My fingers itch, and my body physically aches for just a touch. Time passes by at breakneck speed, yet a snail could win the race. A million thousand hundred thoughts suddenly burst through my mind, but only a few stand prevalent: I hate it, I want it, I need it, <i>where is it?</i> I know I will not rest until I have it.

When I secure my phone, it is the moment when Jack pockets those magic beans. My muscles, which were tense to ripping point, relax and slack when my hand grasps the familiar scratches and bruises and bumps – like scars on a war veteran, all those gashes proving his usefulness – littering the covers of my phone. I can trace each blemish, dry and shallow, appearing to almost be healing itself like a scab, representing a new anxiety for me: what if it broke? It is at this point that I flip the phone open and find nothing waiting for me but hundreds of pixels, incandescent dots of color, glowing against the ebony chassis, like the lights in Detroit, once so great and prosperous, now dwindling in its life and vitality. I have stopped expecting more than empty lights, but the mere sight of it is enough to unclench my teeth and fists. My dependence slowly creeps up and has me in its grasp before I can even notice, twisting and twining around me like the beanstalk that enchants Jack’s curiosity so completely.

The only obstacle restraining me from constantly holding my phone until the textures are engrained in my memory and protecting me from an obsession overtaking my sanity is a dam. There is nothing but a lifeless chunk of metal in my hands. There is no heat in it, no warmth, all of it my own conducted through the circuits, flashing through the atoms at light speed. It is still mine, and I need it: the glossy, glassy screen, the bumps, the roughness. When it flares to life, a mini-earthquake convulsing in my hand, a vibration cutting through the air, a fluctuation producing sound, like some odd form of Morse code, I can hardly restrain myself, my fingers craving to open the phone. The dam, nearly crushed under the weight of my compulsion, cracks and almost crumbles; and with my rationality in such danger, I have no idea why I continue to covet and hunger after my phone.

When my ringtone shatters the silence, I visibly freeze and tense, all my soldiers fallen and annihilated by the onslaught of attacks. The distorted strums of the guitar never fail to slice the atmosphere, always penetrating my hearing. Just hearing the first three rhythmic chords is enough to vault me over any and all obstructions in my way. The echoing trill, no matter how faint and indistinct, invariably rouses me, beckoning me to answer. My endurance is long gone, all energy already defected, amalgamating with the forces of my enslavement. My last line of defense disintegrated, I succumb to my desire, a destined death to my independence.