One Single Impression: Notebook

A text message came in the middle of the night
In Portugese
From a stranger:
se vc adivinhar quem e te dou um presente...
(Guess who you are and give you a gift)

A little later, another invitation:
tomorrow good game at New Haven 
7 pm YALE vs QUINNIPIAC 
if u want to come

Before morning:
Que o que?
(What?)

I replied:
Wrong number.

What's ur name?

What's yours?

I asked first.  

Minutes passed, and then:
Are you DIEGO,,

No.

??

Nor am I Estaban,
who had this number before me.

Ok, Sorry.

Guess who you are and give you a gift....

Note:  This is a found poem based on some errant text messages that came my way from two different Connecticut phone numbers the other day.  I felt like an unintentional voyeur as I read mail intended for someone else.  I thought I would just ignore them, but then, they seemed like such nice invitations that it would be a same if the sender thought the intended recipient were ignorming him or her.  So I sent the "wrong number" message.  I was surprised when the other party responded with questions about who I am.  It was so odd.  I thought how we are anonymous on a cell phone; there's no tracing us (easily), and there's no real estate attached to the number beyond the area code--which really indicates where the account was opened, not where the subscriber lives.  Still, I didn't want to tell my name.  It was all very strange and very lonely. I hope whoever this giver of a gift is finds the right person.

One Single Impression