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Realtime: Phonecall from no one

 
 
8===>Q: alyn
03:56 / 05.12.02
This is a post in real time. I am listening to a phonecall coming over my answering machine. Someone seems to have dialed my number at random and put the phone down. It's a 646 number, which could be a cell phone or someone in Manhattan. There are shouting and shrieking voices, weird chanting that could be some kind of Israeli trance music, barking, echoes, electronic warbling, and static.

It's ebbing off... no, wait, a new song is coming on, but not so loud. Someone's turned the volume down? Pulsy little whiny guitar riffs. It sounds like there are 4 or five people there. I can't tell if they're speaking English.

What! Someone just shouted "Liar!"

I think.

Total silence, momentary. Phonebeep. More noise. 3 more beeps. Silence. It seems to be over. About 3 minutes, I think. My word.

Should I have picked up? Should I call them back?
 
 
gravitybitch
05:24 / 05.12.02
Random thoughts:

The Universe called and you didn't pick it up.

If nobody spoke into the phone, maybe The Universe had the wrong number?


I think I would have been tempted to call them back, especially if I liked the music.
 
 
e-n
07:00 / 05.12.02
Can you call them back and play back the message to THEM?
Like Aliens re-broadcasting our TV messages back to us in Contact??
 
 
Cat Chant
13:11 / 05.12.02
"telephone call for Martin Heidegger"
 
 
rizla mission
15:04 / 05.12.02
call them back
call them back
call them back

..and play them some crazy sounds of your own devising..
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
15:22 / 05.12.02
It sounds like there are 4 or five people there

My question is... why one numeral and one word? There must've been some subliminal jiggery going on.

Iszabelle, the universe calls every day, and it never gets the wrong number.

Deva, I dunno squat about Martin Heidegger, except that he was a boozy beggar, like Emmanuel Kant was a real pissante and someone else was fond of his dram and Rennie DeCartes was a drunken fart, "I drink therefore I am!"

Rizla, I'll consider it. I can't help thinking it was a call from the Goetia or something... though in all likelihood some friend of a roommate accidentally hit speeddial on hir cellphone. If that were the case, wouldn't they just hang up on me?
 
 
rizla mission
15:44 / 05.12.02
Well.. probably so, but I think the least you can do when some strange, atmospheric noise phones you is to reply in kind and try to establish a dialogue that way..

far more fun than "did you accidentally phone me?" "yes." "oh."

I'm sure Burroughs would approve.
 
 
dj kali_ma
15:55 / 05.12.02
It's fodder for your next album, I think. It just got delivered a year earlier than planned, and to a slightly-off parallel universe.

Consider the implications.

Whoozaliar?

::a::
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
18:35 / 05.12.02
I had a couple of strange phone calls from a guy last Saturday (and I blame Helmschmied for refusing to tell him I was out for the second one...) first of all I didn't want to admit I didn't know who it was, so I played along until I could figure it out. Until I got "Who were you just talking to?" "Oh, a friend." "Was it a girl? What does she look like? What's her name?" etc.

The second time HE ended up hanging up on ME with the words "You're a fucking psycho, you are!"

Hey. Even stalkers think I'm nuts. Good thing/bad thing?
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
22:30 / 05.12.02
Socrates. Socrates was fond of his dram. Someone make a note in the synchronomicon thread.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
22:56 / 05.12.02
call them back
call them back
call them back

..and play them some crazy sounds of your own devising..


Always fun, especially when it's a heavy breather (I thought they were fictional until we got one) and you manage to weird them out by out-perving them.
 
  
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