Fallen one

For years I was one of the bright ones, those people who are shining examples to the world.  When I looked about at the people around me and saw their phones I saw webbed cracks, shattered panes, screens divided by violence.  I was one of the good people though, one of those who could rightly claim to treat my phone properly.  I could look down on the seething masses of humanity with a sneer, knowing that I retired a phone after five years of constant use and it was *pristine*.

Yesterday my world came crashing down around me.  I walked out my door, put my earbuds in, and put my phone in my jacket pocket.  The street crossing countdown began and I ran for the intersection, heedless of the danger.  Then a ripping feeling, a burst of noise, and my earbuds flew out of my ears.  I spun round and saw my phone lying, still attached to my earbuds, submerged in a puddle.

Panicked, I yanked the phone out of the puddle and frantically tried to dry it off.  I must commend the engineers that designed it, no doubt, as somehow despite being quite underwater it is completely functional.  Relieved that I hadn't made a mistake of hundreds of dollars worth, I went inside.

And that is where everything broke.  I looked at the screen and saw cracks, and suddenly I was down to earth, wading through muck, one of the regular people.  I was one of those people whose phone is broken, one of those I had so easily dismissed in years past.

I am one of THEM.

Now I walk bent over, shaking a little, looking about me frightened that other people will see, that they will know.  Worried that they will judge me the way I judged others in my past life.  Glory replaced with drudgery and fear, paradise lost.

The cracks in the pane reflect the cracks in my soul.

My phone screen is broken, and I am fallen.