The Talking Booths

 

When I was a kid I used to love taking a pile of pennies and going into a phone box to call cousins and ask if I could visit them.

The smell of a phone box, like damp cardboard.

Massive phone books, the A-Z of everyone who ever was. 

An encyclopaedia of names, we were all there.

A mess of brown bubbles, where someone tried to burn a hole in the window of the phone box. 

The phone books, crumpled and curled at the edges, like a thousand hands have searched for a mam they haven't seen for years, a cousin gone missing or maybe even a child they gave away.

The phone box was a whole world , away from the elements. 

Breath hot against the mouthpiece. 

I never thought about germs that could be harboured there.

Over time phone boxes were decommissioned.

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In Australia there is an occasional hooded booth, where you can make free calls.

I was with a friend recently, waiting for a take away, they 'dared me' to make a prank call from a phone box. 

I rang my daughter, put on a silly accent and asked if they had ordered a vindaloo curry. For a moment it was just us caught up in the silliness of the prank, oddly exhilarating. 

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Across the world pillar box red phone booth are reconditioned, made a little larger, a tiny table, two chairs. 

A simple instruction, JUST TALK. 

The only sign required.

The phone box becoming TARDIS like in its potential.

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I read and re read Shrill Notes by a loud woman, passages about rape jokes told in bars fuelling the greater fire.. 

The man who trolled Lindy West ended up talking to Lindy. He changed. Lindy changed. 

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Wars rage.

The world fragments again and again.

Before another missile is fired. 

Can leaders please make their way into a phone booth.

& 

JUST TALK

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