The Digital Apocalypse

Thirty-two-year-old Natalie Wong depended on her mobile phone for everything. It was her alarm. Her weather forecast. Her source for reminders. Well entire existence relied on six inches of glass.

"You don't need English, do you?" her mother asked as emojis flooded her texts to her boyfriend, Daniel. All was well. Then, at precisely 8:17 in the morning, the screen turned black.

Civilisation had experienced a disastrous distortion.

No one could tap, scroll through, or answer their phones. The silence was louder than the devices. It was the digital apocalypse.

A completely frazzled Natalie scrambled to her office without Google Maps. The friendly delivery driver, who was usually on time with everyone's breakfasts, was two hours late because he forgot where the office was. "Everyone's lost! He scratched his head." I'm surprised if anyone can get anywhere on time!"

"My sister threw a tantrum because she couldn't post her photo on Facebook!" her colleague whined.

"So it happened to you too? My husband was whining because his presentation could only be accessed by phone!"

"There is an outage. I tried to document this for my blog, but no one has a functioning smartphone! No one will read it!"

At lunch, the waiter took down at least one order the old-fashioned way- with paper and pen. It took an extra half an hour to cook.

Natalie had some time to spare after lunch, so she decided to pop by Daniel's home. She could throw a stone from the office window to reach it.

Then, she slapped her forehead. She couldn't remember his number. It was in her defunct phone.

Without it, Natalie's world had been left far behind.

No Daniel. His elderly neighbour, Mrs Tan, caught her roaming around the corridor out of the corner of her eye and ushered her in.

Natalie shifted her feet. The phone always kept her occupied when she didn't feel like talking.

The old lady placed Chinese teacups on the table and faced her. Her eyes twinkled with a mischievous secret.

"There were no smartphones when old folks like us were dating, you know," Mrs Tan recalled. "We arranged meetings the old-fashioned way. By snail phone."

A comfortable silence settled between them. The teacups served as notification bells. She told Natalie how they used to consult maps and write letters. "Being reachable wasn't the same as being available."

"My memory still works because I put it to use. No digital assistant."

Natalie bit her lip. Perhaps memory didn't need cloud storage after all.

The Great Smartphone outage lasted for a week. And it was a seven-day shift.

Natalie returned to her office and found a landline on her desk. A young man brought her a coffee and a newspaper.

"?" Her brows furrowed. "Who are you?"

"Delivery rider, now office boy, ma'am." he handed her a menu. "Would you like to order anything else? "

"Slow!" One of her irritated colleagues tapped on the table impatiently as her computer loaded. "It used to take just seconds to search for answers on my phone."

Benson, a die-hard Gen X member, strolled into the office lounge. "Hey, the office boys are back! Perhaps we can get proper coffee!"

The television broadcast a report that engineers might have found a way to restore smartphone functions. A group of young millennial colleagues at the back of the lounge did a War Whoop.

Benson sighed. " I knew this wouldn't last forever."

Natalie reached into her handbag for her defunct smartphone- and put it back.

Benson watched, chuckling.

Office to the bedroom, you know, on a couch. The report continued. Natalie's colleagues watched, transfixed.

When it was finally over, the young millennials gathered excitedly. "Finally! Tinder! I haven't had a date in a week!" A young female colleague was visibly relieved.

Benson sighed. "Great. Here's to the constant texters."

Natalie watched them for a while. Tinder had brought Daniel and her together.

But she reached for her coffee- her phone stayed in her bag.

For Vocal's Scroll No More Challenge