Sometimes you feel things that a language can’t word, so the best I can tell you is this evening-I feel Red.

Red like anger, red like the commie I am. Red, red and red repeats my head which rhymes with the Redmi* I write this on. It’s funny how cool phones used to be back in the day. The cruder they were the more popularity they had. We’d sneak those heavy bricks into school and stare into the tiny screens where we played snake. Later we’d mash our clumsy thumbs on colorful flip phone after we downloaded games off shady websites. The games were generic and ripped off movies and better games on PC’s.

Eventually the phones lost all their buttons and we were tapping at screens. It was a  long time though before our phones were more than phones. I don’t remember when they became platforms, when suddenly something that had your entire life on it was just a disposable hunk of plastic replaced every year.

The phone in my hand feels like a red button I’m used to slamming. Phones take you everywhere and this one is taking me back. I’m not a materialist I don’t feel attached to the phone but I can’t say the same for the memories that come with this one. Someone offered to trade me a Note 4 for my Note 3, they need a back up phone. What’s a single number to me anyway?

I run my hand over the cracks on the screen and my blood feels red, as memories rush back. I remember slender hands that ran over it and announced “Only red china for you comrade?”. I remember voices that came from within it, I remember what I told it and the people on the other side, I remember conversations written. I could ruin those memories by rereading old message, reviewing what actually happened. I could map myself along everything that was on it, every friend or someone more I have or haven’t talked to. It would rhyme like bad poetry.

Somewhere on it there might still be pictures of who I was but ah! It was just a phone, just a year or so, just a girl or two, just a city or two, just some friends you no longer know.Give it away, give it away. Hold onto the red but not the phone.

 

*A Chinese made phone