It was that time of the year again, and Charles Hogan was full of anticipation. He had eagerly waited for the past eight months for the official release of the new Aqueon smartphone. All the reports and reviews indicated that this would be a best-seller, a flagship phone that would dominate the extremely competitive mobile phone market. And Charles was tingling with excitement. He had been waiting patiently since his order had been processed by Aqueon's online store, and was looking forward to the day that the new phone would arrive in his mailbox.
Every day, he checked the mail, hoping to the see the familiar blue and white packaging that Aqueon used for all their products. Finally, the day arrived, and he opened his mailbox to see the package waiting for him. Giddy with joy, he lifted the box gingerly and took back inside his house.
His wife, Jo, was busy chopping vegetables in the kitchen.
“Will you call the kids down for lunch, Charles?” she called over her shoulder.
“Yes, in a minute,” he replied, sitting down on the couch, holding the box with both hands, “I just need to set up the new phone.”
“Oh, it’s here finally,” Jo remarked, laughing. She glanced at him and shook her head, “you’re like a kid in a candy store with your tech toys.”
He pulled the coffee table closer to him, placed the box on it, and carefully opened the package. He let out a little gasp when he laid his eyes on the phone. Sleek, stylish, and eminently desirable, it lay in the box like some undiscovered treasure, covered with a screen protector. Charles lifted it it up with both hands, gently peeled off the protective covering, and pushed the button to turn it on.
He heard the familiar bong followed by the trademark jingle for the Aqueon company, and then the bootup animation launched. Charles took a deep breath as he watched. Finally, he thought to himself. Version 7. This was awesome. He sat back on the couch and basked in satisfaction.
It didn’t take him long to adjust the settings and transfer his SIM card from his old phone. Within minutes, he was ready to use his new phone.
“I’m all set!” he announced to Jo, before heading upstairs to fetch the kids for lunch.
The Aqueon 7 was everything that Charles had hoped it would be, and more. It had a plethora of features, and a whole host of capabilities that most users would rarely, if ever use. The processing power of the phone was immense, and the designers used that to add as many new capabilities to the phone as they possibly could. It felt like nothing was left out. Charles felt that the Aqueon 7 was the ultimate device. He had everything synced to it, his whole life was available at his fingertips: email, voicemail, contacts, social media, mortgage loan account, credit information, bank account access, medical and health information access, all his online activity, books he was reading, his personalized music list, and much more. His entire life was on that phone. It was little wonder that Charles kept his phone locked whenever he was not using it.
For the next three months, all went well and Charles reveled in using his new phone. He announced to Jo on several occasions that the decision to spend over nine hundred dollars on this phone was well worth it. He expected that he would be using this phone for years to come. He became intimately familiar with it, the way it felt in his hand, the feel of it hanging from the clip on his belt, the act of reaching for it when he wanted to check his email or call someone. It had become more than a part of his life, it had become and extension of his self. It was his intimate companion everywhere he went, even into the restroom.
The troubles for Charles began on a bright and sunny Sunday morning. He woke up as rays of sunshine streamed in through the bedroom windows. Jo was already out of bed and pulling up the blinds. She opened the windows and the fresh morning air blew in.
Charles stretched and reached for his phone. Instead of displaying the usual home screen with the clock and the familiar icons, he instead saw a blank white page with capital words in light blue at the top of the page that read “New System Update Available”
Charles loved to experiment with and explore new features, so he didn’t think twice about pressing the “Download and Install” button. He set the phone down on his nightstand and rolled over in bed, but Jo was pulling the covers off him.
“Time to get up, sleepy head,” she said, “it’s Sunday, and we’re late. We need to get the kids ready for Church.”
Charles yawned, scratched his head, and habitually reached for his phone again. The update had already been downloaded and an informational message was being displayed on the screen. Charles scanned it without paying much attention, he just wanted to see his home screen and get caught up on Facebook and Twitter. Just as he was about to tap on the “Accept and Continue” button, he noticed the wording in the last paragraph: “This update will change your life forever, we promise ;-)”
He stared at it for a moment, thinking that it was an usual message in the otherwise typically bland language used for things like system updates and defect fixes to the operating system. Still, he pressed the “Accept and Continue” button, and then got out of bed and headed for the shower.
By the time everyone was ready for Church, the phone was ready for use again. Charles felt the familiar rush of endorphins as he tapped on the button for the home screen and saw all his apps on his phone. A few clicks to check his favorite sites, and he was ready to head to Church.
He got the first of the strange messages while he was sitting in Church listening to the sermon. The familiar chime sounded on his phone loudly. He smiled awkwardly at the people sitting next to him as he reached for his phone on his belt. He looked at the notifications. Apparently, there had been an update in his Aqueon photo gallery. He was about to ignore it, but then the thumbnail of the picture caught his attention, and he tapped on it quickly. There was the picture of him in the hotel room with the prostitute, a memorable afternoon that had only happened a few weeks ago. Charles panicked and deleted the picture immediately. He was completely distracted now, and he couldn’t hear a word of the sermon. His mind was racing with a million competing thoughts: Who took that picture? How did it end up his photo gallery? Had anyone else seen it? HAD JO SEEN IT?
He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. Once he was settled, he glanced at his phone again, still trying to figure out what to do. There was another notification. The photo was back. And that time, it had been placed in a public photo gallery - viewable by anyone who happened to be browsing. Heart pounding and fingers trembling, he deleted the photo again. He began to sweat as he fumbled with the phone, he turned off the photo gallery and locked down the permissions settings for all media, setting everything to “private”. Finally, he slumped back and sighed, while the sermon continued unheard by him.
It didn’t end there. After they got home that afternoon, he got more notifications on his phone. Apparently, there were also video recordings of his extra-marital escapades, and not just with the same prostitute in the hotel room. There was the time he had gone to Chicago for a job-related convention, spending three nights there. He had been busy every night in his hotel room with a different woman. He knew that there had been no one else in the room with them, but these video recordings were made up close, with the cameraman holding the camera and walking right up to him or the woman, capturing the expressions of pleasure and ecstasy on their face, their breathing, their moans and gasps. Charles was aghast. His mind struggled to understand what was happening as he furiously deleted the files from his phone. The Aqueon photo gallery settings had been again set to public somehow. Again, Charles changed the settings to private, viewable only by him. And for good measure, he deleted his user account and removed the Aqueon photo gallery app from his phone.
“You should take a break from the phone,” it was Jo, she had been changing her clothes in their walk-in closet, “you’ve been glued to it all day. Spend some time with the kids, they are missing you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Charles responded absent-mindedly, “In just a minute.”
“Ever since you got that phone, you’ve been lost to us,” Jo shook her head and headed downstairs.
In the days that followed, Charles became paranoid. He would check his phone every two minutes, fearful of any new notifications. Sometimes they came, sometimes they didn’t. Each time there was something new, it was from one of his previous sexual encounters, and it always seemed to be from further back in time. As if someone, somewhere, was cataloging all his previous indiscretions. He would immediately delete the files, but they would always reappear. He tried everything he could think of: removing apps, resetting the phone to its original factory settings, changing user accounts. But nothing seemed to work. The videos and photos always came back.
His health began to deteriorate. He lived in constant fear that Jo or someone else might find the evidence of his marital infidelity. That would mean the end of his relationship, and his family would be torn apart. He felt a terrible angst inside him, one that only increased with each passing day.
Finally, in a desperate attempt to rid himself of this plague, he tossed the phone into the rushing waters of a river. As he drove on the bridge, he slowed down just enough to roll down his window and throw out his phone. He watched as the small black device made a long arc as it fell, made a tiny splash in the cold, churning water of the river, and then disappeared. Relieved, he drove back home.
“Are you feeling alright,” Jo was concerned when he walked into the bedroom that night, “you’ve been looked very stressed out lately.”
“I’ll be fine now, I think,” he replied, sitting down heavily on the bed. Jo came up behind him and gave his shoulders a light massage.
And then, unexpectedly, there was that familiar chime.
“It’s your phone again,” Jo said, sighing, “I guess you want to go play with it.” She slid off the bed and walked into the bathroom.
Charles was rigid with tension, his muscles tight. He opened the nightstand drawer, and there was his phone, with the tiny little notification light blinking. It sat there in his drawer, as if taunting him.
Hands trembling, he lifted the phone and checked the notifications. There were hundreds of new photos and videos posted, of every illicit sexual encounter he had had. He gasped in horror. Even as he scrambled to delete the files, he saw the status changing to “publicly accessible”, and then they started being shared. The ominous message popped up, “Sharing with Jo Hogan...“
“NO!” gasped Charles, his eyes wide with horror. He tapped the screen multiple times, his finger smashing against the “Cancel” button. Eventually, the share message was dismissed, and Charles breathed a small sigh of relief.
Desperate, at the end of his rope, and not knowing what else to do, Charles put his head in his hands and sobbed uncontrollably.
It wasn’t much later that the local newspapers carried the tragic news of the untimely death of one of the local residents, Charles Hogan. The sad news had put the entire town in mourning. He had been found by his wife, Jo, sprawled on the floor of their bedroom, mouth gaping open and blank eyes staring up at the ceiling. He had overdosed on sedatives. Next to him lay his phone, its screen cracked and the battery ripped out.