Alternative Comics SURREAL INNOVATIONS

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics SURREAL INNOVATIONS

I had the unfortunate mishap of losing an entire nights sleep after perusing several catalogues in search of a phone. The research ended early enough but the possibilities left me hyper sensitive and excitable to an extent preventing slumber. I had, for the first time, just heard of this strange and absurdist device which actually permits people to take their telephones outside. At first I laughed and envision an endlessly obtrusive stream of mingling wires leading back to their ports with polite pedestrians lifting them up so others could pass. I thought of skateboarders getting stuck and flying vigorously head first while jay walkers would be frequently towed down the roadways like a hero from a run away wagon in a western. Ludicrous! Phones that can go for a walk! What science fiction will perverted capitalists try to sell us next?

Asides from the improbability of such a phone, the more pressing question seemed to me to be why would anyone want to take a phone around with them. Understandably others, unlike my self, do have communications of a social parameter and often appear to even enjoy the company of others. But still, to have one’s associates able to find and talk to you at any given time? Absurd, not even the loneliest nor most talkative people in all of the lands could have such a desire or so much to say. Besides is not the phone primarily a tool for discovering the whereabouts of meetings and business?

At any rate I found the additional features of these "phones" quite startling as well. Some of them played music and others viewed films. I have used the telephone to make concert and theatre reservations but how on earth could it be used in their place? The device also promised to deliver me mail, let me surf the net, excel at social networking and replace my aging epidermal covering with that of an eighteen year old!

 On top of all this the phone could play games, a handful of math puzzles and extensive collection military training programs were a part of the deal! My phone would even be a book as long as it wasn't a controversial, independent, or good one. And for an additional monthly fee and a subliminally increasable rate, this new technology could regulate my diet, eat and digest all of my food, find my true love, and replace the English language with a newly improvised simplification entitled "texting".

So you might surmise that as a result of discovering all these amazing innovations I became excited to the point beyond rest. But alas I must say that it was not all this fictional nonsense which kept my mind racing all night but it was in fact a creeping revelation dredged up from the study. Only a few minutes passed before I started  putting the pieces of the mystery together. I started thinking about all the unusual people I'd seen out on the streets. There seemed to be more and more crazies talking to themselves these days. I had also noticed a strange affliction in which the denizens of the gear were rendered in an awkward position, holding their hands to their ears with bent over postures. I had disregarded both of these peculiarities many times over assuming that Toronto was simply insane or that the elbow to ear epidemic was a side affect of SARS, MAD COW, or some TERRIBLE FLU. I even disregarded the perpetual ringing of alarm clocks that I'd heard at the movies and on the tram as some sort of hip new musical trend. So why was I thinking about these things? How came it that incidents I'd all but forgotten had tenaciously resurfaced after reading up on futuristic phones?

My eyes burst open and “E equalled MC squared” as, in a feverish sweat, I leaped to my window. Pulling back the blinds I glanced out to city. I squinted my eyes at those strange human afflictions I'd so readily ignored and low and behold they were not of diseased mind, nor body, but each and every last person was holding a phone!

more surreal satire and strange comic strips at http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/