The Death of Conversation

Silent Words

Words are tricky things.

It must be because their own presence is intangible. Words often float away like loose feathers across the sky. I must admit it is hard to grab at something that is essentially lost the minute it is delivered. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't fascinated with human communication and how one word can mean an entirely different thing to another person, but I never knew what it meant to lose, or witness the death of a conversation until the advent of the cell phone came about.

I remember it quite clearly. I was eating dinner with my Dad when I first noticed the death of words and all of the lovely things that came from communication. I saw them at a table sitting across from each other, and yet their mouths did not move. Words fragmented. Smiles thinned out. Laughter ebbed. Hands drew back involuntarily. Their need to connect with each other had become useless. Instead, those empty eyes lingered at a colorful screen that could never truly satisfy them and yet they continued to watch it anyway.

Blank.

Pale.

Opened Lips.

Nimble Fingers.

Staring Eyes.

Untouched.

Silent.

Plugged in.

Corrupted.

Chained.

Stop.

I can't watch a world where a voice is dormant and lives a solitary life. When did we lose ourselves? How can we watch behind a lens that is diluted and hollow? I fear that we all have become lost to a cold device that cannot love and cannot communicate. My true fear is of losing myself and others to the simple comforts that cell phones have given us.

I'm lost here and I can't find the right words to say. If I live in a world that has became cold and metal, then what kind of person will I become? Who will my children be?

Maybe, one day hands will no longer need to hold each other when they are instead comforted by the sleek, new feel of a cell phone. I hope the day never comes when I have no need to use my voice because on that day I will no longer know who I am as a human being.

Only time will tell.