someone discovering the long list of outgoing calls to pizza places. My pictures of Andreas. My lack of incoming text messages. The vast amount going out, into an empty space it would seem. Me expressing love for someone. My mother telling me, in her own special way, that she” l0Ves” her “dcgghter”.
These little misspellings, oddities and fast food orders that make up our selves and our lives.
I think that the trouble is that the cell-phone is too exact a reflection of who you are rather than a lacking one, and that might be what makes me uncomfortable. Not that someone in some poorer suburb of Stockholm - say Danderyd perhaps - might be counting his lucky stars to have found such a magical thing as a cell-phone, whose sale will surely save his family from starvation. Rather its the thought that before selling it, he might laugh not at the quirky road-signs in my cell-phone album, but the person he imagines to be behind it. A slightly overweight greasy Calzone-lover. Someone with a somewhat simple sense of humor, what with a snapshot of “Restaurant Hos” (Hos!). His smirk at someone who either has a boyfriend that could have done better, or someone has an obsession for creeping into that particular boy’s apartment and taking pictures of him while he sleeps.
The sad thing is not this fool on of the brink of poverty laughing madly at the mental picture my cellphone might conjure, but the fact that it wouldn’t be too far from the truth. Losing a phone I guess, reminds you just how simple you really are. Just a bit of this and that. A fragment. A face of the street, a silly-looking snapshot on someone else’s phone – a cellphone which like you, might one day decide to stay on the bus 21 while everyone else gets off, resuming the life that continues outside.
I’ve heard about cell-phones exploding in somebody’s ears, cell-phones protesting their status as objects or objects of statushood through self-immolation, severing major arteries in their violent departures. My cell-phones however, prefer to slink off quietly, stay behind on the bus and hope for a kinder owner. Maybe an owner who will use them for more than just ordering pizza or, when the mood falls in, a kebab.
I don’t mind losing a bit of equipment or electronics or gadget, whatever they’re called these days. Material things have never meant that much to me. I’m glad for my comic book collection, but I’ll get rid of them if I have to, my Lois and Clark DVDs are still wrapped in plastic, I enjoy the idea of things rather than the thing itself. At the same time, I don’t like the thought of someone else touching my stuff. Not the tangible stuff per se, but the photographs I’ve taken. They’re not special by any means, but they’re a glimpse into my personal life. Neither do I like the idea of someone discovering the long list of outgoing calls to pizza places. My pictures of Andreas. My lack of incoming text messages. The vast amount going out, into an empty space it would seem. Me expressing love for someone. My mother telling me, in her own special way, that she” l0Ves” her “dcgghter”.
These little misspellings, oddities and fast food orders that make up our selves and our lives.
I think that the trouble is that the cell-phone is too exact a reflection of who you are rather than a lacking one, and that might be what makes me uncomfortable. Not that someone in some poorer suburb of Stockholm - say Danderyd perhaps - might be counting his lucky stars to have found such a magical thing as a cell-phone, whose sale will surely save his family from starvation. Rather its the thought that before selling it, he might laugh not at the quirky road-signs in my cell-phone album, but the person he imagines to be behind it. A slightly overweight greasy Calzone-lover. Someone with a somewhat simple sense of humor, what with a snapshot of “Restaurant Hos” (Hos!). His smirk at someone who either has a boyfriend that could have done better, or someone has an obsession for creeping into that particular boy’s apartment and taking pictures of him while he sleeps.
The sad thing is not this fool on of the brink of poverty laughing madly at the mental picture my cellphone might conjure, but the fact that it wouldn’t be too far from the truth. Losing a phone I guess, reminds you just how simple you really are. Just a bit of this and that. A fragment. A face of the street, a silly-looking snapshot on someone else’s phone – a cellphone which like you, might one day decide to stay on the bus 21 while everyone else gets off, resuming the life that continues outside.
