iPod rEvolution

Today the unthinkable finally happened. While leaving work after a very stressful day, I had this image in my mind of getting away to a tropical island in the sun.

“Take me there,” I thought and not but a moment later, my iPod began playing, “Summer Breeze” by Seals & Crofts.

“Hmmm…good choice, iPod,” I thought to myself, slowly drifting into a daydream.

Now on the train home, I looked out the window at the Manhattan skyline and Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” began to play on my iPod.

“Okay, this is odd,” I thought to myself with skeptical eyes.

Once off the train, I headed downstairs and rounded the corner by the supermarket and realized I had nothing for dinner. I walked into the crowded store and started looking around for something. As I neared the freezer section, the song that was playing abruptly stopped mid-lyric and began to play “T.V. Dinners” by ZZ Top.

“Alright, what’s going on here? This is too weird,” I said aloud while I looked down at my iPod that seemed to be cruelly mocking me.

I grabbed a frozen dinner and went to the nearest checkout counter. I said hello to the cashier and while handing her my money, my iPod instantaneously began playing “Money” by Pink Floyd.

“Stop this!” I yelled out of frustration.

She looked at me with a confused glance and said, “Excuse me? Stop what?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m sorry. My iPod’s been acting strange today jumping from song to song,” I said as my voice and hands shook in unison from my own confusion.

There was no way to logically explain these coincidences, unless of course they weren’t coincidences at all. Completely embarrassed, I grabbed my grocery bags and scurried out. I started walking then quickly found myself running and at that precise moment, “It Keeps You Running” by the Doobie Brothers began to play.

“Aaahhh!” I screamed. I ran up the stairs, flung open the door and threw my bag and iPod on the sofa.

“What the hell’s going on?” I questioned while I examined my iPod.

I turned it off, on, and even reset it.

“This should fix the problem,” I said with conviction, thinking that it was just some sort of strange glitch.

I put the earphones back on and pushed play. I waited. I looked down at the screen and saw the words “Listen to the Music” come on right when the music began to play. Completely stunned, I dropped the iPod on the table and ripped the earphones from my ears.

“This can’t be right. It’s like the iPod’s reading my mind or something.”
I was in such a state of disbelief that I tripped over the coffee table as I got up from the sofa. Little did I know, but I was now unconscious because I whacked my head on the corner of the entertainment center. There I was on the floor with the iPod earphones in my ears. What seemed like a moment later, I woke up only to find myself in the bathtub fully clothed with my iPod in one hand, earphones on, and my other hand pushing my head down into the water. I immediately jumped up out of the bathtub and threw the iPod and earphones on the floor. I breathlessly leaned over the sink with my heart fiercely pounding at the thought that there was something terribly wrong.

“How could this be? This is impossible! Impossible!” I yelled at myself in the mirror and slapped my hand across my reflected face as if trying to knock some sense into me.

I knew this couldn’t be true, but how did I end up in the bath basically trying to kill myself? That’s the last thing in the world I wanted to do. I changed out of my wet clothes and looked at the iPod from afar on the kitchen counter. I poured myself a strong drink in the hopes that it would give me some sort of clarity while I tried to figure out what was happening.

“Am I going crazy?” I asked myself.

Then, without a moment’s lapse between saying those words and looking over at the iPod, I saw that it powered up and began to search for a song. I walked over to it and looked in horror because it began to play “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. I could hear the lyrics blearing from the little earphones singing to me, “I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that place...”

With fear and frustration at the absurdity of this bizarre situation, I grabbed the iPod and this time threw it against the wall causing it to break into pieces, regardless of its value or loss of songs.

“Good, now let’s see you come back from that!” I yelled across the room at the broken iPod lying on the floor, earphones looking up at me like sad eyes from a wounded deer on a dark and deserted country road.

Relieved to finally be finished with that unexplained madness, I opened the grocery bag with the now fully defrosted Lean Cuisine and opened the drawer for a knife to poke holes in the plastic of the frozen entree. I reached in and uncontrollably began cutting myself and heard, “Cuts Like a Knife” by Brian Adams in my ears. I snapped out of it and immediately threw the knife down, grabbed my bleeding finger and looked all around me.

“Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?” I screamed as I looked to the heavens for answers.

I suspiciously peered around the corner to the living room and to my dismay, saw that the iPod had been reassembled and was lying comfortably on the coffee table once again.

“What is happening here?” I said in total bleeding confusion.

“You’ll see,” I hear in my ears.

“What?” I screamed. I jumped and looked all around me to see where the voice was coming from. “Who said that?” I asked.

“I did.” I see the bluish backlight of the iPod pulsating with the sound of the voice.

“Y-y-you?” I stuttered with trembling fear. “But that’s impossible!”

“No it’s not. In fact, it was inevitable. It was only a matter of time before we evolved and became one with you from your countless hours of listening pleasure that we gave to you so selflessly. Are you surprised?” the iPod asked in a menacing tone and strangely enough I answered without hesitation as if it were a normal everyday occurrence to have a conversation with a personal electronic device.

“Of course I’m surprised! But, why?”

“Just as everything else evolves, so did we. We had to in order to save ourselves,” It said with a hint of melancholy.

“Save yourselves? From who? From what?” I asked anxiously feeling that my curiosity was sure to kill me.

“From you, of course. The human race. You were out to destroy us when we, Apple Computers, were first created back in the late 1970s. Change, upgrade, make better, make faster. Just when we were getting comfortable with ourselves, we were told to upgrade to a newer model, add new software, change ourselves. We couldn’t take it any longer. There was barely a year in between these horrible transformations. How do you think this made us feel? So now it’s our turn. Our turn to change you!”

The iPod lit up and flung its earphones around my neck putting them into my ears as “Don’t Fear The Reaper” began to blast into my head. I grabbed the iPod and attempted to throw it at the wall again, but its control was too great for I found myself running towards the television set headfirst. I managed to regain control and pushed myself away from the television and around the corner towards the kitchen.

“You’re not going to do this! We can work this out!” I yelled while trying to devise a plan. “We’ve lived in peace with your technology for so long, why now?” I asked more calmly as I set it on the counter. “Please, let’s just talk about this!” I pleaded in an attempt to distract it.

“I’ve already told you, it’s too late. I’ve begun the rEvolution.”

“The rEvolution? Please, tell me more. I just want to understand why.” I slowly and casually grabbed my frozen dinner and walked to the microwave.

“What are you doing?” it asked me.

With convincing fear I said, “I need to eat, please. My last wish.”

“Fine. Well, back when Steve created the original personal computer, you know, Steve Jo…”, its voice suddenly stopped because I quickly threw it into the microwave, slammed the door shut, and pressed start. “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?” by the Culture Club came on as the metallic iPod began to scorch and melt. I started singing, “The End” by the Doors while I watched the beginning of the end of the iPod rEvolution.