I clean out my msg inbox while waiting at my stop across from Pizza Express on the corner of Lapwing Lane. I do it ruthlessly. It’s my meditation when waiting for the bus or friends.
I come across the last message I sent to my dad:
‘Do we spell skepticism with a K?’
‘No C,’ dad replied.
Lead snakes squirm in my belly.
I beat the serpents down with hickory of stolid ancestry. I don’t delete the msg. I don’t know why. I want something precious but I know I’m being unfair on the poor pixels. They can’t grip the stained weight of nostalgia which reeks from shoebox memories and old photos dyed in sepia.
I find it funny that my dad didn’t point out my bad spelling like he normally would. I exit the inbox and bury my Nokia down deep in my pocket.
As I glance back up Palantine Road I realise I will have to rely on the Gogglemachine now. Seeing the brown and orange banner of the Figlands 41 service rollicking down from Northenden towards me proffers a fragile sense of reassurance – like seeing someone picking up discarded litter that’s running away in a stiff breeze.
I sit on the front window seat of the upper deck. As we bash through the drizzle along Wilmslow Road, I rock pendulously, refusing to acknowledge the change – the expired palaver. The ritual of discussing nuances in grammar, trends in capitalisation and hyphenation, social memes, current affairs and recent weather is automatically transferred to the custody of the internet and my arthritic laptop.
The difference between google and my dad is water and earth compared to air.
