“ay bro, wanna go to the rec this weekend? super saturday deal is on :D”
“hey baby, ill ttyl k? <3 ima b late for the bus”

“study group 2nite, same time same place? 8)”

Send. Send. Send.

The outdated Nokia cell phone makes the little “letter going into the envelope” animation as the messages are sent across cyber space to their respective destinations. They struggle against the flow of the thousands of other texts being sent at the same time from different locations by different people to different people.

Message delivered. Message delivered. Message delivered.

At that exact same time, thousands of other messages will pop up on the screens of thousands of other cell phones accompanied by a beep, a jingle, a vibration, or silence. Sooner or later, the message will be opened, read, and then hopefully replied to, depending on the user’s emotions. Some people react with laughter, others with anger, or maybe sadness. Others may glance over the message indifferently and simply reply with a “k” or “lol”: the two simplest ways to put an end to a prolonged discussion with someone who is of no interest.

I look up from my phone as I prepare to board the irritatingly yellow school bus that has just pulled up, bringing with it a cloud of black pollution. The double doors hiss open as they have thousands of times before and the wave of sound slaps me in the face, ruffling my long black hair. Like a lion’s roar, the smell and voices of 37 adolescents bellow out of the mouth of the bus. Turning on my headphones and keeping my head low, I enter the jungle of students, avoiding eye contact with the beasts. I firmly plant my body into my usual seat in the back of the bus and crank up the volume of my music. As the scenery of apartment buildings and convenience stores flash past, their bland colors blending into one another in a single spectrum, I send a couple more texts.

Finally, the bus inches up to the last stop and the doors hiss open again. The bus driver’s grim expression nods my way, urging me, the only person left on the bus, to get out so she can get on with her life. I zip up my black leather jacket and shimmy off the bus, her permanent scowl following me the whole way. I trudge through the inches of snow to the house farthest down the street situated in the center of a cul-de-sac. Without turning down my music, I slip into my house and catch a glimpse of my parents engaged in verbal and physical combat before falling into the temporary comfort of my bed.

I let out a sigh and unlock my night stand drawer, taking out the iPhone to find a couple new text messages on there.

“ay bro, wanna go to the rec this weekend? super saturday deal is on :D”
“hey babe, ill ttyl k? <3 ima b late for the bus”
“study group 2nite, same time same place? 8)”
“would mr jackson lay off my case already -_- smh.”
“dude tht movie was hella tight. A+”
“new headfones make ma music ham. best invstmnt evaaa”
“come on man. she so ratchet, move on w/ yo lyf”
I flip through the rest of the texts and then turn off the music, right in the middle of the guitar solo. As I pull off my headphones, I feel my force field crumbling away into dust; I can hear my parents arguing downstairs, their shrill voices squeezing past the cracks around my locked door and swirling around me, taunting me.
Regardless, I force a smile, a slight quiver of the upper lip, in response to the first text. “ya sure man u kno im down, pick u up @ 7” I type slowly, trying to get the reply just right. Send.
The Nokia in my pocket buzzes; the vibrations run down my leg. It says “ya sure man u kno im down, pick u up @ 7”.
For the past two years, I have carried with me the Nokia everywhere I go, while leaving the iPhone in my room. I send texts to my iPhone while outside to play off the image of myself as a normal teenager with friends and a social life. Playing pretend. Not as fun as it may sound, but I’m the only person I can put up with, so I’ll have to do. It’s all practice.
I place the Nokia back into my pocket and return to my iPhone to respond to the second text. I try to pull off a tender, loving face as I type “np bby, c ya tonite ;)”. Send. Again, the Nokia vibrates in my pocket.

For the rest of the day, and long into the night, I message myself back and forth on the two phones. By the end of the day, I am exhausted. Too much emotion. Too much commotion. Too much communication. Too many voices.

I send the last text of the night before sinking into my pillow. “Luv ya babe, gnight ^_^”
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After another torturous day of school, I’m back on the bus, surrounded by the obnoxious teenagers running on hormones. Again, my tunnel vision is locked onto the small white screen, thumbs madly typing away. “so wuts up babe?”

The Nokia in my hand suddenly bursts into life with a text box. “not much. u?”

I feel the blood wash out of my face as I drop the phone. It breaks into two at my feet, and the screen fades to a dead black. This can’t be possible. I’m the only person who should be in possession of the key to my night stand drawer and the phone numbers to the two phones. Nobody could have possibly just sent me a text message. Maybe I imagined it.

Someone’s tapping my shoulder. I turn and see this cute blonde headed girl in a pink hoody that I’ve never noticed before poking at me from the seat next to mine, cradling my mutilated phone in her hand. Her mouth is moving but I can’t hear her over the music. I’m still shivering in disbelief as I take off my headphones.

“Ummm are you ok? You just dropped a perfectly good phone on the ground and froze for a full thirty seconds just staring at it.” Her face timidly radiates genuine concern, and her voice is smooth, silky, like cotton candy. With all the chaos going on around me, her voice manages to reach me easily. Everything else seems like a faint background.

This is what I’ve been training for. She’s the first person to talk to me for eternity. It’s time I forgot about the phone and just see what I can do.

“Nah I guess something a friend of mine said just surprised me.” I laugh nervously as I take the broken pieces out of her hand. “It’s time I got rid of this old thing anyways. It’s a brick from the dinosaur age. I’ve been trying to break it for ages.”

She giggles. I laugh with her. This isn’t going as bad as I thought.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Turns out her name is Alice. She’s been riding this bus all these years. I just never noticed her I guess. She even claims that she gets off at the same stop that I do. Yet I always recall walking home alone. Regardless, we had a great time talking and walking home together. I even got her number, so I suppose you could say I’ve made progress.

When I slump back into bed, I instinctively unlock the drawer and take out the iPhone. When I press the home button, the screen illuminates with its ethereal white light and I see one message.

“No more playing. No more practicing. No more pretending. Time for an upgrade. :)
- Nokia”

I go to my contacts list and delete the Nokia number and replace it with Alice’s. I lock the broken Nokia into the drawer and lob the key out the window. All evidence of the phone’s existence is now erased.
For the first time ever, I put the iPhone into my pocket. It’s bigger, and has more weight. That’s alright, I’ll get used to it.
For the first time ever, I leave the room without my headphones on.