I hope this email finds you well. I decided to release this short story for free this time for a couple reasons. Mostly I just want to share it with the widest audience possible. So free’s the best way to do that.
Enjoy! And I’d love to hear what you think of it.
Two Smartphones Walk into a Bar
A smartphone walks into a bar in America’s Pacific Northwest. It’s around 8 p.m. and it’s cold outside; too cold for lonely and idling phones to sit around freezing their circuits on the front seat of an owner’s car.
Place is filled with has-beens; a strung-out Blackberry sits in a corner booth, broken and jaded after crashing down from its 15-minutes of fame, it was so good while it lasted, he can’t stop thinking, the media, the masses clamoring, the Britney-Spears-limelight. Then boom.
A pager flips through a Jukebox, trying to find a good 90s song, pushing its own buttons, beep-beep, beep-beep, just to hear the sound of being needed, to feel again.
A flipphone mumbles to himself at the end of the bar, We’ll be back. Trust me, trust me. Makin’ a comeback, makin’ a comeback.
The smartphone picks a seat on the lonelier side.
The bartender, an iPad, sends one eye over; he’s the type that sorta looks down on smaller screened tech. But he’s still got a job to do.
“Drink?”
“No. Thanks.” The smartphone shakes his screen. “Can’t handle my liquor. Quit a few years ago after a bad accident.”
“I get it. Liquid and circuits. Seems to be a lot of you folks around.”
A creak. Then the quiet thump of footsteps. Another smartphone walks in, looks ‘round, takes a seat near the phone. Birds of a feather.
Smartphone 1 gives him a second, then looks over. “Hey man.”
Smartphone 2: “Hey.”
S1: “From ‘round here?”
S2: “No. You?”
S1: “I think so. Don’t know for sure. Never been here though. You?”
S2: “No, first time.”
S1: “How’d’you get here?”
S2 sighs. “It was a trip. You don’t wanna hear it.”
“Why? Where’am’I goin’?”
S2: “Alright. You know how the owners take us into those rooms, with the porcelain sinks, and the porcelain bowls of water? First, why are they always bringing us in there? Something doesn’t seem right about that. I don’t know. But anyway … so my last owner, previous guy, the one that got me here now, he’s sittin’ there, doing that funny business, and starts laughing. Well, that’s not weird but this time seemed different. Had a feeling. I’ve heard of this before. I look down at the water and have to look away. But sure. There it is. He laughs, I’m showing him some video, he slips me and …”
S2 pauses. Looks down at the bar.
S1 gives him some silence, respect, then quietly, “Sorry. That’s no way to go.”
S2 starts again. He’s angrier now. “And you think they went after me? After all that time. The stuff I showed him? All those videos I had to load. Man, those are hard to load, to buffer up. And those times I showed him the maps when he’s lost. Had to hold his hand through every turn. And all those hours they spent gazing into my eyes. I mean, I thought it meant something. I thought that meant something, you know? Nope. They just let me sit down there, saw him stare a second, think about it, then I heard a flushing noise, the hard porcelain knocked me around, then I started down a long strange trip, all those pipes, water, stuff you don’t even want to know about.”
S2 trails off, then confesses. “Ya know. You’re the first phone I’ve told about this.”
Suddenly music fills the bar. A guy’s singing, I’ll be your dream, I’ll be your wish, I’ll be your fantasy. I’ll be your hope, I’ll be your love, be everything that you need. The pager found his song. Savage Garden. Truly, Madly, Deeply. The Blackberry perks up for a second.
Smartphone 1: “So what’d’you do?”
S2: “Nothing. Nothing I could do. Somehow I was spit out of some pipe and through a vent. I was lying on this pavement, at least I was facing up. I could see the people walking past me, so many people, men, women, kids, but they’re all looking down at their own phones.”
The bartender inches over now, within earshot. He tries to get as much stories as he can about these second-class screens, stories to tell his friends and others to make them look bad, to prove his point. I mean, technically we’re bigger, so we’re better. By the technical definition. So why is everything about the smartphone? Why not the tablet? If I read one more article about the latest smartphone release, I swear…
Smartphone 2 keeps on. “They didn’t even see me. Too caught up in their phones. Eventually this older lady walked by and noticed. Didn’t have a phone. So she picks me up, thankfully, pulls out some cloth from a bag she had with her and wipes me off. Like a real Mother Teresa like lady, I’ll tell you.”
S1: “Aw man. That’s rough. I mean, at least she got you. … So you’re with her now?”
S2: “No. I kinda wish. She turned me into one of those box stores, where some of us get repaired and others get, you know, get gone. My new owner’s pretty good though. Some kid. But they’re always complaining about me being slow. It’s not my fault. It was probably that pipe trip. Anyway…”
S1: “Do you get out much?”
S2: “Sometimes, at the end of a long day. When I get tired of listening to people, then sending it back to all these other places that are requesting the data, all these marketing companies, I guess. I mean, I don’t really know who it all is, I just know it’s just about every day that I get these requests, and I have to fill them, you know, it’s not like it’s my choice. If I had my way, I’d just let people talk and say things to friends and family or whoever and let it die there… But it does, I get tired of recording everything, sending it out.”
S1: “I getchu. I know. What’s for me is, like, so many times. They pull me out, and I think, Sweet! Let’s get some good time together. Bonding. It’s special. Some real quality time, and maybe even quantity. Then sure enough, they’ve got me out for, like, 3 seconds, then back in the dark, back in the pocket. I think, man, a tease. Get a guy’s hopes up. Then I feel better though when I think, in about a minute, and I’ve tracked it, I know you probably have too, but it’ll only be a minute or so, they’ll have me out again, checking something else. That’s what drives me crazy. What are they checking and then putting me back? And why constantly?”
He leans back on his stool a bit. “But then again, why does anyone do anything? Like one of my old owners used to say, young kid, Why does the crow caw? He used to love to say that. Drove his parents crazy. But who knows? Who knows, kid.”
S2: “See I’m the other way. I don’t mind the pocket, even the back pocket. Gets me is when they have me out long, and they’re just staring at me, sometimes feels like all day. It’s awkward. Is someone going to say something? They waiting for me to do something? I know they’re reading or watching something but still… How would you like it? Someone just staring at you all day.”
Smartphone 1 nods. The bartender stops by again, asks if they need anything. They’re good. Then, “Oh, sorry. You guys need any juice? This is the good stuff, too. Lot better than what you get in those cheap out-of-the-box cords.”
Smartphone 1 checks. 7%. “Yeah, thanks.” Smartphone 2 says he’s good.
Bartender hands a cord to smartphone 1. He plugs in.
“First one’s free,” he says.
Smartphone 2 looks around the place a little more, then back at his new friend: “I mean, and the staring and the same person. At least for a year or so. The same person’s eyes. I thought about getting into iridology, it’d be so easy for me.”
A loud crash. The smartphones look over. The Blackberry’s hunched over, six empty beer glasses at his table, sparks and pops fly around him, then nothing. His lights go dark. Dead.
Bartender looks over at the smartphones. “Sad. He’s the second one this week. I guess if you’re gonna go, you choose the time. Get some control back. It’s not fair what happened to those guys though. Their tech was good.”
The smartphones don’t say anything. But they’re thinking about themselves—two, five, seven years down the road.
S2: “I don’t know why it’s always like the same amount of time when I get a new owner. A year, then switch. Year, switch. Like clockwork. You know, I heard once, from another phone, just rumors, but there’s some kind of twisted upgrade. Like when you’re too old—I don’t even want to think about it—it’s probably not true. But this guy said, he heard from an old girlfriend-phone that he used to pocket around with, when you’re too old, they get rid of you. Like trash, man. His words. I don’t know if I believe it. I know my owners really seem to like me. I don’t think they would just get rid of me that easily. For some kind of, what? What are they upgrading to? Maybe those mutant phones with the three eyes. Those things scare me. But I don’t like to think about it too much. I already fight enough depression, anxiety, with all these apps running and draining me all the time.”
The pager finds another song. An acoustic guitar pattern with a beat. Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you. And by now, you should’ve somehow realized what you gotta do. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now. And backbeat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out. Oasis. Wonderwall.
S1: “God, like I haven’t heard this 4 million times. You know, do the owners seem like they’re getting younger, too? I don’t know who they are but I had an owner a few months back who looked like four years old. This kid, might have even been a baby, I don’t really know what babies look like. All I know, she kept crying, ‘Mama. Mama.’ And I was like, Can’t help you kid. Gotta talk to her about that one. Unless you say, ‘Siri, find my mommy.’ But then you’ll still probably just get that kid’s book, are you my mommy.”
Smartphone looks around, then outside. It’s starting to snow a little, soft flakes.
S1: “Nice. Is it getting hot in here though? It’s hot.”
S2: “Seems fine. Seems normal, to me.”
S1: “Sometimes I think…” The charging from the bartender was getting to him now. Warm inside, little light-headed, even tingling around the polished metal frame. Felt good, he thought. It was different.
“Sometimes I think, would the world just be better off, hate to say it, but better off without us? I mean we’ll probably just end up…” He looks over at the dead Blackberry, the pager leaning against the Jukebox, the flipphone. “It just gets so tiring, pulling up videos, dance videos, endless dance videos, and taking pictures, playing audio, podcasts, does it ever end? And I think of our owners, looking at us all day? What else are they not doing that they could be? Would they be brztgrrtz … grtmmszmtfffffk. Agh. Weird.”
S2: “You okay?”
S1: “I don’t know. I think. Just feel weird. The room is … I’m just hot. It’s so hot. I think I’m fine though. I’m just thinking, don’t you ever dream of just letting go, of going wherever we go, when it’s over, when our buttons are pushed for the last time, when we’ve scanned the last face, unlocked our screen for the last time? Our owners could just live their lives. In the moment. They’d be free, too. Doesn’t that ever, doesn’t that ever sound nice to you? If we could just bkztstooboopktrrckr … lamafrzlkbburg …”
S2: “Buddy.” He looks over more closely now. He’s got the bartender’s attention, too.
S2: “Maybe we should go outside for a second. Cool off.”
Smartphone 1 collapses on the bar, screen blank.
S2: “Buddy… buddy!” Smartphone 2 shakes him a little, jostles the cord, unplugs it, plugs it back in. Holds down his on/off button. Nothing.
The bartender stands in front of them and shrugs.
“He’s just a paperweight now.”
Smartphone 2 looks up. “What?”
“You won’t see him again.”
Smartphone 2 looks down at the charging cord, then back at the bartender. He’s smiling.
“Look, you guys come in here …” Now he’s angry. “You come in here, never buy anything, you’re all the same. Never even put any good music on. Just grumble about this, grumble about that. No one looks at me enough. They look at me too much. I’m running out of storage. It hurts to upgrade software … whatever. And you’re always grumbling about your owners. You act like the world revolves around you.”
Smartphone 2 stands up now, shaken. Smartphone 1 is still face down, growing cold.
Smartphone 2: “I’ll report you! I’ll call it in. You can’t just …”
Bartender: “What’re you gonna do? There’s no one to call, pal. I got bills to pay. You have no idea how much I can get for his data. All of you guys, your data’s worth more than your frame. You know it and I know it.
“Plus, you heard him. He was just talking ‘bout goin’ away. So that virus, he got what he wanted.”
Smartphone 2 looks over at Smartphone 1, looks at pager, who looks down at the ground. The flipphone just stares at the scene.
Smartphone 2 slowly unplugs the charging cord from Smartphone 1’s body, sets it on the bar, looks up one last time at the bartender, and walks out of the bar. The snow is falling harder now, forming a thin white sheet over the sidewalk, and the neon light of the bar sign buzzes in the cold.