The public phones in south Tel Aviv never sleep. If they could tell the stories they hear, or count the tears shed, or echo the many voices filled with longing and despair,
then they would testify the price of globalization. A heavy price those people have to pay, that were forced to leave their homes and their families behind,
for political or economical reasons, searching for work, or looking for freedom.
Chinese, Amharic, English, Tigrinic, Hindi are just a few of many other languages audible from the shaky phone boxes scattered here and there in the streets of the neighborhood.
On Shabbats and during holidays people are lining up, waiting patiently until it’s their turn.
Sometimes the conversations need more time than expected. Hence the callers are arranging themselves snippets of cardboard on the floor and sit down.
Then the city slowly disappears fand they are drawn through the telephone line into other spaces, territories far away from here…
The Count-down of call units dubbed with heart beat.
Aliens, migrants, refugees.
Legal, illlegal, with papers or without.
Foreign. Workers.
How many units it needs to whisper some gentle words to a far away wife? Or say Goodnight to the children?
This tacky orange phone boxes in their shaky frames are possibly the real terminal to a globalized world.
Imaginations and sweet little lies. The small comfort for the beloved ones at home and for themselves.
They desire to be still, to be safe.
Ghosts?
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Card.Beat
