Charge

"Whoever you are, you must wait."

-- Alice, in Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio

--

My sister just asked me if I knew where the charger for her cell phone was. I didn't. I started thinking about cell phone batteries.

Sometimes, when I'm down to one bar or zero, I get a phone call and I answer it. I'll save power if I don't answer it, but you never know what's happening to someone on the other end of a ringing phone, so usually I answer it. The time on the call, I know, is short.

Maybe I'm sad for the other person, or I feel pity, or maybe I share their joy. There are lots of reasons to be engaged with another person. It's when you forget the reason, or realize you didn't know what it was before you started, that conversations can turn awkward, short, and ultimately, terminal.

As a dying phone struggles to keep the two of you talking, it begins to protest, beeping, reminding you that the link between people needs to be recharged regularly. It's a commitment you make to the phone, and in return, your connection to another person can go as long as you both please. My phone is set up so that I hear the beeps of protest but the other person does not. I wonder if that is a setting I can change, or if that is simply the way phones are built.

The first beep can fill you with alarm, the second with panic. You begin to doubt the worth of the conversation, and you seek a hasty end. You clip sentences, like cutting off the tails of mice, and they writhe and bleed. Your guilt outshines your virtue. You are no longer a part of this conversation.

You realize that you have to tell the other person that the connection will soon be gone. The only thing for it is to exchange pleasantries, perhaps plugging up what needs most to be said, and let the other person go.

My phone is beeping right now. It's beeping because it hasn't been charged, and therein is the dilemma. If I stop the connection, I save the charge, but I'll still run out eventually, because the charger is missing. But if I leave the phone plugged in at all times and never use it, well, I may as well never walk out the door.

It's perhaps sad, but the phones on either end will soon have enough power again, and they will call other people, make other connections, use up the latest recharge. It's the way a cell phone works: isolated from its cord, searching for signals, relying upon the strength of a connection and a battery.

And that's really the only way to look at it.