Confessions of Digital Affections

Sometimes my finger finds a meme

and sends it to you without asking me

a reflex that began 1200 memes ago

And you’ve seen this meme, but you don’t tell me that.

Instead you choose to laugh again,

just for me.

There’s a ‘….’

at the other end of my text

green, pulsing, uncertain, but alive

that tells me you’re with me

no matter how far you are.

I searched your name in my email

and excavated a thread of chats

25 plane tickets, 30 apologies, 1 unfinished draft, far too many attachments

and a brief history of us.

I know your first email ID.

(Don’t worry I won’t tell anyone)

I blocked you. For good, I thought.

There were no windows for you on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Flickr, Gchat, Viber, Signal, online Scrabble…

I avoided you on anything and everything.

Until you snuck into the comments of my unguarded word document.

What began on Hinge and ended with Swiggy.

Don’t ask.

While passing by a familiar house in Dadar

I still didn’t think of you

until my Wifi signal connected to an obscure network

And I remembered an October evening

that turned into an October night.

Remember ASL? It was pre-lol, post-ilu, midway through l8r, at the cusp of :) becoming a 🙂, when successful chats graduated to landlines and telephone wires throbbed with dread and hope and people met bearing roses or tell-tale signs while some others ghosted before they even knew what that word meant.

Mine is a story from then.

A historical romance.