What I love most is when the dazzling streaks of color just glide across the screen. Like little comets, each ball leaves a shimmering trail behind it. I just tap where I want them to go, and there they are. I adore it. Turquoise is my favorite—it always makes me feel like my face lights up. I don’t actually smile, but my eyes narrow slightly and the lines above my lips smooth out.0
You can even set it so that flowers or bees appear instead of balls. That’s pretty too, but they don’t leave a trail. And I really love watching how the light wave slowly streams across to the other spot. You have to place five balls in a row to score points. If you miss, the board fills up with balls and the game’s over. But I don’t even mind, because I don’t play for the points. I play simply because it’s beautiful.
I’m endlessly grateful to my grandson for showing it to me and installing it on my phone. He’s so clever, and me… well, I don’t understand these things. The other day, I accidentally pressed something, and ever since then the balls land with a funny clacking sound. Each move they make comes with a little noise, as if someone were tapping on a radiator pipe. At first, I was terrified the phone had broken. Then, once I realized it clacked at every step, I relaxed. In fact, I was delighted—it makes the game so much funnier with sound.
Back in my day, not everyone even had a television. I, for example, used to go to the city library on Wednesdays to watch TV. There’d be quite a crowd, kids and adults mixed together, all staring at the screen in wonder. A phone? We couldn’t have one. We weren’t considered important enough, and even if we had been, we couldn’t have afforded it. By the time I finally made my first call—my sister at her school—it was from a public phone mounted on the wall of the department store next to the bus station. My children were already born by then. I didn’t even have anything in particular to say—I just wanted to finally try it.
And now here I am, fiddling with this little gadget that fits in my pocket. My grandson does all sorts of things with his that I can’t even follow. He even uses it instead of a wallet at the store. He just holds it up to some little machine, and the payment goes through! Now, that’s something I’d never do. How would I know for sure it only deducted the right amount? And reading on it? On such a tiny screen? His is bigger, of course, but it doesn’t have that funny noise. Ha! His buzzes and plays soft music, while mine happily clacks and clicks.
I showed it to my friend too. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have this game. I keep asking my grandson to put it on her phone as well, but he always wriggles out of it, saying she doesn’t have the right software or it wouldn’t run on her model. Well, it doesn’t exactly “run” on mine either—the balls just sort of plod along. I think he’s just making excuses so he doesn’t have to deal with it. But wouldn’t it be wonderful to play together? We’d laugh ourselves silly at those funny plops.
I don’t know what all the huffing and tutting is about from the woman sitting next to me. If she’s this agitated, maybe she shouldn’t even have come to the cardiology department—maybe she’d be better off up on the third floor at neurology. Wouldn’t hurt to have her nerves checked. I’ve been sitting here for half an hour, and she hasn’t stopped grumbling, sighing, and muttering: “This can’t be real!”
On that, I actually agree with her—I can’t believe anyone could have so many complaints. Why doesn’t she ask someone to put a nice, cheerful game like this on her phone? Or at the very least, she could just stay quiet and enjoy the sound of my little balls clacking away as they bounce back and forth across the board.