Flip phones.

There are three of us left who use them.

We love their portability. They even fit in the back pocket of a ghetto butt in jeans.

And, they take a spectacular photograph.

The I-Phones are in their, what, sixth or eighth incarnation? They’re supposed to be so “smart”, but somebody keeps making them bigger and better. They talk back. They respond to voice commands, the little robots.

But, take this. You just think you have a telephone.

You don’t. It isn’t.

It’s just a little thief, in a radioactive frame.

And, the thing has the power to take over your very life.

I’m one of those they always called an “artist”. With an old fashioned, hard formed tool, I draw. On paper, no less. In a nearly single gesture of beveled Conte, I plan to keep newsprint from going belly up. See, give me a stylus, with a real core of graphite; mine is a concrete world, using stuff you can actually hold in your hand until you’re ready to put it down.

The last time I tried to send a text on a “smart” phone, there were so many altered parts of speech my thought was rendered unintelligible. I couldn’t even use an expletive for effect; the little beggar had other plans, the insufferable plagiarist.

But, what really sends me screaming for the actual hills is the swipe.

With one casual brush, just one fleeting nudge, everything you think you just said or did can vanish.

And, you won’t even quite know what or how or where it went. The previous window? Check “history”? Even if it is to be finally retrieved, there is no denying: at any moment, you can be staring down utter blankness. This devil device can shut black, with no warning at all.

And, that is the demon.

Because, even when you can get the thing to say what you mean, or make what you put into it, and you even save to print well, let me tell you, from the invisible realm there are no guarantees. If they can let you make it, they can take it. Yah. You think you always knew what an original could be. Trust me; only your smartphone knows, for sure.

So, call me. Text me. Send me a link. I’ll open my little flipper, and accept it. And, worthy of my save file, I’ll keep whatever you send me. Indefinitely. Just like I’ll keep pressing the tiny buttons which represent the alphabet I learned when I was four. I like the kind of reality I can pinch with my own finger and thumb.

Better to touch what’s really there.

And, hold on.