get out of jail

My life changed the day I realized that the power to communicate with realms outside of this one was not only possible, but necessary, if I didn’t want to be crumpled up and tossed amongst like flotsam or jetsam, bobbing and ducking under waves, and crying and thrashing and drowning. Indeed, I was flailing my arms quite desperately when the revelation became clear. I’ll keep the details between me and my gods.

But the upshot is that like Alexander Graham Bell or Garrett Morgan, all the inventions that that we know and love and that allow us to communicate are manmade. However, their impact is often cosmically, divinely felt. Imagine the thrill of anticipation as the phone’s ring echoes across the miles of ocean and earth that separate you and a loved one. If you’re old enough to remember the cackling cacophony that was the dial-up static announcing your pending connection to the nebulous world of the internet, God bless you. We were pioneers of the digital age, unaware of the wonder we’d discover on the other side of a wall of meaningless 0s and 1s — unaware that it was us, in the future, waiting for us.

Similarly, I believe our ancestors wait for us at the end of any kind, style or type of janky technology we extend to the skies. They’ll take the other side of the paper cup, punctured and tethered with string to the one in our clammy hand, and whisper to us the keys to our futures.