Wonder why time is scarce?

Looking like a monk from Tintern Abbey, I reached for the sky as high as I could. While the rain was bucketing down on my face, I pressed send with great anxiety

IWROTE the message down and held it up to the sky to send it off, hoping that it would reach the intended recipient. A carrier pigeon, you might wonder? Or some kind of feathered transport – What’s the year ?

The year is 2019 and the transporter is an iPhone 6, a sophisticated piece of machinery that is considered to be on a par with a full size computer. But I am in the Rathangan, and the reception is dodgy behind the house walls, so I am outside holding it up towards the tall Beech tree where the blackbirds are cawking like they are having some kind of convention.

I have tried calling Mike, but it just makes a funny beeping sound, a fainthearted beep that suggests there is a tired battery somewhere in the sky, a discouraging sound that backs me off and makes me reconsider my intentions.

Not to be put off that easily, I decided to write a text, thinking that it might not be as hard on the system as a conversation would be. A dubious notion you would think in the year 2019, but nonetheless I have seen this kind caper before with the internet. So I wrote the text and sent it from the window, thinking that it would be able to get out quicker through the glass. Presuming it was gone, I sat down to a cup of tea and piece of brown toast with thick cut marmalade.

After a while I took a look at the messages to see if Mike replied, only to find a grey icon that announced the failure of my messages delivery.

‘Must be that the glass didn’t let it out!’ I thought.

‘I will have to go outside, but it’s raining?’

So I grabbed my English father-in-law’s duffle coat (a big long thing made of thick durable green wool, the kind that British officers wore during the Second World War) and put the hood up.

I set the phone ready for sending, rushed out under the blackbird tree and looking like a monk from Tintern Abbey, reaching for the sky as high as I could. While the rain was bucketing down on my face I pressed send with great anxiety, worrying that the phone would be drenched and ruined. I then returned to my tea. There was still no reply from Mike.

After the tea and toast was gone, I considered driving nearer to Mike’s house to call him. I could have gone to his actual house, but that felt like an intrusion; calling unannounced on someone would be weird in 2019. So I read my book for a while, and couldn’t believe I had time to do so. An hour later the doorbell rang. ‘Who the hell is this? Must be the postman or some kind of emergency, maybe even bad news!’ I planned on being tentative, but was now feeling a sense of urgency.

‘Hello Pierce, I saw a missed call, and decided to come by to see if it was you.’ It was Mike.

Thirty years ago, I would’ve just called Mike on the telephone, now referred to as the landline (like as if we live at sea or something) when phone wire worked as well in Dublin as Mayglass, and people rushed to answer. We are more advanced now though, we can look to see who is calling and then not answer, give it a minute and call back. Hopefully they will answer and not use the same plan.

Wonder why time is a scarce commodity in 2019?