106. Ekki Hugsa

Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

“But you said there was no such thing as the one.” Said Ruth.

“Yeah, I know, and I still don’t think there is just the one person for everyone. My Nan said that you’d have to be really lucky to find that certain someone who was not only born around the same time as you, but close enough to where you live so you’d find each other.” Said Jean. “I think it’s true. That there’s lots of people for everyone. Even more if you’re beautiful or funny. People just need to be as open-minded as they say they are, and not over think things.”

“Do you mean, like when you find out that someone fancies you, then you sometimes start liking them back, even though before that moment, you’d never even thought of them in that way?” Said Ruth.

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Said Jean. “My Gramp told me that he saw my Nan on a bus and so he got a job delivering the milk round where she lived, in the hope that he’d see her again, and she was so impressed that he’d gone to all that trouble to find her that she went out with him, even though she said she didn’t fancy him for ages.”

“Didn’t they call it stalking back then?” Said Ruth. Just then her phone pings. “It’s my mum asking us if we want a drink.”

“I can’t believe she texts you. My mum would shout up the stairs.” Said Jean.

A few minutes later, Ruth and Jean are sat on a couple of bar stools at the counter in the kitchen, sipping cloudy lemonade and nibbling on home-made cheese straws. Ruth’s mum says, “Do you girls want to help me on Saturday? I’m making a start on your Nan’s house. Just for a couple of hours? I could really do with some young opinions. There’s pizza in it for you.”

When Saturday comes, the teenagers are bemused and baffled by so much in the house that they’ve never seen before. They’ve made up this game where they hold up their phone if the item they’ve got in their hand can “fit into de fone.” So far this includes, a set of Encyclopedia Britannica, a cassette player and box of tapes, another box of vhs tapes but no video player, a really old HMV 102 suitcase gramophone player and some heavy records, a radio, an alarm clock, a calendar, six albums of photographs, a box of letters, an old Polaroid camera but no film, flash bulbs for an even older camera, a whole wall of books, a telephone with its own little stool and table, complete with Yellow Pages, address book and Thompson Directory, a bank book, torch, compass and a pile of newspapers.

By the end of the afternoon, both girls, who are not much younger than the couple in the wedding photo, have acquired a selection of costume jewellery, mirror compacts and nail varnishes. Who’d have thought that old lady peach and coral were now the latest shades? But then, everything always comes full circle.

One day, there might even be a whole industry dedicated to tracking down the descendants of our discarded phones, to fill in family tree gaps.  Hopefully, there’ll at least be a universal charging lead with an in-built adaptor to capture the contents of people’s mobile phones for posterity.