Wicked Prompts

PROFILE

Author Note:  This flash-fiction story was selected as Pick of the Month by the ABCTales.com editors in January 2023. It was inspired by a real incident with my phone.

https://www.abctales.com/story/mitchell-jamal-franco/profile

Frank and I were introduced at a party in Argentina, where we both had been living for some months. He was English and I was Canadian, but we were the same height and held similar temperaments.

I was more outgoing and embraced Spanish while he hesitated and struggled along, but in social circles we played like a team. I kept the discussion lively and he added the occasional tone of seriousness, making sure to ask everyone at least one personal question. We even looked the same. His hair was dark and mine blond, but we both had round heads, broad cheeks and full curly hair.

There was an age difference of ten years but we both had a juvenile-delinquency streak. We chased girls and drank too much. He smoked like a steamship and I sucked on cigars and tiny sips of scotch that dripped from a flask I kept in my coat. After six months of all night dance clubs and endless bottles of wine Frank announced his departure.

Neither of us was sentimental about it. He gave me his old phone as a parting gift. It was two generations old with a small crack in the screen. My phone had been stolen a month earlier and new ones in Buenos Aires were ridiculously expensive.

He cleared the settings and erased his files. The screen went dark, flashed twice and then a small, slender line started to grow from one side of the gorilla glass to the next. When the backlighting and icons returned, the phone was a blank sheet. It was cleaned of its skeletons and free from guilt, like a newly baptized infant.

Only original sin is not so easily cleansed. I signed onto my new phone and tried to sync it with my own cloud files. Frank's old photographs, including a batch of filtered selfies, started to upload to my account. He quickly scrolled through and erased them. I synced my email only to find lists of contacts I'd never met. They were ghosts from Frank's own tenure with the phone going back so far, and to so many places, he hardly knew them either. I updated the ownership profile, with my username, Jacob, and my Facebook profile pic three times. Each time it returned to Frank's name.

Even our Tinder identities merged. Message streams with girls I'd met in my nine months as an expat mixed with girls he'd known back home. The profile identity included pics from both of us, each labeled as 'Jacob', but said I was from London instead of Vancouver.

The night before his flight left we stayed up until dawn, resetting, erasing and re-syncing files in a desperate attempt to shed his imprinted identity and stamp mine, onto a weathered and half-broken device that seemed to have a will of its own.

Hours after Frank's departure, a girl named Amy appeared on my messaging application. "Safe travels me amor," it said. "Hasta pronto en europa o alguna otra parte del mundo." The message receipt sent back to her was a profile with Frank's picture and my name. I replied an hour later to explain to her that she should send him another message because this was now my phone. "I don't have any other way to reach him," she said, sending a 'sad' emoticon. "Que haces? Quieres salir conmigo esta noche?" I replied that yes, I would like to meet her out tonight. Perhaps for a coffee so we could reminisce our old friend. When we met she kept calling me Frank. I corrected her the first two times but gave up after that. She called out Frank's name all night.

A few days later I awoke from a dream that I was Frank. I dreamt of growing up on the outskirts of London. I dreamt about his mother. I checked the phone, scrolling through the contacts frantically. I saw the listing 'Mom.' My hands shook as I slid the window open to call the number, just to be sure - she was still she and I was still me.

Landing in London is a disorienting experience. Crowds of Spanish speakers are replaced by the sing-song elegance of British English. The green countryside scrolls past from the train window as a pixelated scan of waves and colors. I have afternoon tea and biscuits instead of mate. It takes me a few days to replace my phone. I opt for the latest version this time. I didn't tell Jacob about the broken reset button or the sync limitations of the old one I'd given him. I miss him though.

More than Jacob I miss Amy. I've sent her numerous messages but haven't received any response. I keep getting strange texts from people I don't know. I've been using my laptop to communicate until I get a new phone. I was going to make some calls but I can't seem to remember anyone's number. Even their names are a distant fog.

The jet-lag and culture shock have really gotten to me. In a panic I call my mom. I use the video feature so I can see her. She looks puzzled, asking 'why is your hair blond?' just before the screen goes dark.