Another list of small things for the plague

I have an idea.

I shall never pick up the phone again–

and in return, my friends will remember a clutter of things about who I used to be.

Used to like postcards; but now they lead to nowhere. Used to collect notebooks; but now they remind me of my own silence. Used to rave about colorful ballpoint pens; but I lost them at every office visit. Used to salvage all the scratch paper I could muster; but no one read my words anyway.

Used to have little notes with to-do lists; but now I weep at cheap labor. Used to have my keys with me everywhere; but people could anticipate my homecoming every time they jangled in my hand.

There is a lesson in all this, and I suspect it might be that all things are essentially useless. Another might be that we need to find new uses for old things. Pack up our old selves. Find a new way of life, with no more new things.