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PHONEPLAY
September 22, 2020
Some scattered bits of cellphone business
I've seen or can imagine:
Going to sleep at night,
Begin texting to object of insist on hearing their
affections; change mind, delete; voice one more time.
begin again, change mind, delete-- Get them to sing you to
sleep. Close with them
(a) Give up. Look sad, frustrated. smiling fondly listening
to you snore.
(b) Accidental send! Oh no!
You send a message, accidentally
using the wrong address-- the
After taking a call, the caller recipient puzzles over it.
says something that makes you
realize they're watching you at
that moment. Where could they be? Out at dinner, you check
messages for a moment,
The clue can be intentional, then put phone down on
or an accidental slip. table. After leaving
for a bathroom break,
they grab your unprotected
phone and they --
Speaking to someone, you hear
background noises that makes Snoop on your message
it clear they're not where history.
they said they are-- or they're
with someone you didn't expect. Send a message in your
name to cause problems.
At a critical moment,
the phone goes dead. The bad guys keep finding you
Or it's dropped by after you use your phone.
accident and is lost You realize they have the
or broken. ability to track phones: now
you have to go off the grid
You travel to an unusual or risk another attack.
location, and realize
there's no reception there. You arrange backup, and
use your phone again to
You go to such a place bait the trap.
intentionally, to take a
break from being connected.
("Search: WWW")
As your popularity increases, you
inadvertantly develop a reputation for
standoffishness because you can't reply
instantly to texts any more.
You need to communicate with
an eccentric person that You would like to leave your phone
refuses to carry a phone. at home, but fear people will
misinterpret a lack-of response.
You avoid carrying a
phone, but run into a
genuine emergency, and You notice someone is
are stuck looking for a carrying two phones,
good samaritan who will and you wonder what
call for help for you. shady activity
they're engaged in.
You text a mysterious anonymous
identity, and simultaneously spy
on your hot suspect: they grab You're trying to get someone to tell
their phone and deal with a text you something. Problem: if you deserved
at exactly that moment-- to know it wouldn't you have been told
("Her Private Life"). already? Answer: lie and say you were
about to be told, but their phone just
ran out of battery. ("Detective Conan")
Phone driving directions fail:
you end up in an odd cul-de-sac
you never knew was there.
The eccentric anti-phone
Alternately: Your phone has person behaves strangely:
been hacked, and you blindly
follow directions into a trap. Your passenger keeps
giving you advice on
directions.
You arrive in a new town,
and after driving around Public transit hints seem
for several weeks you feel strange to an uber-addict.
you know the place: then
your phone breaks, and
you're lost-- you never The scene of a story's action keeps
really learned where things shifting up-and-down different canyons
are, just let your phone around Los Angeles-- each is served by a
direct you there. *different* cell company (an old,
long-standing deal to divide the
territory). Different people are
The phone dies-- you alternately at a disadvantage-- e.g. they
can borrow one-- but can't order an uber/lyft. (Observation
what about your contact courtesy of Heteromeles of Stross' blog.)
info?
Dangerbaby suggests:
The disaster hits: A person who knows how to find
the large scale chaos payphones has an edge in some
suddenly overwhelms the circumstances--
cellular system. Who
can function best in o Anonymous calls
"standalone" mode?
o Communication when the
cellular system is down
You try to phone someone who is already
dead-- someone (the killer?) answers the
call-- and at that moment their own phone The phone message delivered
rings. You hear their ringtone over the while you're overseas
murdered person's phone. Can you place it? is heard only on your return
(Stranger/"Secret Forest" 2017). after you've already seen
the person. ("Fashion King,
2012).
A rich girl is running off: she gets in car
with her chauffer. She realizes her father is
trying to find her when a call from him comes
in on her phone. She dismisses the call,
pretends her battery just died, and asks to
borrow chauffers phone: she shuts it off before
her father can alert the chauffer she's not
allowed to leave. (Marasli, Turkish, 2021)
Some paraphrased dialog from Mr. Bad (Chinese, 2022):
"Okay, *I'll* be your boyfriend."
"But I don't like you."
"I can't believe that."
"No really, I don't. Wait is this a 'confession
of love'? I've never gotten one before. Could
you repeat that?"
She takes out her phone, holds it up to video him.
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