The Tech Graveyard: A very short story

tech graveyard
I was wandering down a hallway in our school that I don’t normally go through when I noticed this line of carts, with overhead projectors, and it reminded me of some sort of Tech Graveyard. Our school is moving fast into interactive whiteboards, and I guess these overheads don’t quite need a place in our classrooms like they used to.

I found them a little …. lonely here, and wonder what they talk about when no one’s around …

“Sigh.”

“What now?”

“My bulb is burned out. And some kid pulled me out of the wall wrong, so I have a bent prong. This stinks, stuck here like this in this hallway.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean. The only thing I am handy for these days is as a light for tracing. A tracer! Is that what I have come to?”

“Did you see those smarty pants? The (sneering voice) Smart Boards. They think they’re all that.”

“Yep. I’d like to pull their plug, all right.”

Silence.

“See that kid? Coming down the hallway?”

“Which one? The one with the blue shirt? The one who’s skipping and humming to himself?”

“Yeah. Every day, he walks by here on the way to class, or the bathroom, or something,  and he doesn’t even look at us. It’s like we’re part of the wall. Shhh, here he comes.”

A moment passes.

“You see that? He … touched me. I saw him.”

“He ran his fingers in your dust. That’s not real touching.”

“It’s enough. He knew I was here. Hey, what’d he write on me anyway. I can’t see it.”

“Uh … let’s see … oh.”

“What?”

“He wrote, ‘I Was Here’.”

Another moment passes.

“Well, it’s not much, but it’s something. I was useful.”

“Uh oh.”

“What?”

“It’s that custodian guy, with his cleaner and rags.”

“No!”

“Yep. He’s gonna wipe you clean.”

“Noooooo!”

Well, that was amusing, for me.

Peace (in the discards),
Kevin

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