Write a composition beginning with the line, 'Finally the reply I’d been waiting for came through - Junior Cycle English - Question 1 - 2016

The anticipation had been building up for days. As I stared at my phone, I felt my heart race. Finally, the reply I’d been waiting for came through. I opened the text and saw that it contained no words - just a solitary emoji. It was a simple smiley face, but in that moment, it felt like a thousand messages at once.

Confusion washed over me as I tried to interpret its meaning. Was it a sign of happiness, or perhaps indifference? The absence of words only deepened my curiosity. I put down my phone and gazed out the window, watching the leaves swirl in the autumn breeze, pondering the weight of a single emoji.

In that fleeting moment, I realized how much we rely on words to convey feelings and thoughts, yet here was a stark reminder that sometimes, a simple image can evoke more emotion than a paragraph ever could. The void left by those missing words opened a floodgate of introspection.

What did it mean for us? Were we, as a generation, moving towards a language stripped of complexity? Or was this a new way of communicating, one filled with nuances that only a few could grasp? I leaned back in my chair, contemplating the evolution of our dialogue as different as the seasons changing outside.

With each passing moment, I understood the depth in that solitary emoji—it was a starting point for conversation, a prompt for questions left unasked and feelings unspoken. The simplicity of it became a revelation in itself, encouraging me to reconnect both with myself and the person who sent it. Little did I know, this small exchange would lead to a much larger exploration of communication in our digital age.