Disconnected

“Erik,” it was Diane on the phone, “something terrible has happened! Something TERRIBLE!”

Terrible things are always, well, terrible, but as a father of four the word “terrible” has a particular resonance. “Not ‘terrible,’” someone screams inside your head, “anything but ‘terrible.’” My wife spoke in strange disconnected sentences, absent-mindedly yet somehow frantic.

“We’ve been disconnected. The broadband has been down all afternoon.”

So that was it. The strange bill which we couldn’t decipher and which we didn’t know how to pay had turned out to be a broadband bill. And now we were disconnected from the world. Our individual consciousness had been severed from the collective consciousness which is the internet. We were alone, left to our own devices. Forced to, well, talk to each other, to our children, to read books and things.

“We’ll manage,” I said. But as the words left my mouth I realized there was no conviction in them. I sounded like an alcoholic trying to convince himself that he doesn’t want another drink. “Maybe this will mean a new start for us all.”

The next day we went to the phone company. Paying the bill turned out to be really easy and the broadband was back within minutes. We plugged ourselves back in. We calmed down, exhaling contentedly like two drug addicts who finally get their fixes. We never had to try that other life. What a relief.