The end of conversation.

Whatever happened to talking? Eye contact. Checking your breath.
Pause. Being nervous. Going for a walk. Sitting and not moving, not doing
anything. Listening, waiting and then speaking.
It has been taken away, twice.
At first what seems to have opened communication, given it new wings so to speak, has clipped its wings not unlike a caged bird. The cell phone, which makes great boasts, has taken away the smile and the frown and replaced it with the promise of accessibility. The cell phone is there for you! It intensifies flames that could be extinguished with a crooked smile and dulls any attempt at sharp wit. Great moments are forgotten and two people never really connect. The punch on the shoulder, the vital, undeniably important punch on the shoulder, and the hand shake, and the high five are traded away.
For what?
If having a conversation face to face is the real thing then talking on the phone is the fake thing. It is the not real thing. It is decaffeinated. It is saccharine. It is not what it said it would be and it is not what you thought it could be. It doesn't count. You think that it does, that it totally counts but it doesn't. Sitting on a tailgate watching fireworks and laughing about people and their pets, eating a turkey leg at the state fair while cheering on a friend in a karaoke contest- these. These are remembered, these are noteworthy. These conversations
make fast friends and are kept in a vault. Phone calls are placed in a yellow folder labeled "words" and filed away to be burned at the end of the week. Or sooner.
This is not the end. For what the telephone has taken away from the face the text message has taken from the voice. Watching someone laugh, watching them hold their stomach and rub their cheeks, that... is a great thing. Listening to someone laugh is fun and enjoyable but entirely lacking. It leaves you wanting. Wanting what could be remembered but will instead be filed under "words" and forgotten with the others. Reading a laugh is laughable in itself. Absent. Uninspired. lol. You've got to be joking. Reduce it all, bring it all down to ten words. If phone calls are filed away and burned text messages should never be filed away but instead are. Ten words put away and methodically deleted after three days of undeserved life. Ten words that were meant to mean nothing turned out to mean nothing after all. And they can't mean anything, they couldn't. The outlet can handle no more conversational flow than the occasional "Way to go team!" Anything more can be taken
as seriously as a marriage proposal written in ketchup on a cheeseburger. The worst news, however, is that we have succumbed. We send text messages. I send text messages. Often. I am ashamed. I have traded down. We have traded down for ease. For access. For crying out loud. Greater for less. Dollars for cents. We must either crawl out of the pit or else set up residence and begin answering only to screen names.
Here's to laying in the grass and listening to crickets. Sitting in silence as you gather your thoughts. Here's to stuttering, getting angry, and kissing. Eat. Breathe. Walk. Talk. All of it on the count of three. Let us bleed together. Let us run and be out of breath and then run more and trip and skin our knees and bleed and laugh and cry and talk about the blood that we are bleeding.
For the love.
For the children.
For Pete. If for nothing else, do it for Pete.