- 4 -

I started up Skype last night. It was a simple enough gesture mechanically speaking, but I spent an hour picking clothes, having a shower, shaving and doing my hair before I finally brought myself to sit down and get to dialing.

When i finally sat down, for the first time since I could remember, there wasn't a single person in my address book available to talk.

My first thought was that the network was down, so I called the test number and was rewarded with the cheery confirmation that nobody i know wanted to talk. This in itself is pretty odd, as I've reviewed a pile of best-selling phones both mobile and fixed line that have an "always on" feature fully integrated with Skype.

I clicked on a few offline avatars, including my sister's, to see if people were just hiding their status, but they really were offline.

I decided to go for the next best and recorded a quick video message to my sister then to a couple of random friends. It was only moments after clicking "send" that I started checking for replies. Each moment that went by I felt my heart quicken.

How long has it actually been since I spoke with someone. Easily a few months. But how long has it been since I received an email from an actual person, not a mailing list, rss feed, out of office etc.

A long time. A quick check through my inbox gave me a date over four weeks ago. I must be pretty detached from my fellow humans to have let that much time slip by. Now that I'm desperate I can't raise a family member, let alone a (long ignored) friend. I'll have some making up to do once people are talking to me.