onanī

A wind phone is an unconnected telephone booth where the person inside can hold one-way conversations with a deceased loved one.

The first one was created by garden designer Itaru Sasaki in 2010 to help him cope with his cousin’s death in Ōtsuchi, Japan. He set up an old telephone booth in his garden to continue to feel connected to him by “talking” to him on the phone. Soon after it was opened to the public following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that killed over 15,000 people in the region. It is said to have helped a lot of grieving people.

Since that time they have sprung up all over the world.

One sprung up near Dallas, Texas a few years back.

Although ‘sprung up’ might not be an entirely accurate way of saying it. Phone booths don’t ‘spring up’ anywhere, they have to be constructed at some point in time, obviously. In the case of Tony’s wind phone, it was an abandoned phone booth at the edge of town. Unused for over a decade, it sat at the end of a little-used road and behind it sat miles of prairie.

It’s at this point you’re probably asking yourself where this story is going to go.

Who is Tony talking to and under what circumstances did they pass on?

Are we looking at a romantic story or one that takes a supernatural turn?

Both.

And neither.

But mostly both.

You see, the person he is speaking with is his ex-girlfriend. They dated for two years, grew very close and then one night she was killed by a drunk driver.

Pretty romantic so far.

The first night he walked into the phone booth and picked up the phone, he idly dialed the numbers 6 and 9 and then heard her voice on the other end of the line.

Pretty supernatural right?

Agreed.

But there is one key detail you don’t know. His ex-girlfriend made her living as a phone sex operator.

If you were listening closely, you might have heard the needle slide off the record as soon as you read that last line.

Suddenly all thoughts of this being a romantic story are thrown out the window.

But why?

Can’t a man love a woman who talks dirty to other men for money? Can’t she love him back?

Is it because every time they speak his pants are around his ankles?

Do you really believe that of the 30,000 visitors to the Ōtsuchi wind phone since 2011 none of them had a conversation that had sexual overtones? Maybe even downright filthy?

Are you uncomfortable with sexuality in general or does the fact that every now and then a car traveling down that road will be greeted by a shadowy figure in a phone booth jerking it preclude any possible charm that might be derived from such a wholesome premise?

Let’s be clear, Tony is just flesh and blood. And passionate. He is also very passionate.

So let’s be very clear, Tony is just flesh, blood and passion. And if you can’t see a little of Tony in yourself then I fear that any further attempts to move this story forward are a waste of time.

What’s that?

If those drivers squinted through the headlights and took a closer look at the figure in the phone booth it would be you with your underwear/panties down?

Nice.

Then it goes without saying that you can finish off this story yourself.