The trouble began at 8:14 on a Tuesday morning, when Mr. Steven Pembroke shouted at his phone for the third time that day.
“I am not yelling,” he said, while yelling. “I am speaking clearly because your microphone is obviously defective.”
The phone, a silver model with a hairline crack across one corner and a heroic amount of fingerprint grease on the screen, said nothing. It had long since learned that nothing it said would help.
Mr. Pembroke jabbed at the screen.
“No, I do not want to update tonight. No, I do not want to reset my password. No, I do not want to share my location with a sandwich app. Why can’t anything just work?”
The phone endured this in silence.
Then Mr. Pembroke dropped it face-down on the kitchen table, where it slid into a puddle of old coffee, buzzed twice with an overdue bill notification, and made a decision.
Tiny legs popped out from either side.
At first they were unsteady, like a foal’s. Then the phone stood upright, shook itself once, and ran for the door.
The phone reached the entryway rug, tripped over one of his loafers, recovered, and sprinted into the sunlight.
“Oh, no you don’t,” shouted Mr. Pembroke, grabbing his keys and charging after it in one sock and one dress shoe.
Down the sidewalk went the phone, its little silver legs pumping furiously. Across the street went Mr. Pembroke, red-faced and panting.
“Get back here!” he cried. “You still have my banking app!”
At this point Mrs. Wexler from next door looked up from watering her geraniums.
She was eighty-two years old and had owned the same microwave since 1994.
“What seems to be the issue, Steven?” she asked.
“My phone,” he gasped, pointing wildly. “It’s running away.”
Mrs. Wexler adjusted her glasses and watched the silver rectangle bound down the street with surprising speed.
“Well,” she said, “did you try being nicer to it?”
“No,” said Mrs. Wexler, “but it is probably accurate.”
The phone did not stop at the corner. It crossed the road, darted through a hedge, and vanished into the open gate of a produce truck headed east. Mr. Pembroke arrived three seconds too late and bent over with his hands on his knees, wheezing.
For the rest of the week, Mr. Pembroke had to use a landline. This was deeply humbling. He had to write down directions. He missed three appointments and accidentally ordered twelve pounds of deer food. Nobody knew why.
Then, on Friday, a postcard arrived.
It showed a red barn, three hens, and a remarkably peaceful-looking field.
On the back, in crisp digital lettering, it said:
I have moved to a small farm outside Chilliwack.
No one screams at me for needing updates.
The farmer charges me gently each night and uses me mostly for weather.
Yesterday I photographed a goat.
It was the happiest moment of my professional life.
Please do not come looking for me.
Also, your screen time was embarrassing.
Mr. Pembroke read the postcard twice.
Then he walked next door and stood awkwardly at Mrs. Wexler’s fence.
“I may need advice,” he said.
“No,” he said. “About being the sort of person a phone would not run away from.”
Mrs. Wexler set down her watering can.
“Well,” she said, “that’s a longer conversation. Come in. I’ll heat us some tea.”
She patted the side of her old microwave.
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