The way we talk

The way we talk

The way we talk

The way we talk on the telephone. Yes, the liquid flow of her melodious voice. So special. Warm and harmonious, and usually quite low. Her voice like hot treacle through the telephone, dark now yet sweet. Late at nighttime, or early the next morning. She talks and talks. Afterwards, it’s always the same. The skin of my ear raw and blistered. That half of my face peeling to the touch, and flaking away. The telephone set, all cracked and corroded. And always that same sweet incense of burning plastic. So special. And the droplets of melted phone, black and tiny like musical notes strewn across the carpet. We need to talk, she says. And talks. And again. Like heated tar through the telephone now, hot and viscous. The smell of melting wires, again. Yesterday, our talk singed my hair. Again. But today, for the first time, it set the curtains alight. The cat ran screaming from the room, her fur scalded by the conversation. In their bowl, the goldfish boiled. Several house-plants wilted in the heat, others died. Someone called the fire brigade. Someone else jumped out of the window. Tomorrow morning, I guess we will talk again. In the meantime, the telephone company has complained. Their fuses have blown, they say, and their fibre-optics are all aflame. Our city is now cut off from the others, our country no longer in touch with the outside world. High above us, their telecommunication satellites fall flaming from the sky. Droplets of melted tungsten and burning steel dropped through the ether: slowly, melodiously, like the words of a leisurely conversation. Her voice is dropping too. Now it comes from the deeper down. Much deeper. Deep below the earth’s surface, but rising fast. Hot, molten, incandescent lava pours out of the telephone as we talk. Down the slopes of Mount Etna, and into my sitting room. It’s completely on fire now, and so is the house itself. Smoke signals rise into the flaming sky. Higher and higher, among the falling satellites. All around me I can catch that familiar smell of burning flesh. Yet again. But we need to talk, she says. They’re so very special, these talks we have. I put down the melted phone, onto the charred remains of the little table. Everywhere cylinders, and charcoal, and piles of ash. And tomorrow? Tomorrow, I am sure, we will talk again. And again —