The Cell-Tale Phone

Nervous—very dreadfully nervous I had been and remain. The obsession had sharpened my senses—not dulled them—not destroyed them. Above all was the sense of hearing. I heard all things in the notifications, the pings, the buzzes of the digital ether, the silent hum of a phone on “Do Not Disturb”—a lie, a mockery!

It is impossible to say how the idea first entered my brain, but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion was none. I loved the phone. It had never wronged me. It had never given me a thumbs-down emoji or left me in “airplane mode.”

I had no desire for Wi-Fi beyond 4G. No, it was the phone—that cursed, gleaming rectangle of torment! Whenever it buzzed in my gnarled hand, my blood ran cold–so by degrees—very gradually—I decided to rid myself of the thing and thus silence its incessant chatter forever.

Now, this is the point. You should have seen me. You should have seen how I proceeded—with caution, foresight–what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the thing than during the whole week before I plotted against it.

Every night, about midnight, I crept into my room—oh, so stealthily!—and peered through the crack in the door. There it sat, and then—oh, horror!—it would ring. Not a call, no, but a notification, perhaps a “like,” a “share,” a “your package has shipped.” The sound pierced me like a dagger, a tinny chime that echoed in my skull. But I was patient. I waited. I smiled. I drank my whiskey.

Upon the eighth night, I was more than cautious. I rumbled through the house–all sound drowned only by the faint bzzz-bzzz-bzzz of the phone on the nightstand. I opened the door—oh, so slowly!—and slipped inside. My hands trembled, not with fear, but with purpose. The phone lay there, face-up, its screen a black mirror until—ping!—it lit up. “Breaking News: Local Man Buys Socks.” I stifled a scream. The time had come.

With a motion swift and silent, I snatched the phone from its perch. I held it aloft, its weight a sin in my palm, and then—oh, glorious release!—I smashed it upon the floor. The screen cracked like a spider’s web, yet still, it buzzed defiant, a final ding of “Low Battery.” I stamped upon it—once, twice, thrice!—until it lay in pieces, a shattered relic of modernity. The silence was exquisite. I was free.

Into a corner, I swept it, where the fragments, in my haste, came a sound. A bzzz-bzzz-bzzz—but a vibration. Bzzz-bzzz-bzzz. The phone, though dead, lived on. A phantom buzz, a ghostly ringtone, a notification from beyond the grave. Bzzz-bzzz-bzzz. “Your update is ready to install!”

I paced my room, my nerves unraveling. The sound grew louder—how could he not hear it? Morning came, and so did the neighbors, summoned by some unspoken instinct. They knocked, inquired, and sipped my hastily brewed coffee.

“All is well,” I said, smiling.

But the sound—bzzz-bzzz-bzzz—it swelled, roared, mocked me!

“Do you not hear it?” I cried at last, tearing at my hair. “The buzzing, the ringing, the endless scroll of it all? I did it—I smashed his phone! I confess! See in the bottom of my wastebasket—silence it, I beg you!”

They stared, bewildered, then laughed. “It’s just your phone,” one said, pointing to my pocket.

And there it was—my device, alive, vibrating, a cascade of alerts: “Man Posts Selfie: ‘Lost My Phone, LOL.’”