Entry #8 or The Phone Booth with Stella

I have this very unoriginal idea of what to write about next.

A phone booth and five individual experiences. The conversations, cries, shouts, and laughs. The dogs that mark their territory over that time-old structure. The hunt for change in an Apple Pay world. The rust that creeps through the unsuspecting corners of the metallic plates that hold that booth up, year after year.

And especially the Woody Allen-esque tales that revolve around this urban Stonehenge, standing through climate-changing hurricanes, misfit world leaders and embarrassing hairstyles. Yes, I have been watching a lot of Woody Allen films (secretly), and it made me want to paint this postcard picture of a device I have never even used before. Shall we go for it, reader?

Let's start with Stella. I love the name Stella. It fits Stella so well, so stellar, celestial, shiny, bright, starry Stella.

Stella has a shoulder-length bob that she styles with two black hair clips, holding her bangs to the sides, as if they were curtains decorating the window that is her forehead. Her fashion is composed mostly of red and black clothing, 1960s silhouttes, and a regal New York-esque je ne sais quoi.

Stella is in a hurry. She is just SO busy, busier than anyone has ever been, in fact. Stella is also not having the greatest day. She's late, it's windy, and her black stockings have ripped from her ankle all the way up to her thigh. And worse, her phone is stone cold dead.

Stella is an event organizer at a big law firm in an undisclosed big urban city (picture the city that makes the most sense for you in this scenario). Today, her law firm is hosting a big shot networking event with all the bosses, partners, investors, and all-around big-bellied old white men who have never done grocery shopping in their life. In other words, some pretty important people. And it's all riding on Stella.

She is out running errands, fixing the intern's mistakes, picking up some last minute supplies, to make sure she throws the biggest and bestest bash her law firm has EVER seen. But in all this hurrying and zooming around, well whoopsy daisy, Stella forgot to write down where she had to pick up the badges from.

If you work in event management, you know what I'm talking about when I say badge. If you think a bit more about it, I guess you'll get there too. It's just those thingys people put around their necks, displaying their names and occupations, and basically, how important they would be to talk to at this fancy-shmancy networking event.

Anyways, Stella had to pick them up. Without the badges, how could the guests do any networking at the networking event? Say their names out loud?! TRASH! Stella forgot to write down where she had to pick them up. She needn't have written anything, much less forgotten it, if her phone wasn't on its last dying breath of Battery Health. She could simply check her Outlook, search through her busy inbox, and find the email where she told Amy, her 21-year-old-intern, where to pick the badges up from. Oh Amy, poor thing fell sick today. But of all days, Amy, you had to pick Stella's make-or-break corporate career moment to develop a common cold...

Wait, look! This is the exact moment when Stella spotted that rusty old phone booth. The one that I will write four other stories about. Yes, that one exactly! Standing firm on the street corner was that monument of a phone booth; an everyday inconvenience for the mob of walking commuters; yet sometimes a shelter to a few punk rock teenagers, escaping the hair-gel-disintegrating rain.

It was perfect! She could call her colleagues and check where to pick up those damned holy badges. And she could fix her hairdo, completely undone by the gusts of wind that cooled the city on that grey autumn day.

Stella made her way inside the booth. The smell of last-century urine filled her nostrils almost immediately, followed by her glasses fogging up in the warm, spore-filled air that inhabits that call box.

Stella stuck her hand deep into her designer-brand bag and rummaged for some loose change. She managed to find a few copper coins, some stuck to a year-old pack of gum, or wedged between some half-used paper tissues.

She dropped the coins in the designated slot, heard them hit the bottom, and picked up the phone with the tips of her fingers, edging it slowly closer to her ear.

Nothing. No sound. Nada. Rien.

Well, Stella, my love, you gotta press some numbers if we're going to go anywhere with this.

And that is when Stella realized that the last phone number she could actually remember was her mother's work number when she was 10 years old. She couldn't call her office. She couldn't call Amy. She couldn't call anyone.

The event started in one hour and it was on the other side of the city. Too far to run to, get the information, and head back out again, all before arriving on time to check in her guests. What was she ever going to do?

Oh Stella. This day is just not your day.

She leaned against the booth's dirty old windows, and slumped down a bit, in defeat. Ultimately, there was nothing else she could do to have everything rady on time.

Stella looked around at the four walls of the phone booth, and for a moment, she suddenly felt like they were closing in on her. She thought to herself, was this what it would feel like to be buried, down under the earth, gone for eternity? And in her panic, she found comfort. At least she could rest, she thought. How cosy that rusty old phone booth feel in that very minute, as cosy as her white duvet-covered bed at home on a Sunday morning, when it's grey outside.

This precious phone booth turned casket calmed Stella down. Tucked away from the noises and stress of her city, Stella let herself go and dozed off right there, leaning against those rusty glass walls.

When she woke, it was already nighttime. It was dark out and she couldn't check her watch for the time.

Stella stepped out of her comfy casket, stretched her arms up to the sky, and started walking home, with a smile, a rip in her stockings, and very messy bed hair.