U2
Songs of Innocence
[Your iTunes]
It is 1am on September 16th, 2018. Your Apple Watch vibrates and you peer down at the push notification pulsing light out from your wrist. ‘You’ve just got a Tinder match!’ Breath held, brow sweating you ask Siri to pull Tinder up to reveal a profile pic of four, gurning grey-haired men.
U2, Age: 61.
Mutual interests: 1
Friends in common: 1.
A direct message pings through:
‘Hey Dan, saw your profile and thought you might dig our new album – it says here you love rock’n’roll. Anyway, we’ve already sent it to your iTunes. Hope you enjoy!’
Fingers sweating, you try to block the profile. There is no block button. The strains of arpeggiated guitars and a vocal rasp begin seeping out of the watch’s speakers. You tell Siri to stop it.
‘Sorry! Didn’t get that!’, she smiles.
You try to switch the watch off. It refuses to respond.
The Tinder profile disintegrates into a Vine of Bono, onstage or against a green screen of a stage, crouching suggestively, gyrating, mic in hand, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and back.
You smash the watch to the ground, stamping on it, hurling your bedside locker on top of it again and again until the sound peters out.
Morning comes. Two Gardaí are rapping sternly at the door. You are carted off to Store Street. A new watch is installed, this one drilled into your wristbone. It’s locked to that loop of Bono.
You grow to love the album. We all grow to love the album.
Words: Daniel Gray
