Once upon a time there was a little mobile phone. He wasn’t particularly big or clever, but he could send and receive text messages and take photos as well as doing phone calls, and most important of all he was very well loved by the boy who owned him.
But this is a consumer dominated society, and some people simply don’t understand about old fashioned values such as reliability and loyalty.
Sure enough come Christmas morning when the young man woke up, there at the bottom of the bed was a heap of presents.
Leaping up excitedly he gathered the presents up onto the duvet and began to open them one by one.
There was a bottle of Jack Daniels, some stripy socks, a boxed set of Life on Mars…. oh the presents were fantastic.
And then the boy was up to the last present, a smallish box, what could it be? He surely had everything, and more, that he could wish for.
He pulled the paper off and there was a brand new, all singing, all dancing blue-toothed, silver-cased, app loaded mobile phone.
This phone could text, e-mail, send and receive photos, be an alarm clock, be a diary, connect to the internet, give you the football results, update you on the Test match, get the tasty totty at the bar to come over and join you for a drink, order up some condoms, light your post coital fag and probably make you a nice cup of tea the morning after.
The boy was overjoyed. He looked down at the poor little mobile on his bedside table and laughed and laughed.
The little mobile didn’t understand why the boy was laughing, so he slipped quietly into the sock drawer, and began to cry.
When the boy had gone, happily chatting away on his brand new phone, the little mobile climbed out of the drawer. Very quietly he found his charger and slipped it into his backpack. Then he wrapped himself in a bereaved sock and, going down the stairs, let himself out into he big wide world.
If the boy no longer wanted him then he would find someone who did, and perhaps the sock would find a new nearly matching partner.
Off they set into the cold frosty morning. Snowflakes fluttered down. The churchbells rang in the distance, the mobile phone marched on.
They passed houses where christmas lights glowed in the windows, they passed houses where christmas lights glared in the gardens, up the walls, from the rooftops.
Still the little mobile marched on.
The sky grew darker, the snow fell heavier, settling on the ground.
The little mobile eased the backpack on his shoulders, gave the sock a comforting tug and marched on.
But the snow was getting deeper now, it was harder to make his way. It dragged at his legs and settled in a little pyramid on his head.
He was cold, the snow came up to his chest, the backpack weighed him down. He couldn’t feel his keys anymore and he was oh so tired, if only he could rest.
Slowly he sank to the floor. The snow continued to fall and soon enough the little mobile was buried under a thick white blanket.
But back at home things weren’t going well.
The new mobile phone was good, but he knew he was good. He didn’t just want to send banal text messages saying MRRY XMAS.
The microchip inside him could probably launch a rocket into outer space, it could control the defense systems for western Europe as well as simultaneously chatting up the totty at the bar, getting her back for drinks, providing condoms and lighting the post coital fag. Indeed it could even book an appointment at the GUM clinic if he thought it was necessary.
So he bagan to play up. He mangled the text messages so they read, ” Wishing you, dearest friend, a very merry Christmas”, he cut off phonecalls halfway through if he thought they were boring, which he usually did, he changed his ringtone from Rage Against The Machine to Bach’s Toccatta and Fugue and his screensaver to The Master.
The boy was so frustrated. All he wanted to do was say “Hi” to his friends and find out who was going down the pub later on.
He flung the phone away and ran upstairs to his room.
But there was no sign of the little mobile. Despearately he loooked everywhere, but there was nothing, not even the charger.
Then he heard a little voice calling to him. It was coming from the sock drawer.
He opened the drawer and listened in amazement as the socks told him of the little mobile’s plan to find someone who would love and treasure him.
“But I love him!” cried the boy. He ran to the window, his heart sank, outside everything was shrounded in a soft, fluffy, freezing blanket of snow.
Quickly the boy pulled on his boots and wrapped himself up against the bitter cold.
He grabbed the new mobile by the throat.
“Little mobile is out there in the snow! It’s already 6 inches deep and he is only 4 inches tall! We have to find him before it is too late so you had better cut out the funny stuff and just do as you are told, capisc?”
So off they went into the blizzard, the new phone grumbling all the while, but every now and again he dialled little mobile’s number, and waited as the boy strained to hear in the gathering darkness and the swirling snow.
On and on they went, dialling every few minutes, but they never heard anything.
Tears rolled down the boys cheeks and turned to ice on his lips. His nose turned blue and his fingers grew numb. It was no good, they could not find litle mobile.
“We’ll have to turn back, I can’t go on much longer,” he sobbed, but new phone made one last try.
And there very faintly, the feeble do do do-do, do do do-do doo, do do do- dooo doo, the fading ringtone of the dying mobile.
The boy leapt forward and began scrabbling in the snow. Falling to his knees he searched the chilly waste with his bare hands and there, underneath the snow he felt the little mobile.
Frantically he pulled the mobile from the snow and quickly plunged it into his coat pocket.
Then they turned and hurried home, where the mobile was laid gently upon the radiator to thaw out.
“I’m sorry little mobile,” said the boy. “I won’t ever leave you again.”
And as his battery warmed through and the water evaporated from his system the little mobile warbled, weakly,but happily.
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