Way After Midnight

Oddly enough, a lot of questions about Ernesto. All 30GB of ideology.

I don’t know why I established this superstition for myself. I’m not even a superstitious person! (Though maybe I just proved myself wrong?)

Maybe it has something to do with the old trope about how it’s not lucky to have a boat without a name.

So, I’m still not a witch. Just a casual worshiper of suerte loca.

I, meanwhile, do not find myself a Mariner. Instead, my method of travel [for the luck and sake of it!] tend to be (for better or worse) binary.

Bad luck to have an unnamed electronic device, then. They allow us, these chunks of metal and silicon, and plastic, to experience life in a way the Captains of Old could have scarcely dreamed of. Quixote is my main laptop; inert, but deft. Sancho, my other laptop; he’s on a most reckless mission at the moment, but we will meet again. Rocinante, a skinny nag, used for racing. Bob is a flash stick that stores 128GB; I use it for movies. Buckaroo is my phone; I will rock this 7 until it dies (which is probably gonna be soon).

As for Ernie… I got Ernesto in 2005, back when Barack Obama was just some dude from Chicago who nobody’d heard of. That was a while ago.

Phoebus Cartel, be damned, the battery on this guy is immortal.

It has all my favorite music.

One time, I dropped it. On a floor. Stone. Thirnchk!!! There was a row of dead pixels, three down from the top. It wasn’t so bad. I could still use it. A week or so later… it just kinda healed. Back to normal.

Lots of scratches. Front and back.

The clickkkketty sound when you revolve your thumb around the wheel.

The assurance when you’re told that there is an elite set of hipsters who would pay top dollar for such a thing.

But Ernesto is not for sale. Never will be. I just bought a new 30-pin adapter for her (yep! Ernesto does She/Her, gatt-dammit!)!

[Shirt might be, though. We’ll see… We’ll see.]

It’s been too long, since we got separated, Ernie. Never thought I’d see the likes of you again. You and I… we had a lot of lonely nights together. And you did your best to make me better, which was a lot, and you did, and you made life just a little bit better when it was kinda shitty… and… thanks for that.

No other point, and no greater metaphor.

I just got reunited with an old friend, and she’s just as I left her, and she’s pretty, and she plugs into that speaker with an aux cord, and my music is finally not a part of my phone anymore, and ads will never invade this air-gapped, time-locked little box, and after all of that, that clickketty clikkety clik, and the whiiiirrrrrrrrrr as the hard drive purrs in you hand, and she’s warm, and she connects you to parts of yourself.

Lift her to your ear, like a conch. And hear whatever you’d like.