Let’s have it! Short story (500 word max) or poem… in some way concerned with a telephone booth. Doesn’t have to be this one! (As explained in May 1 newsletter.)
Beneath thick-needled branches hanging over the narrow road clinging to the shore of the deep lake, I pedal. My bike is loaded with damp gear – tent, sleeping bag, clothing. It rained hard for 3 days, but now there are only low-hanging clouds on the mountains on our left and mist swirling in the green-black pines, through the spokes of my bike wheel, around my husband pedaling ahead of me.
We are on one leg of our long bike trip, roaming down the east side of Kootenay Lake, looking for the house made of glass bottles.
At a one room gas station a man with huge whiskers and a straggly pony tail pumps gas into his battered truck. The pump is a Texaco pump from the 1940’s, with a little bubble on the side, the truck from the 1950's. We are in the 1980’s.
And then we come upon it, the glass house made out of empty bottles. It huddles beneath the dark trees, wet bottles dully gleaming, its yard a mass of ferns and shrubs, covering the stone steps to the house.
In one corner of the sodden yard stands a red British phone booth. I get off my bike, find a dime, and get into the booth. It is calm and dry inside. I pick up the receiver and call my husband.
“Why did you die?” I beg.
He doesn’t tell me, he doesn’t speak at all, pedaling ahead of me in the mist.
The glass house is made from embalming fluid bottles.
anyone remember seeing a weird fiction piece shot in video, ( probably was produced in some Spanish speaking land ) however the scene starts out with an open park setting & a truck with a crew shows up and installs a phone booth, the thing sits idle for some time but eventually somebody gets into the booth and attempts to make a call, however the phone doesn't work, neither does the door, the would be user is trapped inside. Then the crew returns, loads the phone booth on a truck & the truck drives away, the hapless captive is seen attempting to get the attention of motorists as the truck travels through traffic, but no luck, eventually the captive character in the phone booth notices that there are other similar trucks converging on a location and each truck has a phone booth with a captive inside, ( and at that point the episode ends . . . ) anyone relate to this story?
A phone booth is such an intriguing image! Here’s my poem:
https://erinbuchmann.wixsite.com/journeytowardreal/post/grief-is
The Telephone Booth and the Glass Bottle House
Beneath thick-needled branches hanging over the narrow road clinging to the shore of the deep lake, I pedal. My bike is loaded with damp gear – tent, sleeping bag, clothing. It rained hard for 3 days, but now there are only low-hanging clouds on the mountains on our left and mist swirling in the green-black pines, through the spokes of my bike wheel, around my husband pedaling ahead of me.
We are on one leg of our long bike trip, roaming down the east side of Kootenay Lake, looking for the house made of glass bottles.
At a one room gas station a man with huge whiskers and a straggly pony tail pumps gas into his battered truck. The pump is a Texaco pump from the 1940’s, with a little bubble on the side, the truck from the 1950's. We are in the 1980’s.
And then we come upon it, the glass house made out of empty bottles. It huddles beneath the dark trees, wet bottles dully gleaming, its yard a mass of ferns and shrubs, covering the stone steps to the house.
In one corner of the sodden yard stands a red British phone booth. I get off my bike, find a dime, and get into the booth. It is calm and dry inside. I pick up the receiver and call my husband.
“Why did you die?” I beg.
He doesn’t tell me, he doesn’t speak at all, pedaling ahead of me in the mist.
The glass house is made from embalming fluid bottles.
anyone remember seeing a weird fiction piece shot in video, ( probably was produced in some Spanish speaking land ) however the scene starts out with an open park setting & a truck with a crew shows up and installs a phone booth, the thing sits idle for some time but eventually somebody gets into the booth and attempts to make a call, however the phone doesn't work, neither does the door, the would be user is trapped inside. Then the crew returns, loads the phone booth on a truck & the truck drives away, the hapless captive is seen attempting to get the attention of motorists as the truck travels through traffic, but no luck, eventually the captive character in the phone booth notices that there are other similar trucks converging on a location and each truck has a phone booth with a captive inside, ( and at that point the episode ends . . . ) anyone relate to this story?