Chapter 3
956 Words
Chapter 3
Deppy showed up. She had the superpower of walking and never taking her eyes off the phone, all the while taking half-jumpy cutesy steps and not bumping onto things or people. I strategically positioned myself many times with a light-post between us just to k****e a sudden kiss between them, but she never seemed to fall for it. Oh well, time to get her to kiss a boy-like light post. Man, are they the exact opposites of one another or what?
“Ya!” she said, clearly dodging the light post. Oh well, must keep on trying.
“Ya. Let’s go to Kifissia for frappe,” I said casually.
“Nobody will be there, too soon. Lemme see. Yeap, no check-ins yet,” she said, taking her eyes off the phone for a mere second to see me.
“I need Wi-Fi, mom closed mine, I’m grounded,” I said casually. Casually I said!
“What a bummer. Fine let’s go but I haven’t got any money. Just coming along for the check-in!” she said with her cutesy voice. Guys must fall for it all the time.
We walked side by side each of us on her phone towards the metro. I texted Billy, “Bringing her now. Just buy her a frappe and she’s all yours to ignore you as long as you wish…” .
Deppy saw my earlier post about dad’s present and said, “Oh you got a new phone, lemme see!”
If it’s not on a status update, it did not happen.
I twisted my wrist slightly and showed her the latest smartphone that was thirty centimetres away from her nose but needed information to take the long route (I don’t know, are there satellites involved or something?) to make her actually notice it. “Oh it’s so nice. And pink!” she said. And then she started touching it.
No, that did not seem unusual to me at that time.
“What can it do?”
“No idea. Took a bunch of pictures.”
“Come on, it must do something new, Hermes’ stuff are the best.”
“Still got nothing.”
“Wait, lemme search.”
“Here it is, overlay. The revolutionary Veil smartphone will also be the first integrated overlay device. Overlay brings the digital world topology to the real world for the ultimate augmented reality… Sample pics, nai, here, how to use. Can I?” she asked but was already grabbing it. I let her play or else we would never make it to the metro.
She turned on the camera and pointed it a people on the street. Some floating text followed them, and when she tapped on a guy his f******k profile came up. The app lost the face-lock because Deppy was jumping up and down with excitement and I was carried away for a bit.
“Find a cute guy, that one,” I told her and bit my lip.
“Single, works at Apollo Medical. Good pick girl,” she said nodding.
“No don’t add him!” I said and tried to stop her. The man reached for his phone, smiled and I got a friend request acceptance a few seconds later.
“Oh this is golden. When do these come out, did your dad tell you?” she asked me with excitement.
“Soon I guess, I dunno,” I said.
“This is so awesome,” she said and pointed the camera at herself. The overlay showed her profile, her latest update, even the IMDB link of that part she had in a movie a year ago. “It has nothing private, everything is already accessible online. Lemme check, nai, my private pictures are not shown – thank god, dad would have a heart attack – but overlays the information about someone from the net on the real person. Oh, it works on buildings too. Anything with an RFID chip. Who cares really? Let’s go see what the people on the metro will show up!” she said, and started jogging.
I never jog, it ruins my image.
She was plenty distracted while waiting for me to walk at the metro station, so I did not feel bad for taking my time. It did feel weird not having a phone on me though.
“I remembered just now that dad said these phones are for market testing purposes,” I told her as soon as I got close, “so don’t do anything weird with it, I think it takes statistics and stuff automatically.”
“No nudes, got it,” she said casually and carried on eavesdropping on random people’s digital personas.
Sitting on the train we learnt that the lady beside us had an unhealthy love for cats, that the man standing behind her was constantly commenting on professional stripper’s photographs and that the kid running up and down the wagon was 5 years old and had a knack for vandalising wikis. The distraction made the whole six minute commute bearable.
There were some shop windows in our path but I tried to keep the delay to a minimum, or else poor Billy would be left with no fingernails to chew on.
The coffee shop was nice and gray, modern, catering to a bit of an older generation. Billy was slouching over a chessboard.
Not a digital one. A wooden one.
What a freak.
“Oh hi Billy, nice to see you here. Come sit with us!” I said a bit too theatrically.
“Sure, why not?” he said and followed.
Deppy and I took a selfie so we could check-in at the coffee shop and after a couple of tries we were both satisfied.
I dumped both of them unceremoniously with an excuse and sat at the next table with my laptop. Billy was delighted to have Deppy there, trying to initiate conversation. She kept looking at her phone, idly glancing at him and nodding at times.
I surfed some sites I liked for a while. Deppy IMed me, “Oh bummer, it doesn’t take good pictures. Look at all the smudges. Remember to tell your dad to fix it.”
Indeed I opened up some of the pictures I took since I got the phone and on the larger screen of the laptop I could see some white washed lights or something.
One of the white washed lights was almost something like a face. I paid no attention at the time.
- Writer
