I was walking down my street, on my way to pick up some groceries, when I noticed a man weaving back and forth on the sidewalk heading towards me.
"Oh great," I thought, "I hope this drunk guy doesn't bump into me." As he got closer, I noticed he wasn't drunk; he was too busy looking at his phone to pay attention to where he was going. People like that are the worst.
About ten feet in front of me, he erratically zagged right, catching his foot on the edge of the tiniest sliver of uneven sidewalk.
It all went down in slow motion:
He must have been halfway to the ground before he even realized he was falling, so enthralled was he with was whatever was on his phone. His long hair slowly billowed behind him, as if he was a woman in a commercial for Carl's Jr. I watched in awe as his hipster beard inched toward the ground.
Finally, his eyes widened, and he threw his hands out in front of him, in an attempt to halt the pavement rocketing towards his face.
Success! His descent suddenly ceased scant millimeters from the sidewalk's cold, damp embrace.
Triumphantly, he righted himself, secure in the knowledge that he had bested gravity, and that from this moment forward, he was unstoppable.
He lifted his phone to resume his entertainment.
His phone.
The phone that was in his hand.
The hand that caught his fall.
His fall that was caused by his phone.
Shattered.
He looked down at the fragments of his screen, strewn about the ground. His head remained bowed, clearly mourning his friend... nay, his love.
He reveled in that phone, giving it his complete attention; attention that ultimately killed it.
He was lost without it.
I turned the corner, wondering if he would ever be able to pick up the shattered pieces of his screen... or his life.
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