Texting A New Love, in Four Acts

Texting A New Love, in Four Acts

Act One: Genesis

She lives in my mind like a naiad lives in a river. She seems not so much an inhabitant as a necessary element, a seemingly native grace, as vital to the health of my psyche as a riparian buffer is to its stream, a ray of light dancing with the current. I must talk to her, must wrangle some coherent expression from the turbid depths of my passion.
I search my lexicon for the right combination of words. Surely I have in my brain some original way to say "You are the one I desire," heretofore unsaid by any other, some new turn of phrase at once funny, sexy, smart, a little dirty, charming and respectful, without being too overbearing. Beautiful words dance at the edge of my excited thumbs. Phrase after phrase sheds its suave, debonair disguise as I type, exposing their true, awkward nature in the light of my messaging app. I am caught on the horns of dilemma: on the one hand, I have no genius phrase to deliver, but on the other hand I simply must say something or I may quite possibly explode. In the end I must be myself, and so I type out a message that is decidedly not funny, not sexy, and a little strange, quickly punching "send" before I have time to review or regret.

Act Two: Regret
After reading the content of my impulsive text, I am undone by the unbridled idiocy of my words. What have I done!? No sane woman would ever respond in the affirmative, would even respond at all, to the churlish slop that now mocks me from my cracked, glowing screen. This text was obviously written out by a child or a senile vagabond with no understanding of my native tongue. Even now my muse is certainly laughing with her cool friends and rich boyfriend over the language I chose, the import of my words, the sheer madness that one such as I could aspire to one such as her.
I should hide, destroy my phone and move away to some distant place where cell phones don't exist. I plot out a post on social media, saying that my phone, nay, my very identity has been stolen, and that anything seemingly sent by me in the recent past was in fact sent by a rogue group of hackers intent on destroying my credibility.
I set the phone down with the intention of never picking it up again, determined to let it decay into dust beside me. I pick up a book to distract myself and make an attempt at reading. The phone burns in my periphery like an humongous spider, deadly in its implication and unsettling in its stillness. Every word on the page becomes a pebble in a cement mixer, tumbling madly until it is indistinguishable from the others, devoid of meaning. That sinister little rectangle of conspicuously silent technology mocks me from my bedside table, though I struggle manfully to keep my focus on the book, the art on the walls, the mess on my desk, dear God anywhere else but that thrice-damned phone.

Act Three: Action
It has been almost an hour. I'm just a man, dammit! I can tolerate this agony no longer.
As I pick up the phone, a nascent sense of resentment smolders in my mind. Who does she think she is? Am I not good enough? Am I not a human being deserving the courtesy of a response? A spark of righteous indignation catches fire, stoked by foolishness and shame that I should be so disturbed by a single female. My pride stings as I unlock the screen, indignation flashing into burning anger. The screen brightens, already open to the message from what seems like ages ago. Beneath it is a new message, thoughtful, caring, funny, infinitely appealing. My phone, which has been on silent mode, failed to alert me to its arrival nearly an hour ago. The fires of righteous anger have vanished, but somehow a sense of light and warmth still spreads outward from my core.

Act Four: Response

Surely there is some way to respond, some clever, funny, charming way to explain just how important she is to me without coming on too strongly. I begin to craft another message.