I received a strange phone call yestereve.
RING-RING! RING-RING!
Hello?
(Sounds of a party.)
Hello? Hell-OH!? HELEWWWW!
(More party sounds. Laughter. Someone picking away at Beethoven’s “Für Elise” on an out-of-tune piano.)
HELLO-OH! (beep beep beep, I push buttons.)
There is no one there.
So I listen, hoping to hear someone’s name I recognise, or someone’s voice I know.
More party sounds. More piano. And I am enthralled. By some weird fluke, I’ve been invited into someone’s house to attend a party though no one knows me, and no one knows I’m there.
I am a fly on the wall.
I imagined if I were at the party, I’d probably be slumped in the sofa, tired, bored. But being there by phone proxy alone, and covertly, was kinking me out. I continued to listen to the party for about 45 minutes.
Someone came back from the liquour store. “Where were you! We were getting worried!”
Someone else arrived late. “Power lines are down on the highway. Lots of traffic.”
“Oh my god, Roman, I can’t believe she said that to you!”
“Tracy, where did you get that dress! It rocks, dude!”
“Is there any food left? Or did Paul eat it all?”
I laid in bed, phone to the ear, trying to piece together this party. Where was it? Sounded like America. No one was making any local references to any city I know though. How did someone manage to ring me up? Did someone bump the phone and hit speed dial? Who has me on speed dial? Or was it an honest wrong number?
45 minutes I listened, drifting in and out of sleep. The party noises ebbed and flowed through my sporadic dreams. In my dreams, I was there. I knew everybody. And it was a dull party. When I woke, it was exciting. Hey, that guy/girl can play piano pretty well. I wanna see Tracy’s dress — what’s it look like? And what the hell did so-n-so actually say to Roman?
Fly on the wall.
Eventually a girl’s voice got louder and louder until I could tell she was by the phone.
“Now’s my chance!” I thought. “C’mon honey. Pick up the phone so I can talk to you.”
“ALL RIGHT ROMAN! I’M CALLING YOU A CAB! ARE YOU OUT OF THE BATHROOM YET?” She starts pushing buttons on the phone, realises there’s no dial tone, huffs her annoyance, and clicks the phone off.
Wham! I am severed from the Mystery Party. I feel a million miles from nowhere.
Today I stumbled onto a web-cam ring. I’ve never really explored the web-cam portion of the internet before for some reason. This one seemed pretty good. Live streams of what some people are up to. I have about four windows open at the moment, Hollywood-Squares-style, of people who look like they might do something interesting.
They’re not, though.
- Guy with shaved head smoking a cigarette, wearing walkman headphones, sitting at his computer and ignoring the woman walking around behind him.
- Cute girl drinking coffee, staring bored at her monitor.
- Cute guy with no shirt drumming his fingers on his mouth, staring at his monitor. Occasionally he smiles at something.
- Some chick who left the room a while ago. Live stream of an empty, inert chair. Somehow, this is the most fascinating.
It’s all very mundane. If I were in the room with any of these people, I’d be bored probably.
But since I’m afforded a tiny glimpse into a little box of their lives, and they don’t know I’m watching, it becomes absolutely fascinating.
Fly on the wall. I speculate about what will happen next.
- Smoking man is going to be bothered by this criss-crossy woman. He needs to take out the trash, or help with dinner, or go pick up something from some shop.
- Coffee girl has got to go pee soon after all she’s had to drink.
- Toplessboy might make his bed. It’s a comfy mess of crumpled sheets.
- Where’s that other girl? Is she hurt? Trapped under something heavy, perhaps? I don’t even know which city’s, state’s, or country’s police to call to save her.
Fly on the wall. I know that where Toplessboy is, it’s sunny, and that he has blue plaid sheets, and he must be warm. These are rather intimate details to know about an absolute stranger. Creepy. Kinky. He is “outside Kansas City” according to the brief bit of info on the page. His name seems to be “Neal.” Strange to know these intimate facts, yet nothing more.
I suppose the same might be said of writing on online diary. Hundreds of people globally know very private things about me, without actually knowing my name, phone number, the sound of my voice, etc.
And I admit there is a certain undeniable kink to that.
Fly on the wall. Makes the most mundane events riveting.
See the Marquis’ Crush o’ the Moment, live-streamed, (if he’s around).
NEW FEATURE! “DJ, SAVE my life!” Wanna feel like a Marquis? Download the music he’s listening to. But do it quickly. This mp3 will be erased at my next diary entry because I’m stealing bandwidth.
TODAY: The original Swedish “Muh-Nuh-Muh-Nuh” song (1.8 MB). Thanx to Trik for managing to tape this and sending me the tape.
|
|
