Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Western Union

The nerve of those young whippersnappers, calling me obsolete, why I invented the age of communication. I'm Western Union, darn it and before me it took as long as a week to get word to someone and I can do it in seconds. For over one hundred and fifty years, I have been the go to guy if you needed information delivered quickly.

Maybe I should have seen it coming but I survived the telephone didn't I. I've always been sure that my services would be needed and important to the world. Even if I were no longer the priority means of communication I knew, I would at least be a useful secondary one. Who am I fooling, even the land-line telephone, once my biggest competitor is on shaky ground. While I worried about being replaced by the phone call and the fax they are now almost as passé as me.

Many people give me credit for starting the electronic age back in 1838 but believe me I didn't foresee the avalanche of progress that would follow me. I mean things like the telephone, radio, and television took decades to develop a following but now technology takes only months for new ideas to become a public reality.

Back in my day, it took years to convince the public they needed a new innovation but now the people wait in line clamoring to be the first of their group to acquire a new product. They're not sure what it does but if some company named after a fruit makes it, they want it. Cell phones were rare less than twenty years ago now everyone has a cell. I just read somewhere that In India more people have cell phones than indoor toilets, the idea of this is ludicrous. The age a child receives their first cell seems to get younger every year and still no one talks to their children. My only vindication is the text message, this is now the rage, and with some teens, it is their preferred form of communication. I have seen these youngsters texting back and forth while they sat next to each other. I ask you just to look at some of the text messages with all their abbreviations they look just like a telegram.

To be honest I always thought I would be needed. Just as I didn't replace the letter I became a tool for immediate communication, the telephone didn't replace me, as I became the guaranteed way of reaching someone. I thought we all could coexist but I see now my time is short, as I'm needed less every day. So maybe I will become the buggy whip of the twenty first century but let me tell you if I do disappear, I will do so with my head held high. Without me, this crazy world would be nothing like it is today and good or bad you can thank me for starting it all.

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