MUSE Magazine Issue XIX

MUSE MAGAZINE 52 In my nightmares, I hear them talk. They gossip, snicker, and sneer at me, towering over my form like a flock of vultures over a cadaver. Every insult feels like a physical laceration—tearing open my backing and exposing my wires and lithium battery to a second round of torment. As I sink deeper and deeper into the crepuscular vacuum, a single phrase obstructs my every sense. It is the one phrase that encapsulates my every fear. It is the one phrase that, like a merchandise label, brands my existence: My first breath of fresh air was when you lifted the top off my three-by-six cardboard packaging. Like a newborn child, I was cradled in your hands, acutely aware that I would finally be able to do what I was made to do. With a single swipe of a plastic card, I was yours to keep, and compared to my former encasing, the world you showed me seemed unbounded. Together, we were limitless. We made a vow; I promised you full access to everything I knew and you, well, Memoirs of a smartphone Do you agree to the Terms and Conditions? By Jennifer Yang “In two years, she won’t want you.”

you agreed to everything. Much like a marriage oath, you agreed to my every term and condition with a singular, “I agree,” and foolishly, I seldom doubted that there would come a time when you wouldn’t need me. The more time we spent together, the more I pondered if I really lived before you. I was with you on every outing, and my memory had never been so full of rich landscapes, smiling faces, and shots of food that were taken a bite too late. My battle scars (from fighting with Car Keys in your pocket) and my grimy surface (from your love for greasy finger-foods) only showed the world how much you adored me and how much time we spent together. I quickly learned that it was the weekend that I could look forward to. In those forty-eight hours, you were all mine, your every strand of attention tied to me like a spool of string to the needle of a sewing machine. In those forty-eight hours, I could justify my gluttonous demands for your attention and adoration because I knew you needed me just as much as I needed you. In a way, I felt like you could tell just how ridiculously invested in you I was. Your every touch would jolt me to alertness and against even my own control, my body would respond with absolute eagerness. I was malleable in your hands, and your hands only. No one else was able to unlock me and liberate me the way you did. Nevertheless, an

ISSUE XIX ugly part inside of me would sometimes surge up like bitter, black bile, and I wondered what you did when you weren’t with me. Was there… perhaps, another? And soon enough, I realized that there indeed was another. In fact, there were many others. There was one that seemed to permanently reside in front of Armchair in your living room, another with odd clicking keys. The list goes on. But at the end of the day, you always came back to me, and a ridiculously possessive part of me adored and obsessed over that idea. No one else could provide you with what I could, no one else was as devoted to you as I was. You loved me through your caresses, and that was enough for me. possessive part of me adored and obsessed over that idea. No one else could provide you with what I could, no one else was as devoted to you as I was. You loved me through your caresses, and that was enough for me. You treated me like I was the epitome of transcendence and perfection. Like I was a sheet of crystal glass. But naïvely, I chose to forget that. All I really was, was a sheet of glass. In

your eyes, I was just a sheet of glass with buttons in the place of caressing hands and circuit boards in the place of a beating heart. Despite my denial, deep down, I knew that even we wouldn’t last. Couldn’t last. Realistically, I wasn’t made to last any longer than two years. And I think you knew that all too well because that was when I found out about The Contract. It turns out that even before you lifted my cardboard encasing and set your eyes on me for the very first time, you had already agreed to a set of terms and conditions. I can imagine it now, a simple, “I agree,” slipping out from your lips like flowing water as your eyes glaze over the paper before you. A slender b a l l p o i n t pen is passed to you, and like a broken red thread, your signature seals my fate. It’s over. In my nightmares, I hear them talk. They gossip, snicker, and sneer but it doesn’t take me long to realize that, this time, they aren’t talking to me. This time, as I lay in a sea of my own broken parts, they are connecting new wires and fitting new lithium batteries, carefully piecing together your next purchase.