Screenpocalypse

Christy squeezed into the selfie booth with her friends, but she couldn’t get a good angle on her phone. Everyone assured her that they would send her the images they captured. Just as Stephanie hit send, her screen went dark.

“Weird, I thought I was fully charged. Ginny, can you send yours?”

Ginny said no problem and tapped her screen. Nothing happened.

“My phone just died, too. I’ll send it when I get home.”

The music stopped before they tumbled out of the booth, so they hurried back into the ballroom, expecting the homecoming king and queen to be crowned, but a low buzz spread throughout the room, dark screens on every phone in every hand.

Outside the cultural center where the dance stumbled into an unscheduled intermission, Lila Daniels tapped her phone against the pay pad on the gas pump at the QuickTrip, but nothing happened. She tapped the screen, then pushed the various buttons on the side of her iPhone. Nothing.

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered under her breath, fishing through her bag for her wallet. She extracted her debit card and held it to the pay pad. Nothing. Shaking her head, she locked her car and trod into the gas station. Two cashiers were frantically tapping the register screens in front of them while impatience spread like Covid in the line of waiting customers.

The manager emerged from the back and told everyone to relax. His phone unexpectedly went dark, and he reset the system. Everything would be fine in a few minutes when it rebooted.

At the hospital, Natalie beamed at her husband, their newborn baby cradled in her arms. He tapped the camera icon on his phone, and his screen went blank.

“Just use mine, Pete.” She gestured to her phone on the table.

“Nat, yours isn’t working either. I knew we should have stayed with AT&T.”

Annabel merged onto I-95 and glanced at her phone, mounted on the dash, to see what exit she should take, but her screen was dark. She tapped it, but nothing happened. She tapped it again, then noticed a semi bearing down on her and pressed her foot down on the accelerator. She hadn’t set the cruise control and had slowed considerably when she gave her attention to the phone. The truck blasted its air horn, and the driver gave her the finger as he swung his rig into the left lane to get around her.

Joe pulled into his driveway and pressed the button on the remote clipped to his sun visor, and the door scrolled up. He pulled into the garage and pressed the button again, and the door unfurled down to the ground. He picked up his phone to disarm his security system, but his screen was dark. Dammit all, he must have forgotten to check the connection on the cord.

Sam pulled his phone out of his pocket to place his bet on the Notre Dame game before kickoff. He tapped his screen to wake it up and held it up in front of his face to unlock it and found himself gazing into his own dark reflection.

Susannah and Charlotte drained the last of the champagne from the bottle, giggling like schoolgirls as they made predictions about the meteoric rise Charlotte’s promotion was certain to lead to.

“OMG, I don’t think I responded to the email yet! I better do that now.” Charlotte pulled her jewel-cased phone from her Michael Kors bag to open her email. “Weird, I thought I charged it. Let me borrow yours.” She held her hand out for Susannah’s phone.

“What are the odds?” Susannah asked. “Looks like I forgot to charge mine, too. Hang on, I should have a power bank in my bag.”

An hour later, nothing changed. “Breaking News” scrolled across every television screen on every channel. Talking heads held up androids and iPhones and informed the masses that the president had declared a national state of emergency. His phone had gone dark while he was creating an ai video of himself as a superhero vanquishing his enemies, and he was fit to be tied.

At the homecoming dance, the DJ connected his laptop and the music resumed.

At the gas station, registers and gas pumps began functioning again, and Lila filled her tank.

Natalie’s delivery nurse found a disposable camera with a few exposures left and Pete recorded an almost as good image of his wife and son.

Annabel pulled off the highway and bought a paper map at a gas station.

Joe racked his brain for his security code and came up short. He pulled his driver’s license out of his wallet to show the police when they arrived. He hoped they would arrive before his neighbors formed a lynch mob to avenge themselves against his shrieking alarm.

Sam slid onto a barstool and watched his prediction come true, cursing fate for taking away his means of putting his money where his mouth was.

Charlotte retrieved her laptop from her car, sent the email, and ordered another bottle of champagne.

The next day, phone screens remained dark, and frustrations escalated. Thankfully, social media was uncharacteristically quiet.

As Ginny told Stephanie, “Checking my Insta on my phone is one thing, but I’m not dragging a computer around with me just to see that no one is posting anything.”

The nation as a whole took a breath of relief, relishing the delightful silence from the White House.

A week passed. Speculation about the cause of what turned out to be a global smartphone event. People searched junk drawers for old flip phones and reactivated their landlines. Bars showed a serious upswing in sales as everyone on Tinder and Grindr came out to meet potential hookups, and app-speak entered the lexicon.

“As if, Swipe Left. Keep moving—I’m saving this seat for a Swipe Right. Maybe you should try your luck on the left side of the room.”

A new bar, Swipe Right, popped up downtown, posh and high end with a bouncer who passed judgment on everyone standing in line to pay the fifty-dollar cover charge to get in.

A new dive bar, Leftover Swipes, opened across the street. Leftover Swipes quickly established a core of regulars. Entering the dive bar dressed for Swipe Right was something people only did once. The more concerned you were with your appearance, the slower the service, if you managed to attract the bartender’s attention. It was cash only, and nothing smaller than a twenty could pull the bartender away from arm wrestling with the regulars.

Homes across the nation resumed the twentieth century tradition of tuning in to the local news at six, followed by the national news on the half hour.

Schoolteachers’ desk drawers filled up with intricately folded notes on wide-ruled loose leaf, containing secrets disclosed about who liked whom and who was planning to kick whose ass after the bell rang.

People stopped ferrying their phones around with them, and notebook sales increased. Coffeeshop revenue fell. Headphones disappeared in the gym and on the street.

No one had an explanation for what happened, so conspiracy theories flourished: It was China. No, it was definitely Russia. No, it was a Muslim jihadist action. No, only aliens could have done this, or maybe AI had made its first move to conquer humanity. No one knew, so everyone speculated.

National news included more coverage of international conversations, world leaders were moving away from threatening annihilation of the enemies they were certain of causing this disruption of life as we knew it. They began to talk about finding solutions instead of creating more problems.

So-called Third World nations were minimally affected, and the lack of the hiccup allowed productivity to continue to grow. The forests and rivers didn’t notice, and surfers continued to ride waves in the oblivious ocean.

When the screens sprang back to life, no one remembered their passwords, and the communications bailout was in full swing. The president finished his video and posted it, expecting the nation to respond with gratitude for his leadership, but the reception remained dark.