I pretended I forgot my phone at home and went for an hour-long walk without it. Although I kept noticing his absence, I tried to put it out of my mind while I carried out my usual tour of the park. It was early and there was a bit of fog that was lifting as my mind cleared.. He had “forgotten” his cell phone in the idea that perhaps, by not paying attention to it for a while, something would happen, because things happen when you let your guard down. For something to happen meant for me to receive a call or a message from God. I use “God” as a metaphor (or maybe not, I don’t know). I am convinced that an invention as prodigious as the mobile phone cannot be limited to performing merely practical tasks. It’s good that it allows you to listen to music and listen to the radio and watch videos and write messages and make video calls, etc., etc., etc., but I can’t resign myself to it staying there. It has to be the vehicle of something magical, something that will happen when you least expect it. The other day, as I was about to cross a street with a red light, a voice came out of the inside pocket of my jacket and warned me:
–Wait for it to turn green, Juanjo!
What he had in that pocket was his cell phone. I took it out to see if there had been any change in it, but I didn’t see anything unusual. Had it been a hallucination? Sometimes it also seems to vibrate, but this is a hoax. Anyway.
When I had been walking for half an hour, I thought I heard the sound of his doorbell. The phone was in the house and I was in the park, very far from each other, but its sound reached my ears perfectly. When my mother passed away, something similar happened to me. I was traveling, a thousand miles from her bed, but He told me to come back and we could say goodbye..
I was about to cut the walk short and run back to see the message God (or whoever it is when I talk about God) had left me, but I stopped myself. I had decided to let my guard down for an hour and I resisted until the last minute. Once back, I checked the device and there was nothing: no missed call or WhatsApp, nothing. I shook him to see if he would react, but he remained silent. I couldn’t believe it, I still don’t believe it. Tomorrow I will “forget it” again, to see what happens.