It had been a long day. His productivity levels hadn’t been that great this fine day, Sins thought to himself wistfully, as he waited for the local train to arrive, and ferry him home. He was waiting on the platform with his co-passengers, so many eyes dead with boredom, and a majority of them glued to their smartphones playing the videos of their choice.
Sins didn’t feel like reaching out for his phone, which lay inside his pocket, it’s data switched off, and silent as a sleeping child. He had read about digital addiction at length, it’s causes, it’s symptoms and its effects, in an article ironically placed on digital media itself.
Sins realised it was true. He felt aware of his fingers itching to caress his smartphone, as if craving for the soft skin of a long lost lover. His mind was a seething blankness of numb waves, emitting and radiating zero thoughts or feelings. He felt dormant at this very moment, he could well have been invisible and it wouldn’t make any difference.
He didn’t like this feeling. He decided to relieve it. His hands moved inside his pocket subconsciously, like a part of his motor memory, bypassing the efforts of his brain to fight it. The platform and the passengers vanished from sight, his eyes became slits, the phone suddenly became his life’s purpose, the fact ironed into him by melting all his will to resist like a blacksmith melting his favourite smelting iron.
Then in a sudden rush of an instant, bellowed an almighty horn, shaking the very core of his eardrum. A gust of wind passed him by, signalling the train’s arrival. The spell was broken.
He stepped inside the train, glad he had won the battle against the smartphone, albeit with a little help from the train.
Marijuana Maharaj 