Disconnect

by Sara Flitner

My internet went down last week. At first it was novel—having a few days over the weekend with no urge to turn anything on. But by Monday, I needed to go to work, where everything floated in the cloud, inaccessible. I ambled around in my metaphorical drought, unable to make the cloud rain letters and symbols I needed to begin the week’s harvest. I added “Schedule service call” to my paper list and soon learned it would be four more days.

A serviceman arrived on Thursday, as promised, all the way from Colorado. He was here to backstop the understaffed local office.

In a matter of moments—shazam—I was reconnected. I jumped online, clicked into my files, paid some bills, ordered my groceries, and did a Zoom call. I picked up where I left off. Strangely, nothing I had “missed” seemed as critical as I once would have believed.

When the serviceman left with his neat box of tools and gadgets, I thought about how many people had designed or built something, who grew food, who drove big trucks over highways built by yet more hands so that one black box replaced another and I could reconnect.

Now, over my morning cup of coffee—made possible by the work of more unknown strangers—I drink in the feeling of connection, realizing it has little to do with the small black box and everything to do with the reliable, honest efforts of people I will never meet.