There is, or so I've been given to understand, One who has numbered all my days.
Despite the occasional pointer in the form of various aches and pains, however, no clear indication of the date of my last go-round has been vouchsafed to me as yet.
Which is a bit annoying, though not because I'm desperate to husband such energies as remain in order to produce one final creative flourish before gasping my last or anything like that.
Permit me to explain.
I listen to music via an mp3 player, a model which is no longer manufactured. Its inbuilt battery has a finite life and cannot be removed or replaced unless you know about things like soldering and the match last night. So I regularly find myself on a well-known auction website in search of backup devices.
Most of the replacements I've bought - only ever this favoured model - are secondhand, and I can't tell how long they will continue to operate. I've had reasonable luck with purchases so far, even though the average playing time between charges for a pre-loved one is a little less than that of a pristine device. But a day inevitably comes when its power reading starts falling from 100% and I know that I must steel myself once again for the sadness ahead.
Long familiarity with my ideal player means I can locate, and play, whatever track I want without having to stop and think about which buttons to press, and I am determined to stay faithful, cleaving it unto me as my sound carrier of choice until ... well, until I no longer hear any sound and am, like Lucy (Wordsworth's, not Schulz's):
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
In the meantime, however, one question torments me: how many of these backup players must I buy in order to eliminate the risk of running out of musical diversion before my body gives up? To be safely thus, as someone or other once said ...
I live in perpetual dread of being caught short - though almost equally fearful of splurging out on too many before one day staggering forward, clutching my chest as I collapse on top of a pile of those delight-giving gadgets still in their boxes (the new ones) or jiffybags (not -so-new but eager to be pressed into service). If those mini-marvels still have love to give then I ought to be the recipient - a thought which nags at me on the verge of (non-big) sleep.
Oh alright, other people could, I suppose, make use of the leftovers - there's probably some embargo, anyway, on being cremated with your pockets bulging with products of that sort - but, well, it's not quite the same as passing on an heirloom, is it? And anyone I name in my will probably uses streaming services, so it'd simply be one more thing to clutter up their kitchen cabinet or drawer, like a Forgeham Grill (that ill-advised Crossroads spin-off) or an AM radio.
For the moment, however, barring some new medical development, my bidding for fresh supplies continues. An act of hope, I'd like to think, rather than compulsion: with each "Buy It Now" I click I'm reaffirming my belief that I will be around long enough to get through all of these devices in turn, filling up each black-plasticked one in turn with doo wop songs and radio dramas until that drear day when it, too, has to be returned to its box (or jiffybag), a good and faithful servant granted eternal rest. (Before you ask, I would never, as some do, subject one of those much-loved friends to the final indignity of being resold on that well-known auction website, its availability trumpeted by the heartless caveat: "Spares Only".)
Some of these players - the functioning ones, I mean - are offered on that site for ludicrously high amounts. By and large, however, provided you take the gamble that a secondhand model will keep its charge for a reasonable amount of time, it's possible to pick one up at a price that won't break the bank.
But this very affordability leads to another problem. When scanning the auction site for other items I can't resist checking whether any more players might have been added recently - and if they turn out to be cheapish, or might remain so if there aren't any other bidders before the auction ends ... well, it'd be foolish not to take a punt. Though the fear of a last-second bid by some anonymous rival does make it hard not to increase your highest offer ... that's been happening a lot to me lately, actually.
I've lost count of how many I currently possess - the figure keeps on going up anyway, so it'll probably be out of date by the time you read this. Some haven't been taken out of their packaging, or have experienced only the briefest of outings in order to determine whether they were still operational. Others ... well, I know they're on my desk or somewhere nearby; I just can't put my finger on them at present. They will be there when I have most need of them; I have no doubt of that.
In fairness to me, they are so small that they can easily get lost. A few years ago one player mysteriously vanished during the course of a bus journey; I still recall that chill feeling, patting all my pockets as we pulled into the terminus. I enquired about it later, of course, but nothing had been handed in; instantly secreted in another passenger's pocket, no doubt. The sting of that loss probably contributed to this relentless desire to mak siccar.
My only consolation is that maybe the unexpected find in the dust of the upper deck started the same sickness in the snapper-up. Could it be that he is the phantom sniper bent on snatching victory from me in recent auctions? If so, perhaps that infection I transmitted, that terror of running out of fresh musical matchboxes before the final curtain is punishment enough for the opportunistic thief. (And if you're reading this, HAH!)
Which is more or less all I wish to say on the matter. The more observant among you will be aware that I have failed to specify the make of player or indeed to provide a picture clearly identifying my joybringer of choice in this piece: I don't want to encourage further rivals -well, not for the moment, anyway. Once I've collected enough replacements to loosen this perpetual knot in my stomach then I can turn my attention to more important tasks and produce great plays and biographies and everything.
Though I do occasionally worry about a possible consequence of all this inconspicuous consumption. I've bought so many of these devices over the last few years, and they don't have an inbuilt speaker, meaning that listening is only possible via earphones. Which is obviously A Good Thing, noise-pollutionwise, and Well Done Me. But that's not my point. Having vrtually drained the market of such devices, could it be that I have unwittingly encouraged that despicable practice of playing music aloud on public transport on smartphones? True, those devices possess an earphone socket but, as any long-suffering phoneless passenger can testify, the active use of same is a practice more honoured in the breach.
There is a lesson to be learnt from the above, though I'm not quite sure what it is. And maybe it's too late, anyway.
Oh well, Happy Bidding.
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