Fifty-three times and 7 million random taps a day, the phone screen lights up. Fifty-three times and 7 million random taps a day, those remarkable wallpaper eyes smile at you. A smile a second long. Enough to last till the next tap. Among the endless profile pictures, contact photos, mirror selfies, the wallpaper is extra special. Like your life trapped in crystal, this object with a screen is your world in your fist. Wave it, and it comes alive.
Lettuce to the left of the plate. Click. Lettuce to the right. Click. Hungry giggles. Hangry sighs. Roasted chicken gleaming under the restaurant lights, but only through the tilted lens. You look outside the frame, and it’s just chicken. No light, no filter, no glaze. The rich brown gravy. Milk and potato blended into soft clumps. Measured flavors of seasoning. All the unseen craft of the chef’s deft hands condensed into a 5 x 2 inch screen that lengthens the life of the food about to be devoured and prolongs the sensory stimuli to desire and admire the food for a little longer. That’s our prayer. Amen. Click.
Truffle oil pasta, choco-lava cake, and sushi are all bestowed this honor of celebrity attention. Furnished with gleaming cutlery and enhanced with a salad that is casually abandoned in the end. Like celebrity photoshoots, stray crumbs are wiped off while trying not to ruin the cake makeup; the light in charge holds his phone torch at an angle. Click. Meals become portraits on the walls of social media. No Apologies. The food that sustains us deserves the spotlight, and the process is simply a delight. We savor it as much as the food itself.
Click. Click. Click. Your finger taps away — a cup of coffee, the speed line view from a moving train, a napping dog. Hundreds of moments turn into thousands. Memory is for remembering. Space is for stashing things away. We choose space. Hoard them. We go back and remember them just occasionally.
Then one day, while scrolling down too far, that picture of a lumpy birthday cake appears – still smelling of the vanilla. While clearing phone space, the image of a funny-shaped cloud with doodled eyes and a mustache gets to stay. It’s 3 A.M. and laughing feels good. Another time, another precious cloud hands out a memory at the top of the screen – on this day four years ago. In between hurried work emails, rows of badly taken pictures at a friend’s birthday party start littering the screen. Blurred figures, half-open mouths, frozen hand gestures – memories in backups and copies, only to relive. No Apologies!
Author: Rati Pednekar; and
[Creative Writing, University of Birmingham, Metadata]Author: TDLM Staff Writer
Illustration: TDLM Design Team
Report This
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.