Router

Blue Eyes. Copyright by Melfe CLC and Ed A

Its blue lights repeatedly twinkle, but it can’t find its role as catalyst for message sending and receiving.  

I tell myself: It’s a gadget created with the limitations of its human creator. Were it alien-made, it would have slashed space and created paths to receive inputs and deliver outputs. Be kind. 

I choose to be kind, allowing it to keep blinking for no connection at all. Nada. 

I’ve countless times tried the instruction that goes with it in the box it was packed in. Switch off... Wait for ten seconds... (The company personnel I called said, “Ten minutes”).  Press the button and release fast. (The company personnel said, “Don’t tamper with the button.”) 

Who was right: the  brochure? …the man?  

Funny how some other things don't match in life. 

(People who say one thing, but mean another.) 

(People who mean well, but are misconstrued as callous.)

(People who are expert on values, but live superbly with their absence.)

(Students who go to school, but never bringing any pens.) 

(Persons who never set foot in school, but have all the marks of culture.) 

(Sons and daughters of teachers and successful merchants who have all the time in the world to be praiseworthy for talent and cultivation, but spend hours out late nights lying about their whereabouts.)  

(Ball pens advertised for smoothness, but take a long time to produce ink.)

(Air-con units ballyhooed for silence, but are notoriously noisy in a few weeks.)

(Routers promoted as nth generation, but yes, like mine, cannot conquer buildings.) 

What awesome business to be in the midst of ironies,  despite 6,000 years since Sumer bloomed into the world's first great civilization.

I turned to friends.

The consensus: I live in a place surrounded by tall buildings. This makes it difficult for my location-- where I live-- to receive signals or sound or radio waves through the only one window of my flat that opens to a small rectangle of space fenced in by high walls.

Maybe, I said to myself, I should leave teaching and start inventing…

Are there really no more inventors who can figure out a way of making routers and signals work, conquering limitations of location, including one window that opens to a small rectangle of space fenced in by high walls?

Anyone there?  

me…me...me...

Stared the router’s eternally blue eyes.