~
Hung Up
Vodafone betrayed me last week.
I had to climb halfway up the Ashton
to raise my bars above zero,
and even then I got nothing
but satellite cracks and black silences.
I tried an old rotary dial
fished from my granddad’s basement;
the wheel clicked, mechanism newly slick
with oil, but the receiver blared static
and nothing else.
I dropped by the corner shop,
picked up baked beans and some twine,
pulled the fine string tight and built myself
a tin-can diaphragm telephone line;
but all I could catch was this voiceless whine,
muffled and hazy. It made me think
of Bell and Watson, lost in time,
rustling papers in the Victorian gloom –
waiting for magnets to send ripples through water,
listening for whispers in adjoining rooms –
and now I find myself sat at Williamson’s,
mobile battery flat, discarded into park garbage,
its absence burning a hole in my back pocket.
I can’t reach you, by any mechanism;
every medium but open air is a vacuum.
~
Alex Aldred
Alex Aldred lives and writes in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he is currently studying towards his PhD in creative writing. His debut pamphlet, Faces Adjacent, was published by Ghost City Press in June 2021. You can find out more about his work by visiting his site, www.alexaldred.co.uk, by finding him on twitter @itsmealexaldred, or by summoning him to speak with you in person, provided you have access to the necessary runes.