Text Message

I receive a lot of text messages. My children tell me they are going to Starbucks after school via text message, my husband lets me know he is working “late again” with a two-word text, my friend texts me to complain about the Sunday crossword puzzle, and the orthodontist sends me a text reminder for appointments. I even get text messages from various organizations informing me an email has been sent and I really should read it. These text messages are banal and convenient; they hold no particular interest for me beyond their utility. There are text messages that do hold my interest, the kind that are received while reading a book. The idea is retrograde, I know, yet it exists, it persists, it resists, obsolescence, irrelevancy, cancellation. Close reading of a text yields messages sent by the author to an unknown future reader, in this case me, now.