The eat-all-you-can restaurant churned into life as it drew closer to 12 o’clock noon. What came in gently as trickles of individuals, couples, families gradually became a roaring hungry wave of students during their noon break, office meetings and group parties.
Since I arrived early, I was able to conveniently choose a table that was not located in the center of that human vortex. I was still waiting for my friend to arrive and thought it might be great to order some light appetizers and drinks.
“It must be the traffic” I looked at my watch, a little worried at my unusually late companion.
Suddenly I traced his silhouette drawing itself towards the entrance. His gait, as usual, was not hurried. He carried a very serene countenance and navigated with ease through that sea of people like a confident captain who has gone through worse winds and storms.
“I’m sorry, Father,” he calmly wiped some sweat that began appearing on his forehead.
“You’re running exactly three minutes late, Steve,” I joked.
“To be exact, 3 minutes and 45 seconds,” he corrected me.
“Traffic…?”
“Nope,” he sat down and sighed with relief.
“Let me guess, the elevator?”
He didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he gave me a side-view profile of his face, took out his sun shades, put them on in slow motion. He then faced me and said, “It was the Matrix, Father!”
Steve is a big fan of the Matrix series. A quasi-futuristic movie about how the machines finally took over mankind as their source of power. It’s kinda sad to think that’s all we are good for: being batteries.
“The Matrix?” I tried not showing my amusement at how he perfectly mimicked the gone viral-rogue agents in the movie.
“Father, the machines have won!” he said with a seriously low tone. “Just look around you and observe!”
I looked around the place and as I focused on my surroundings, a thin amber-colored haze fill the room. I was then horrified to see how people were being gradually swallowed by the Matrix!
Beside us was a student slowly fading away as he dawned on his earphones to listen to his favorite playlist. A little girl who was focused on her Temple Run gradually filtered into her tablet.
The adults looked like flickering candles that barely gave any light. As they avidly texted messages into their gadgets, their forms splintered into microscopic amber-colored fragments into the air.
Only a few people were not swallowed into the vortex of this digital pandemonium. And I noticed that they were not engaged with any type of gadget or device. They were simply conversing, listening and enjoying their companions’ presence.
“So, Father, don’t you think the machines have won?”
I couldn’t help but agree with Steve.
“The only difference is that Matrix, Terminator, iRobot and many others are only movies and what you are observing is for real. Although machines continue to depend on us to power them up, their real power originates in the weakness of our will. We are enslaved to them due to an unrestrained will that cannot even dominate not sending a text, taking a selfie, sending an Instagram or a Tweet, listening to a song, watching a movie or playing a game. Our weak wills actually power up gadgets as we sadly disconnect from family ties, choppy conversations, unproductivity with multi-tasking our work and social commitments.”
“Sir, would you like to order anything?” the waitress interrupted us as she handed us the menu.
Suddenly my phone, on silent mode, started flashing an incoming call.
“You see, Father, it is actually a matter of choice,” Steve removed his shades but not the half-smile he wore throughout this brief appetizer-of-a-conversation.
I glanced at the flashing screen and hesitated to pick it up.
“The power is in our hands, Father. Either we succumb to these gadgets and allow them to run our lives, or…,” he paused.
I took the phone and without even checking from whom the call was coming from, I popped it into my bag.
“Bravo! Now we can eat, Father!”
“I’m famished,” I had to admit that fighting off the Matrix made me hungrier.”
“Oh, Father,” Steve said, “did you check who was calling?”
“Nope, I guess if it’s urgent they’ll get to me some other way.”
Steve only smiled and continued reading through the menu.
After lunch, I decided to return to my office. I picked up my phone to check who had called or texted.
The screen read: One Missed Call: Steve Collins!
[GRRR!!!]
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