Don't Judge a Book by Its (Tablet) Cover

At 6:30 in the morning on Wednesday, September 25th, sirens went off, warning of an impending rocket attack on Tel Aviv. Along with the other passengers on the train that had departed from Modi’in half an hour earlier, I lay on the floor. The train slowed as it neared the Tel Aviv University Station. When it came to a stop, I rushed off and took shelter in the arrival hall below the tracks.

It was the first time that a missile fired by Hezbollah came close to striking Tel Aviv in the ongoing and escalating conflict. The IDF Army confirmed it had intercepted the surface-to-surface missile after it was launched from Lebanon. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

I breathed a sigh of relief and hurried toward the station’s exit. As I walked, I adjusted my backpack and found that one of the pouches was unzipped. I felt inside and discovered that my tablet was missing. Maybe in my rush to get off the train I had placed it inside another pouch? Had I had left it on the train?

I need my tablet to read

My journey to work on the early morning train lasts 37 minutes, and I utilize the time to read. That morning, I had been just a chapter or two short of finishing Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari, an excellent novel by a highly talented writer. I was thoroughly enjoying the book and planning to write a very complimentary review. But when I arrived at my office and checked my backpack, I confirmed the fact that I had lost my tablet.

I opened a ticket on the Israel Railways website reporting the loss. I joined several Facebook groups—Lost and Found, Lost and Found in Tel Aviv, and Lost and Found on the Train. I posted a quick note about losing my tablet and provided a brief description. I checked my Facebook feed every hour to see if anyone reported finding it.

A few words about my tablet. It is a very old, outdated Samsung model, dating back to 2013. I only use the tablet for reading. I don’t watch videos on the tablet; I don’t play games. My tablet serves me solely as a digital book.

The most distinguishing feature of the tablet is its black cover. The cover is as old as the device and shows extensive signs of wear and tear. It’s faded and starting to come apart. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a picture of the tablet to post on Facebook.

One of the first thoughts that went through my head was how would I finish the last pages of Tsabari’s novel? I downloaded the Kindle app to my phone and on my return train journey home, I read the ending of the book on a very small screen.

I order a new tablet and then…

A week and a half passed, and I had given up hope of ever seeing my tablet again. I went online and searched for a new tablet to buy. I didn’t want anything fancy, and I certainly didn’t want an Amazon Kindle, a device that continues to frustrate my wife months after she purchased it. I found an affordable model and made the order. The tablet would be ready for pickup at an electronics store down the street from my office the very next day.

And then I got a phone call from Israel Railways.

“Do you have a white tablet?” someone asked me.

I didn't know the color! I couldn't remember ever seeing the tablet without its fraying cover.

“Does it have a start button at the bottom, like an iPhone 4?”

“I don’t know what an iPhone 4 looks like,” I admitted.

Don't judge a digital book by its cover

After work, I went to the Lost and Found department at the Savidor Center Train Station. The clerk couldn’t find a record of having called me that morning, but he did have my report of a missing tablet listed in his files. “Is this one yours?” he said, holding up a huge device.

“My tablet is smaller.”

“What about this one?”

“No, mine is much smaller”

“And this?”

I immediately recognized the tablet by its old black cover. “That’s it!”

As the clerk wrote up his report, I turned on the device. Amazingly, after having gone missing for a week and a half, the battery was at 75%. And the Kindle app opened to the exact page in Songs for the Brokenhearted that I had been reading when the siren went off.

“You seem surprised,” the clerk said.

“I can’t believe that I found it.”

“There are good people in this world,” the clerk said, referring to the honest anonymous train passenger who had turned my tablet into Lost and Found. “And your tablet is a very old model that no one uses anymore.”

No one uses? My tablet had just survived a missile attack and reappeared after disappearing for a week and a half! Even after all these years, it is still a suitable device for reading, especially when it comes to excellent novels like Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari.

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