His name was Jesús and I was so glad to see him. I needed a miracle worker. My phone had died, stopped, never to work again (it seemed), during a call with a friend. My past life ran before me. All over now. All those contact details, everything, gone! Nothing, not a meg.
The most immediate concern was my friend. She probably thought I was already well on the way to hell or, worse, that I had just been desperately rude. With no landline and no immediate access to another phone, I then realised it didn’t matter. Her number was on my contacts list and I couldn’t remember it anyhow.
I emailed her, then headed for Jesús in the nearest phone “hospital”. He let me know major surgery was needed and it would be days before my phone was well. Shock and awe. Was life still possible?
And the world? It would be cut off. Just as a new Government was formed in Dublin, a ceasefire was agreed on Gaza, and Trump was being inaugurated as US president.
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For years, I have mocked neighbours in the big country next door by reminding them of the October 1957 Times newspaper headline: “Fog in the Channel. Continent cut off.” Now, I understood.
And there were family and friends who would be unable to contact me either. Jesús gave me a temporary phone to just make and receive calls to numbers I might remember. Then, it too died.
Next morning I said: “Jaysus, Jesús, this doesn’t work either.” He was clear, “it must be the Sim card.” At the Sim shop they said I needed a passport or driver’s licence before they could help me. I went off and got my passport. Then they said it wasn’t the Sim card.
Back at the repair “hospital” Jesús insisted it was the Sim card. He tested it. It was the temporary phone he had given me. I pleaded “Jesús, please, please can I have my old phone back?” He took pity and told me it was seven miles away and in recovery after getting a new screen.
I bade him “Adieu” and headed there pronto. The reunion would have made the father of that prodigal son blush.
There is no moral to this story.
Phone, from Greek phōnē, for “sound, voice”.
