Typewriters and Rotary Phones

At thirteen, death was something to be embraced.
We sat on grassy hillsides under blue skies and a warm sun,
telling stories of spaceships and tigers and all the
hilarious, heroic, glorious ways we would die.

We wrote each other stories about royalty,
locked in an epic struggle to take back a kingdom that had been overthrown.
The short kid who sat behind us always asked if they'd succeeded.
Then the year ended, even though our story didn’t.

We heard stories about what life was like before the present,
before we knew each other. We talked about how lucky we were,
but then laughed and said luck had nothing to do with it,
that this was our destiny. That we were meant to be.

We lived stories of adventure, romance, and bravery
from the safety of somewhere that used to be home
before we had to exist outside of it.
It's harder to be brave alone.

That was seven years ago—I had forgotten until now.
A man spoke to me while he paid for his groceries,
but I wasn't listening to his story until I was reminded of mine.
"I want to bring back typewriters," he said. "Typewriters and rotary phones."