When All You Need is a Knife

Standing in the intersection of man and technology

Stewart was undeniably a tourist. Even in his home town, he was a tourist.

Like most of his day trips, he hadn’t really looked up from his phone. He looked through his phone. Today had been no exception to that rule.

Even in California, the setting sun in October had a unique tint of gold that looked like it could set the trees on fire. Stewart knew because he’d been out to Minnesota a few years ago, to visit his friends on spring break, who told him that the foliage (and the cider) must be experienced at least once in a person’s life. This was the same kind of golden sun, even if California only had trees that caught fire in the literal sense, and not the autumnal sense.

Stewart could prove that, too. He could bring up his entire hashtag-nofilter album and show you that same golden sun in Minnesota as in California. The same golden sun that he’d never actually seen.

“What are you doing?”

“Someone painted some clever graffiti at the crosswalk here. It’s of a guy standing with his cell phone, waiting to cross the road. Like everyone does these days. It’s a social statement. I’m taking a shot to show people.”

“I think you’re missing the point. You’re doing the same thing that the artist is pointing out. You’re part of the problem.”

“This is good, though. It’ll make people think. Put down their phones a while. Be all like mindful. And stuff.”

“And did it work for you?”

“What?”

“You’re standing in the road taking a picture of a guy standing in the crosswalk taking a picture. And you’re sharing that picture to make people do the exact thing you should be doing: putting your phone down and ‘being mindful.’ “

“Okay. Let’s not make a social statement. Let’s be viral. Meta even. Here. I’ll keep looking down at my phone. You take a picture of me taking a picture of it. Hashtag-meta, hashtag-ironic, hashtag-sunset. People will love it.”

“No. It’s not meta. It’s not ironic. You’re not being ironic. No one’s ironic. No one knows how to be ironic, because everyone does it wrong. Which isn’t even ironic, in and of itself. Just admit you’re being a pretentious d****e on Instagram because you like it.”

“Whatevs. Take the picture, and either share it or post it yourself. Someone will appreciate it.”

“I swear to God, I hope you get hit by a car. Hold still while I open my camera app.”

“Jesus Pete, Pete. You’ll get hit first, too. You’re standing in the middle of the street with your phone pointed at me with a phone pointed at this painting with a phone. That has to be ironic. And have you seriously not figured out how to run your camera straight off the lock screen without having to actually unlock it and get to your camera?”

“No. I haven’t. And I don’t care. Hold still and just keep looking at your phone. And stop talking.”

The phone app on Pete’s phone made its faux shutter sound, indicating that the moment had been captured, while it had been simultaneously missed by the individuals in the standing in the street. Peter would never understand how someone who was constantly out hiking through cities and parks, doing yoga, and in general “seeing the world”, never managed to see a thing.

Peter never saw much of the world or life after that, ending up in a cubicle-based career that ground his soul into a black dust similar to the kind he would find in the coffee machine every morning because second shift never cleaned the damn thing. Even though he never developed the mobile and social networking addictions most people around him had, he sometimes wondered if they still saw more than he did.

Stewart would eventually go back to grad school, after he spent three weeks backpacking in Europe to “find himself”, and only did so after accidentally dropping his phone in the Seine River on his fourth day there, without enough money to replace it for the rest of the trip. He would graduate with a master’s in photography and journalism, and then self-publish a book of his work two more years after that.

The finished product explored the relationship between man, the iconography he creates, and how those icons would eventually define the people and culture who created those icons in ways they were consistently oblivious to, in the same way he had been. Stewart never made that connection, though, and would always wonder why the subject matter spoke to him so deeply.

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© 2016 A Shared Narrative

Author's Note

PHOTO CREDIT: Marc Wheeler
PHOTO CONTENT: "The subject of this photo is my friend Christopher Lloyd Bratten who has also done 30-Day challenges and inspired me to write a play in 30 days." ~ Marc

769 words.

ABOUT THE PROJECT:
Every piece was written before I knew who or what the image was about. Credit and attribution was revealed only after completing the story for each picture.

Each of these stories is in the same form as it immediately came out onto the page. The exercise is to produce words, and a habit. Please feel free to critique on content and rate accordingly. Leave notes about egregious technical errors, but please don't let it stand against your rating of the content.

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Submitted to: "Funny Pieces!" competition on 7 June, 2016
Contest moderated by GalaxyGhost, and runs from 31-May to 30-June.

This piece did not place at the conclusion of the contest.

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Submitted to: "Show Me Your Ironic Side" competition on 12 October, 2016
Contest moderated by hypochondrita, and runs from 1-October to 15-October.