This is the second part in a series, so if you have not already done so, you might want to read Part I before continuing.
Yvette woke up the next morning and went about her day as usual, but she kept stealing glances at her phone, as though it was a co-conspirator in some great secret. She waited until she got back home before she resumed her ramblings out loud. It felt good to talk to someone, even if it was someone she couldn’t see.
One day she started noticing she was seeing more ads for animal shelters. The people in the commercials always looked so happy with their pets. Yvette wondered briefly if she would be happier if she got a pet, and that was when it hit her – they had been listening to her through her phone after all, and now they were showing her an ad for something that could help cure her of her loneliness. How wonderful.
But Yvette already felt less lonely. Someone had heard her. Had listened to her and responded to her needs. She held her phone in her hands and curled herself into a ball around it.
Not long after that, she started seeing ads for one of those websites where people could get together with other like-minded people who had the same interests. Yvette wasn’t so sure about that one. She had yet to meet a person who was genuinely interested in what she had to say, and she wasn’t sure how a website was supposed to solve that problem for her.
Nevertheless, it still comforted her to know that someone was listening, even if it was only because it was their job and they did it so they could shove ads in her face. It still counted as the longest anyone had ever listened to her without losing interest or laughing at her ideas.
OK, so she couldn’t know for sure whether they had lost interest or were laughing at her, but she didn’t care. The ads were proof that someone was listening to her and it felt good to talk to someone, so she kept doing it. She would chatter away as she got ready for work in the morning and as she got ready for bed at night.
Yvette had never been particularly attached to her phone before this. She had not been one of those people who always needed her phone at hand because, well, who was going to call her? There was nothing for her to miss, and she knew it.
But now… Now she found she did miss her phone if it wasn’t nearby. Not because she was afraid of missing a call or a text, but because she missed her friend. Just knowing it was nearby gave her comfort.
To be continued…