"communication for fools" by FangO

and we’re waiting for brunch after our order ticket

was dropped out of the queue due to a server error,

talking with our friends visiting from Sacramento—

he’s a professor sick of watching grinning young faces

turned downward into their laps where their hands are

moving vigorously. Please stop texting during my class,

he says several times a semester. Through the morning,

I have made it a point to glance into my red smartphone

and run thumbs across its keypad, but now I pretend it

is vibrating and pull it out of my pocket with annoyance

and disdain. Like this thing, I cry. It never lets me be!

And I throw it into my water glass where it splashes

spray onto the table and then sits magnified through

the glass and the cold water. My smartphone is under-

water. Nobody says anything. My friends are stunned

for ten seconds at least before they begin to fish around

for a question or something appropriate to say now that

our down-with-technology mantra has come true. It is

that crux of time that’s the joy of the trickster, the joy
of the fool. A shout out to my friend Janet who is a pro

photographer and thought of me while she was getting

rid of a set of fake cell phones that are no longer being

used in ads. That thing made April 1 very special for me.