Real Zombies

Back in the CrackBerry days I was on a plane. 

The woman next to me had her Blackberry out in her hand as we taxied after landing. 

She was scrupulous. 

She wasn't going to turn the thing on unless intergalactic control told her it was ok.

But her fingers were twitching and I think she was suppressing a scream as she waited to be told that it was ok to turn the thing on. 

On the Metro here in Paris almost every lump of human flesh that I see, once they have gotten through the doors and have lurched to wherever they choose to take up their semi-permanent residence for the duration of their journey all does the same thing.

It is eerie.

It is if a cosmic dog trainer had sent out a cosmic emanation and trained all the dogs in one fel swoop.

Here is what they do.

They all  get out some rectangular sort of thing and, breathing a sigh of almost sexual relief, they start thumbing the thing. 

If I were a time traveller from 1980 – which in a way I am – I would wonder what it was about those small rectangles that could possibly cause every human I saw to do the same thing.

I would also, I suppose, wonder what had occurred to cause the entire human race seem to have one of the rectangles.

I am sure I would  wonder what the things even might be.

But I am not such a time traveller and I know what those rectangles are.

I have one.

It is the second one I have owned. 

I had to buy a new one recently after two successive releases of the software that made the old one work had become so rotund and cycle hungry that the old one was a functional cipher.

The ownership of – now – two of the things I hope supports my assertion that I do have a pretty good idea what the lumps on the Metro are doing with their rectangles.

That is why I know that what they are doing is the functional equivalent of nothing.

That trend of thought causes me to make the following observation.

I seriously doubt that the average lump of human flesh has ANYTHING THAT CAN BE THAT INTERESTING OR IMPORTANT AT ANY TIME OR PLACE IN THEIR MISERABLE LITTLE LIVES to justify the twitching mesmerization that I see everywhere.

But - peut être.