(Fiction) Friday - The text message

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I’m not as great fan of mobile phones. Call me old fashioned but I still like proper telephones with that curly cable that gets in a knot! Somehow I feel more connected to the person the other end – almost as if I have them on a lead!

I always like to keep up with modern trends so I got myself a mobile. A cell phone. Only a cheap one, but it seems to work.

A few days after getting it, it bleeped. And bleeped and bleeped and bleeped. Not only that, it vibrated against my leg which was most disconcerting. After going through various pockets, I eventually located the little blighter.

Now my eyesight isn’t too bad, but how was I supposed to read those tiny words? Anyway, I popped my specs on the end of my nose and squinted at the diminutive screen.

Well, I found myself trying to make sense of a series of strange words and odd letters. If I recall correctly it said.

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‘hi how u doin. c-in r tomoz. 4t u mite cum 2. b gd. luv m.’

I was a little unsure what M, presumably Mary, was trying to convey to me, so I thought I’d have a go at replying.

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Now the young man in the phone shop – I say man, he was barely out of nappies – had told me it was set to ‘predictive text’. It seems that it somehow reads my thoughts and texts what it thinks I want to say. So off I went. Slowly and carefully.

‘Hell mare. Watch was yolk massage a boot. I did nut undertake it. Plaice cool me. Key.'

Well, when I read it back, it was worse than the one I got from Mary! What would she make of it! Her message was a mystery to me, and doubtless mine would be to her.

So I called her on my proper phone. She told me she was seeing Rosey tomorrow night and she thought I might like to come too.

So I did!

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