The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-01-17
When The Wires
Are Crossed

you will never know the modern equiv
alent for calling up spirits from the
Deep"
Central is your sibyl You sit at
your office desk and ask her, out in
the void somewhere, for No. 999 L,
and she gives it to you and then some.
She pulls out plug here, shifts a
lever there, presses key and-be-
hold. you are in a land of giant whisp-
ers, the rustic of wings, the roaring of
CONGREGATIONS. OF course you are
surprised. You hear what seems TO
you the hiss and rattle of serpents,
the cracking of forest fire. Around
and around in the vortex of flame
and smoke are borne the spirits of the
damned who speak for fair or foul as
they whirl by. You hear a little man
with a voice like mosquito who
walls: "Oh, don't want you. 1 don't
want you at ALL never asked for you
You feel like telling him 1t is NUT
ual, but before you can do SO he is
swept away and you hear a, woman
crying in thin, shrieking voice away
out on the border OF purgatory: Send
down those plumbers quick-the fur
mace won't work, we are all freezing
and"
Despite the roar of the blizzard eSld
the drifting Dakota SHOWS that you
see through your window, it is evil
dent this woman is not in the ortho-
dox hell. Another woman is heard
wailing for Fred, oh Fred, where are
you? l had you moment ago but
now they have cut us off-they have
cut us"
Her voice grows fainter and fainter
as she is swept past like Francesca
and her lover in Dante's vision-on
and on through the gloom and smoke
in eternal embrace.
You hear an odd churr-r-r-r.
chur-r-r-r in the machine when she
talks You hold your receiver at
arms length to avoid the earsplitting
noise. Then you hear somebody tell
somebody else that he is too mean to
live. so hateful that she despises him,
that his "only excuse for living is to
save funeral expenses" ETC., to which
he answers: cav, now, sweetheart"
and "sure Mike" which latter must be
a witticism, for the shrill churrr-r,
chur-r-r-r follows it.
Crossed wires means a peep into a
forbidden country, weird, strange
land for unearthly noises. Sometimes
you hear fragments of the most
startling and awful profanity sand
wiched in between the thrilling scenes
Often these scenes are suddenly
shifted and you see and hear some
wondrously beautiful things while
the sweetest of music comes floating in
upon you. Sometimes you hear the
voices of children IN song. In fact
you get tangled up with little bit of
everything when the wires are crossed.
Meantime, chorus of the lost, who
are like the sands of the sea for num-
Der, and all of them in torment, are
screaming in all keys for Central,
Central, Central" Somebody yells
Talk Understand on your tiptoes."
Another one asks if train No. ZIG has.
arrived yet and is told ono; seventeen
hours late and thousand miles
away" Everybody demands every
number in the book and wants it i'm
mediately.
You wonder, as you sit and listen,
If it can be possible you are having a
nightmare; maybe your are only
drunk or dreaming after all. Maybe
You are only spectator at a sort of
double Fantasma show ditched in
snowbank up the road and a Russell
pillow is coming at you from both ends.
Whatever you may imagine, do not
worry; it is only crossed wires. You
don't run into them often, but you'll
know it when you do, just as you'll
remember all the details the rest of
your life-every chug, every biff, every
chur-r-r-r and all the kettle drums.
as your head aches to the breaking
for week afterwards.
While you sit at your desk and listen
there comes lull, then abrupt sill
ence. Not voice do you hear, not a
sound from out the vast deep. Through
the windows you see the drifting
snow; you hear the ticking of the Of
flee clock-the Kissing of the steam
radiator. You dislike to think of ven
turing out into the storm.
Then comes the little chur-r-r-r-r
again and you reel as If hit with
bullet. Central has turned the handle
of her gate of ivory and ushered' you
into hades of frivolities, a shop of jim
jams and cuckoo clocks, Russian
samovars, canoes from the bosoms of
your grandmothers, musty carpets and
dead mems rings a pawnshop or
second hand store. So vivid is all
this that you catch even the smell of
the onions. A door slams. Some
thing falls. A voice says "Whew, but
it's cold Jacob" Then family, very
family, you hear a gramophone
playing Loves Golden Day, while from
somewhere else, perhaps East Grand
Forks. or st. Paul, or Blackjack (you
will never know which) you hear a
voice singing:
Zone the other side of Jordan.
In the sweet fields of Eden,
Where the tree of Life is blooming.
Therell be rest for you"
Just as the song ends a big, accus-
Ing voice demands: "Who are you,
anyhow? What you want?" Startled in
to forgetfulness of your own name