Finally it’s over. It was always an embarrassingly one-sided affair but I clung on, as you do with long-standing relationships. Despite knowing it would be for the best I feared the loss, worried that life just wouldn’t be the same. Even after some particularly abusive spats I felt I had little choice but to stay. In the end it wasn’t even my decision. Telkom left me. It just upped sticks and left one day in early October. There was no warning, the phone just stopped ringing. For a few days I didn’t worry. Throughout our long relationship Telkom had done this to me many times and after much pleading it had always come back. In the early years these disappearances turned my life upside-down, which is why I had no qualms about pleading. But as the years (and technology) progressed I cultivated other relationships, reluctantly at first, then with growing enthusiasm. So the pleading stopped. This time the days drifted into weeks and I managed to maintain a zen-like calm as I contemplate...

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