It was like a near-death experience, but I did not end up looking down at my prone body lying there, inert. Nor did I have any feeling of deep peace, with no harps, no heat and no longing to stay ‘up’ there. (Clearly, I’m a failure at dying.)
Rather, I was in deepest panic as I watched my entire life go ‘plop’ into a toilet bowl. Somehow, as I lent over, my mobile phone made a final, successful bid to escape and took a deep dive into the inviting and, thankfully, clear waters below.
Woe was moi!
Seized by instinct, I plunged a hand into the toilet bowl after it, dragged the would-be escapee back to air – water pouring from it – seized the nearest towel and wrapped the phone vigorously, the better to dry it of all moisture. I shook it, and I shook and shook, as did my nerves.
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A child saved from drowning would not have been as passionately manhandled back to life. All soon seemed well, the only casualty being the charge point, as pointed out by the mobile itself which advised I should not charge it for a few hours until it had dried out.
To which my only response was: “Anything else? Anything? Please, I mean it.” There was nothing else.
As post-traumatic calm eventually set in, I wondered how it had come to this. How had I arrived at a situation where so much of the comfort in my life – and in so many other people’s – was now so dependent on this wondrous piece of technology? And in such a short number of years.
I, for one, lived the greater part of my life without a mobile phone. Now, I cannot be without it. If I leave it behind, anywhere, I am bereft. It’s as though I have left life and the world.
It is a great companion. With a mobile phone, you are never alone. The world is at your fingertips and, should you not be bothered about interacting with that world, you can find enough entertainment there to pass any hour, whether through scrolling on social media, listening to radio, watching radio, TV, YouTube, etc.
It is a wondrous invention, and I’m stuck with it.
For better or worse.
Phone, from Greek phōnē, for “sound, voice”.
