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37 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s 1969.
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I’m eight years old, and Neil Armstrong has walked on the surface of the moon, technology is king, and the world will never be the same again.
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I live in the small town of Feilding,
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with my parents, three little sisters, and one older brother. He’s nine, and the gulf between us is vast, despite sharing a room, a surname, and an inevitable set of secrets.
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We have high hopes for Feilding,
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having just moved here from the even smaller town of Bulls, and this year Feilding is not going to disappoint. They’re not walking on the moon, but they are replacing the manual telephone exchange with one of those new-fangled automatic ones. This is Phone 2.0, and grannies all over town are complaining that they will never get the hang of it.
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My brother Mike sees opportunity.
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The Post Office, who run these things, are selling off the surplus manual phones for a dollar each. He has saved, he tells me, specifically for the purpose.
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In no time he has obtained a selection of them.
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Nearly new black Bakelite paperweights and ancient wall-mounted wooden eyesores are being disposed of without any thought to preservation.
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Boys are stringing wires
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between houses with reckless abandon before becoming bored with just talking, and wondering what else they might be able to use the phones for.
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Before too long,
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numerous phone corpses litter our bedroom floor, with Mike-The-Surgeon having extracted the still-pumping organs from them, and figured out exactly which part does what.
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I enter,
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stage left, unwilling, unwitting, and oh, so unprepared.
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“Oh, Jimmy,”
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he says to me, a grin on his face. “Just the person I was after.”
“Me?” |
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“Oh, yeah.”
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“Ah, what do you want?”
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“Your help, of course.”
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“My help?”
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“Yeah. You bet.”
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“You never want my help.”
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“Well I do now.”
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“Really?”
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“Oh,” he says, innocence plastered on his face. “I do. I really do.”
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“Ah... okay. What do I do?”
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“These wires. I need to know if they will reach to the front door.”
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“Oh, okay.”
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“Yeah, so just drag them down the hallway. I’ll hold the other end here.”
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“Okay, cool.”
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I’m impressed,
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you understand. Hanging with the big kids. Doing grown up, nine year old stuff. I take the pair of wires he hands me, and I head for the door.
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He calls out to me: “Hold on a second.”
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“What?”
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“Well, sorry. My fault. I should have said.”
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“Said what?”
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“Well, you need to make sure the two wires don’t touch.”
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“Touch what?”
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“Each other, stupid.”
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“Oh. Okay, I’ll be careful.”
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“No, no.” He beckons me back. “You need to be really sure.”
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“Why?”
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“Well, because they... it will ruin the experiment. You don’t want to ruin the experiment do you?”
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“No! No, I don’t. The experiment. Okay, what do I do?”
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“Well, how about one in each hand?”
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I separate the wires, and clasp one in each pudgy fist and lift them up to show him.“Ah, maybe... what if you... like this. Hold them properly.”
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He stands up from the bed
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and rearranges things like this. I smile, feeling very proud of myself, then walk out the door, and around the corner. I’m walking slowly down the hallway, keeping an eye on my hands, when I feel something very strange. My body seemed to jump all of a sudden. I look around and can see nothing strange. I keep walking.
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My beloved brother,
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back in the bedroom, is holding a device in his hands. It’s a grey metal box of some sort, with the other end of my wires attached to it. The box also has a handle. He’s chuckling, because he has just confirmed that I’m holding the wires. Tightly.
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I take another
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couple of steps, and jump again.
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Mike is laughing
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out loud now, bending to his task, and turning the clumsy handle slowly while holding the box with his other hand
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I’m standing still,
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gripping the wires tight, not wanting to let my big brother down, despite the startlingly bad feelings racing through my body.
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Mike has things sorted,
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and steps up the pace, spinning the handle of the generator, as though he needs to make a manual phone call to God. Or perhaps, just perhaps, he’s calling someone downstairs.
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I’m unable to do anything.
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My fingers tightly holding the wires apart, I’m pulsing with electricity in the middle of the hallway. ***
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I can just manage
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to hear my brother almost wetting himself with laughter in the bedroom, and there is nothing I can do to stop him. ***
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Good morning.
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My name is Jim Henderson. And I’m an addict. It’s been at least ten minutes since I checked my email.
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Technology runs through my veins,
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and I’m never happier than I am with a new toy. Something cool. Something interesting. These days, something electronic, preferably with the screen, and a keyboard.
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And that’s hardly surprising,
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after receiving shock treatment at such a young age.
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One more telling observation.
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The company that supplied the equipment for the shock are essentially the same company that supplies the room we’re sitting in, and they are the same company that I now work for. That’s called fate.
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Thank you very much.
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!
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