‘One may notice, on occasion, the presence of phone recycling booths in the corners of malls and department stores. Sometimes they offer the user cash for old phones. Sometimes they suggest the phones will be forwarded to some vague charity. Maybe those things happen, but they are not the core purpose of these machines. The purpose of the machines is to disincentivize the act of throwing old phones into ‘The Calling Pit.’
‘The Calling Pit’ is an outwardly mundane hole between two small hills near the border in Southern California. ‘The Pit’ is sizable, around 20’ in diameter, and it is naturally occurring, though guard rails now line its rim. ‘The Pit’ is deep and winding- the bottom, if it has one, cannot be seen from the surface.
In 2004, a visitor to ‘The Pit,’ which was even less remarkable then than it is now, accidentally dropped their new and fully charged iPhone inside. Over the course of the next day, the visitor’s contacts received strange calls and messages, including pictures of shadowed rock walls and dim sunlight, filtering in as though from a distance. Those calls and message that could be described as coherent were pleasantries (‘hello,’ ‘how are you,’ ‘what is your name’) and questions (‘how warm is it where you are,’ ‘where are you exactly,’ ‘how long will this last’). Contact ceased roughly around the time one might suspect the iPhone lost power.
Whether or not this had happened previously, the iPhone case became popular enough that others began to experiment by sinking means of contact into ‘The Calling Pit’ and waiting for contact from the entity inside. Nothing works but cellular phones and contact is only ever between the entity and contacts on an active phone- it does not seem capable of or interested in revisiting old numbers from previous devices.
Visitors to ‘The Calling Pit’ have found that, for every three questions they answer, the entity will reluctantly answer a question put to it, though it is unwilling to offer any description of what or where exactly it is. The entity only ever offers advice, and the advice tends to be targeted and insightful beyond what one might expect of something that has never felt the sun on its form. The advice is good.
Studies suggest that roughly 30% of people who engage meaningfully with ‘The Calling Pit’ are dead within a year, though no clear line of causation has been found. It may well be that only desperate people ask a hole for advice.’
I buy a burner for the occasion, spending extra for a better battery and a case. I watch on the peripheries while others drop their phones down into the dark. I do what they did- I slide the phone along the closest thing to a slope, hoping to minimize impact. It’s a violent fall, regardless.
There are rumors people have died trying to enter.
I’m the only contact on the phone. The first messages come in an hour later. Garbled.
Then a call.
A voice like a young man asks where I’m going. I check the guide and tell him I’m going to a museum where they retire the costumes of sports mascots. Before I can wonder if I need to explain what a ‘mascot’ or a ‘sport’ is, the caller hangs up.
The same voice calls back 45 minutes later and asks how I’m doing. I tell it I’m nervous, but well. The voice asks what I’m nervous about and I tell it that I don’t know who I’m talking to. Or what. I refrain from wasting a question asking.
The line remains active. I tap on the dashboard and nod to myself in the rearview mirror.
“How much longer do I have to keep doing this?”
The phone crackles and the answer comes.
-traveler
