A. W. I. A. 12: More telephone wires he pretended not to understand

The man who claimed to be a doctor was asking me to elaborate on the horrors of telephone wires, as if they weren't perfectly obvious.

"Look, they cut stigmata through the trees to make way for them. And there are stray things in them, things that can't have anything to do with the voices they carry."

"Like what?"

"Like a spoked steel thing that's some crazy cross between a bicycle wheel and a snowshoe."

The man appeared to think. He looked at his pad, where nothing was written. "Why did you describe the black boxes as horrible?"

"They are dark chambers where secret couplings happen. What's not horrible about that?"

He shrugged and nodded, a vacillation and an affirmation at the same time. "And why would you use the word 'stigmata'?"

"Look, why ask me these questions? Why not run out and look for yourself? Those things are ugly and crazy. The poles are bound with steel wires because they are trying to fall apart out of shame. I don't want to talk about it."

Next