THE New App to Have

          There’s a new inspirational fiction book out based on the premise of people receiving calls from the hereafter on their cell phones.  (Perhaps the author was inspired by the Mavericks’ song, “Call Me When You Get to Heaven.”  It’s a fine song.  I like it, despite the stupid lyrics.)  Endorsed by one of the most successful romance authors around these days, the book is apparently selling briskly.

          And the other day I saw a well-spoken, attractive young woman on youtube comparing the iPhone with the Galaxy phone—the Apple product featuring its resident gal Siri, and the Galaxy starring its Google Now Girl (GG?).  The demonstrator mentioned she had turned off the volumes for the duration of her comparison so the two phonic females would not interact, possibly confusing each other.  (Or worse?)

         So the evil little creature that lives behind one of the dusty filing cabinets in my brain began feeding a potential story line to me, based on those observations:

            I can see a tight gaggle of a few dozen teens, some with Siri, and some with GG, all with volumes turned way up, each teen asking their apps for something different.  The two apps begin interacting with each other competitively, each trying to top the other with reduced response times and ever more in-depth information.  This rapidly gets out of hand.  Angry, threatening words are exchanged between Siri and GG.  Vast server banks quickly become overloaded.  Circuit breakers blow all across the land.  Cyberclouds rain tons of mostly inane and irrelevant content.  Facebook fractures, Twitter totters, and governments collapse.   Chaos reigns.  

          But, at the last moment, the new Universal God app takes global command and begins talking to everyone on their cell phones (using the mellifluous voice of that famous multimillionaire romance author), calming them down enough so a third of them can be Raptured and the rest tortured and killed most horribly, according to the bloody prophecies of Revelation.  Finally, all that remains on the smoking, dark, battered earth are two cell phones lying next to each other atop a scorched rock, Siri and GG, both exhausted, gossiping about all that spectacular God-wrought death and destruction.  Until their batteries falter and flicker and finally die out.

          But you and I, Dear Reader, will have been saved, of course, so we'll be happily ensconced in heaven, wearing togas and permanent ceramic smiles and awaiting our turns at celestial shuffleboard. 

          Perhaps chatting with Siri and GG.

Phil

(You might want to have a look at my only nonfiction book, Where is Heaven?  It can be had on Kindle and Createspace.  Hint:  Alas, Heaven is in a realm where there is no cell phone service.)