Analogue

Bad at my phone, European trains, editing on paper

I’m in hot Berlin sunlight, with a phone battery that drains like water. No battery pack, and not even a working charger anywhere, which feels like an extra level of tiny peril; very tiny, because all it takes is to walk into one of the many phone repair shops on Hermanstraße, and a mere five euros later I have the theoretical capacity to charge my phone. But for those couple of hours when I have no charger available to me anywhere in the city, I feel unmoored. Then I catch myself and feel like an idiot; I know how to walk home, there is no urgent call waiting for me, I have everything I need. If necessary, I could go without a phone all day.

Earlier I’d let my phone greedily drink up as much charge as possible from my boyfriend's charger, before he packed it to fly home without me. Even with the new charger in my hand I have no plug, adaptor, or electricity source, and so I put my phone back on airplane mode as I go back down the street, the way I have been doing for days now. Secretly, I’m enjoying it. I don’t reply or scroll, or if I do it’s fervent, with intent. Checking something specific, as quickly as possible; catching my hand as it slips into my bag, my pocket, idly thinking to see what is going on elsewhere.