Logging Off

by Nick Spalding

‘The tactile sensation should calm your second soul.’ Second soul? I’m not entirely sure I have a first one, and now this shower-curtain-clad woman is telling me I have a second one?

‘Der cloves you make are vigrant, gold, exciting and mogern. My gravic designs revlec’ dis.’ Jesus Christ. I sound like a ventriloquist trying to do a Jamaican accent – and failing miserably at it.

‘I gust need to get frew the res’ of dis prezentation. I ’ave a lot more for you to look at!’ ‘Do you?’ ‘’Es! I ’aven even got to der gest gart, yet!’ ‘The guest gart?’ Pikky now looks positively terrified.

‘Glease gud you all leg me garsed?’ I ask pitifully, massaging my aching jaw as I do so. They all stare back at me, not comprehending a word of what I’ve just said. Cue Winery Smalls again, who has obviously decided she’s going to act as my universal translator. ‘I think he may need us to do something for him!’ she says, leaning forward. ‘Would you like us to do something for you, Mr Bellows?’

Technology has a way of regimenting your existence, which only becomes truly apparent once you have to do without it. It’s almost as if all that reliance on computers starts to turn you into a bit of a computer yourself.