Three short stories that I produced whilst on the bus into work. I haven't written in ages, but my best friend has been rather inspiring. Her productivity encouraged me to get off my lazy arse and have a potter around in writing again.

This first short story was written before the great Blackberryocalypse. Irony.

Bee-bee-em: A Love Story

Romano was disgusted when his boss handed him his shiny, new Blackberry Bold. In fact, disgust was an understatement. It was something closer to disbelief, disdain and disapproval. He was distraught. His face said as much. Still, just to make his opinion on the matter all the more clear, his mouth said as much too.

"What the Hell is this?"

His boss only glanced up at him from his Playboy magazine. "It's a phone."

"I can see that!" Romano snapped, biting his tongue a moment later when he remembered that snapping at his boss was a little bit naughty. "I mean…I mean…why is it one of these? Why not…say…an iPhone?" He pushed. He really wanted an iPhone. iPhones had apps! Apps that played silly sounds, and made your pictures look artistic, and had some kind of angry birds and-

"Because iPhones are expensive. We're facing austerity measures here," he said as he signed off a cheque for his monthly all-model-pillow-fight-party. "Besides, it's for business. Blackberry is a business phone."

"Yeah but iPhones are more useful!" Romano argued. "What if…what if Veneziano or I get lost in the countryside some time? In the dark? iPhones have a torch app! And…and google maps! We could…find out where we were and then light our way home!"

His boss looked up from his magazine and fixed Romano with a level look. "You're a country. How could you ever get lost?"

Romano coloured a bit. "I…well…" Shaking his head, his boss went back to his reading material.

"You're not having an iPhone."

"Well what about an Andro-"

"No."

For a moment, Romano looked about ready to cry. For both of their dignity's sakes, he stormed out instead, phone clutched in his fist. It was hate, he decided, at first sight.

A week later, anyone would have expected Romano to have come to some kind of resolution with his new phone. Romano would have expected Romano to have come to some kind of resolution with his new phone. As it was, his hatred had grown into abhorrence because he had discovered one major fault with the phone. The fault's name was Spain. To get technical, the fault's name was Spain-had-a-Blackberry-too-and-liked-to-fuck-Romano-off-every-waking-moment-with:

• Roma hi!

• Roma! Write back!

• ?

• Roma I know u got my messages cuz there's a little r next to the tick when its read :D

• Roma?

• Romano?

• Write back :(

R√- ffs! Go away!

At first it had been funny to ignore him, but that novelty got old after the first five hundred irritating little noises had erupted from his phone like it had smartphone tourettes. Turning the sound off had helped, but then the fucking thing wouldn't stop fucking blinking at him, so he had to spend most of his time flipping it upside down. Then, of course, he kept missing important emails and messages from his government and would somehow end up in trouble for it.

Blackberry messenger was fast becoming the bane of his life.

• Hey roma look at this pic i took!

Romano had heard that once upon a time people had to accept files over Blackberry messenger. That, to him, sounded like a good idea, because it definitely wasn't the case any more.

R√ Why have you sent me a picture of your fucking foot?

• No!

• Zoom in! :D

• I found a tiny baby frog and took a picture of it.

That was another thing that Romano hated about his piece of shit phone- the camera. How it was possible for a smartphone to have a worse camera than a five-year-old Nokia was beyond him.

Against his better judgement, he tried to zoom in anyway. After a minute of trying to search the grainy image for some stupid, tiny frog, he gave up and told Spain that he was never going to open it, so he shouldn't bother trying.

Spain had sent him some ugly hug emoticon in response.

By the third week after being given his new phone, Romano had still not made his peace with it.

The internet was slow, the apps were unimpressive, the games were boring, and the lack of a simple "add as contact" option were adding more and more fuel to the fire of 'I fucking hate this phone'.

The chance to redeem itself was only presented to him on the Friday of the third week. In the days prior, Romano had learnt first hand the joys of having all of your text messages, emails and instant messages all in one handy, little place. It was an absolute riot looking at his phone first thing in the morning and finding that he had 108 unread items to get through. What a fantastic experience it was to have his and his brother's joint email account on him at all times, filled full of emails addressed to Veneziano because he couldn't stop fucking signing up to things.

For that reason alone, regardless of all of the eighty or so justifications that Romano had listed to hate his new phone, Romano realised just how desperately bored he was on that Friday of the third week, because somehow he had ended up playing with it. He could at least admit to himself that checking the football results was slightly more interesting than listening to raging debates about the soaring costs of petrol. No one noticed, as he tapped away on it under the table, downcast eyes coupled with a bored expression on his face.

After only a couple of moments, it was blinking at him again.

• Are u coming 2 mine tonight?

Romano sighed, annoyed by the utterly inescapable, inane chatter that was fast becoming a common feature in his daily life.

R√ Don't know if I feel like it.

Okay, so that was a lie. Suffering an evening with Spain after a boring day at work didn't seem so awful.

• :(

• I miss u! I haven't seen u in nearly 3 weeks

R√ I don't miss you, bastard.

That might have been a lie too. Just a little one, of course.

• You're so mean!

• I wanted 2 spend the evening with u

R√ Doing -what- exactly?

R√ Watching some crappy novella?

• Yeah! And drinking 2!

• And I'm rly horny and I want 2 have sex

Romano couldn't help but blink at that, fingers pausing in where they were poised to tap out a reply.

Having spent many, many years with Spain, it was hardly a surprise any more when he readily blurted out exactly how he was feeling. Spain was a Mediterranean country- like himself- and neither of them were particularly prudish when it came to sex. They were both men. Sex was a given and done for enjoyment, with little ceremony.

It came as something of a shock to Romano when he felt his cheeks heat up. He supposed it was because he wasn't used to seeing it written down in black and blue. It was oddly…sexy…

Licking his lips, he set about responding.

R√ Oh yeah? What exactly were you thinking about?

R√ Sex-wise.

R√ Not the whole evening, because I know that you were about to do that.

• :p

• idk

• I was thinking about giving u head after dinner maybe outside on the patio cuz its a lovely warm night :)

Romano glanced up to see if anyone had noticed his lack of attention. Luckily no one seemed to even realise that he was there. Good. That would make the fact that he was red-faced and haunched over in his chair like he had bad constipation less noticeable.

R√ Tell me exactly what you've been thinking about doing.

R√ And don't fucking skimp on the details.

• ?

• What like, how I'm gonna shove my hand between your legs and rub you slowly until I can feel you starting to respond?

Romano couldn't stop his slow smirk if he tried.

R√ Yes, bastard.

R√ Like -that-

Suddenly, Romano didn't hate his phone quite so much. In fact suddenly he was half tempted to say that he almost liked it.

During the fourth week Romano's phone was stolen.

Had it been two weeks before, Romano would have paid them to take it. Unfortunately for him, thanks to his shitty luck, it hadn't been and now every single blissfully familiar Blackberry bleep and beep and ding that he heard had him frantically going for his pocket.

He felt like he'd lost a limb. How was he supposed to know what Spain was doing every moment of the day? How else was he supposed to talk to him?

Sitting on the train was torture. Men, women, and teenagers, phones in hand, screens lit up in the comforting blue and white hues of Blackberry messenger. When Romano closed his eyes he could hear it…a sea of taps and clicks as rapid fingers danced over tiny keys.

The ache from the Blackberry-shaped hole in his heart was almost unbearable.

When his train reached its stop, he trudged dejectedly over towards the waving figure of his brother. He didn't even react when Veneziano threw his arms around him in a hug, staring off at the platform instead, sombre.

Veneziano immediately knew that something was very wrong. "Romano…" he said. "You're not even trying to push me off. What's happened?"

Romano bit his lip at his brother's concerned expression. He could hardly tell him the truth. "Nothing," he lied. "I'm just tired…"

Veneziano gave him an unusually discerning look, but let the matter drop, knowing better than to push his brother into talking about his feelings.

"Well…whatever it is -or isn't-" he added hastily. "I have something that might cheer you up just a little?"

Romano simply looked at him, a distant, dead-eyed look upon his face.

Veneziano winced, but went into his pocket nonetheless. From it he produced something small, shiny and black. "Here," he said, holding it out to Romano. "You left your phone at mine Tuesday when you left your jacket with me. I couldn't text you about it, so I held onto it for you 'til today."

Romano blinked, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. It was…a miracle. He almost didn't dare to breathe, lest it be a fantasy.

"M-my phone…" he whimpered. "My…"

He didn't even bother to finish his sentence, snatching up his phone and jamming it against his cheek, nuzzling it affectionately.

"Ah…" was all that Veneziano could say. "That's…wow," he laughed. "I had no idea that you loved your phone so much."

"I don't!" Romano insisted, still nuzzling it. "It's a piece of crap. I just need it to be in touch with people."

Veneziano smiled, glad to see his brother so happy. "Yeah. You've been getting a lot of messages. You're really popular, Romano."

It took a moment for the words to sink in, but when they did, it made Romano pause in his affectionate reunion with his phone. "Popular..?" Romano had been called many things in his life. Popular had never been one of them. "I-it's probably just Spain," he shrugged, trying to look and sound nonchalant.

Veneziano didn't believe him for a moment, and simply carried on smiling at him. "Isn't technology amazing? We used to have to wait weeks to get messages by carrier pigeons, and now we can talk all day and night as if we're next to each other."

Romano snorted, giving him a dirty look. "Stop trying to be poignant. It makes you sound stupid." With that, he tossed his head and stomped off towards the car.

Veneziano carried on smiling, not failing to notice the pink on his brother's cheeks.

He knew that it wasn't the phone that Romano loved. He knew that what Romano loved was what his phone allowed him to do. What this amazing new technology enabled everyone to do. Deep down, Romano probably knew that too.

Not that he'd ever admit it, of course.

"Are you coming, stupid?" Romano called, head down as he quickly tapped out message after message, deep in conversation.

Veneziano couldn't help but laugh.