A One Mile Race

                                                                      By Laura J. Graham

The day Laurel went mad dawned like any other October day: cold, crisp, beautiful. This day began a bit unusually however, in that Laurel had signed up for a one mile race, to benefit some charity or other.

She rose early and after performing her stretches duly took her place in the crowd of runners near the back. She managed to finish the race by ignoring her feet, keeping her eyes straight ahead, and trying to pretend she was somewhere else. At the end she collapsed upon the grass, until helped to her feet by two other runners, and took her award of cranberry juice and a banana.

After the race, Laurel decided to do something she didn’t usually do: go to the mall to walk off the pain in her knees, and perhaps purchase a large icy coke. It might even be fun to sit on a bench and discuss running with a sympathetic stranger.

The mall was very crowded, and as Laurel walked she noticed all the other walkers were preoccupied by a device they held in their hands. With heads bowed as though in prayer, and fingers flashing as though telling prayers off a string of beads, they barely noticed Laurel. Some sat with a baby in one arm and all attention on the device in the other.  Some barely avoided a collision, veering at the last moment. Any attempt to meet eyes, smile, or say Hello, ended in a renewed frenzy of fingers flying over the device. 

Laurel had never seen such a pack all in one place. She had read, she remembered, how some of these users had even walked, awestruck, off a cliff or in the path of a large moving truck.

Were these devices impervious to any type of attempt at verbal communication? Was there nothing that could end the power they held over the walkers? This question was answered as a woman animatedly typing on her device crashed straight into Laurel. Sploosh! The coke Laurel was carrying drenched the woman and her electronic toy. Circuits failed and silicon chips warped and crackled.

Laurel precipitately left the mall, hearing the enraged shrieks of the electronically deprived woman ringing in her ears.

But later that day, Laurel would return. Armed with her running feet and a bucket of water, with a grab, a dunk, and a toss, she destroyed five thousand, two hundred, and eighty devices before they finally took her down.