The idea twists something inside of me, something dormant and ugly.
I drop my gaze to the hands of the cold one—and the black glossy screen that glimmers from his grip.
My phone.
Deader than those we’ve lost along the way.
I didn’t toss it.
Didn’t leave it behind.
Maybe I should have.
I carried the extra weight in my backpack, along with the portable charger the tugs out with it. That’s also drained.
Guess he doesn’t know what it is. The phone, the charger, the cords. He turns them over in his hands, that frown burrowed back into his brow, ripples of lovely marble.
He presses buttons along the sides.
Nothing happens.
No juice, no power. But more than that, the blackout just made everything… stop.
Cars, electricity, phones, it all stopped.
Even radios struggle to reach out further than a few miles of radius.
Gas works, whether it’s for a stove or to heat a water boiler.
I don’t understand that, I don’t know the difference between how gas works versus electricity, or the machinery of cars.
I just know I couldn’t let go of my phone.
Emily tossed hers a while back.
Bee lost hers somewhere along the way.
But I cherish mine.
Just in case.
Just in case there is a way in the future, a way to reconnect, a way to communicate in the blackout, or the blackout fades and we return to our old normal. Or maybe I would find more portable chargers, fully juiced and magically working in the darkness, and then I’d get a moment longer with my old videos, photos, music.
Well, maybe not music.
I accessed that on subscription, so it needs internet, and we have no internet anymore.
I should have downloaded. If I had done that, and was lucky enough to find a charger somewhere, and the phone didn’t crap itself in the blackout, then I could maybe squeeze another song into my life.
That haunts me more than it should.
It haunts me more than most of the deaths I’ve seen.
The last time I listened to a song, I didn’t know it would be the last.
It was some hick shit, too. Not my thing.
I would go back to that time, turn off the radio, and find a way to put onHotel California.
