We asked writer and poet Izzy Roberts-Orr to respond to the work.
Also, minor SPOILER ALERT. There are a few aspects of Dark Talk Time which are given away in this review.
I call the number at the designated time, and it takes a couple of goes to get through.
“Hi. Welcome to Dark Talk Time. In a minute, we’ll connect you with your partner. For now, find somewhere quiet, dark and comfortable to sit.”
I’m nestled in the armchair on the back patio, and the night leaks cold through the gaps in the fence. I change my mind about where to be, and spring up to move to the couch inside – turn the heater on, settle in.
This is my first night alone in the house in months, and it feels lush and frightening. My heart is in my ears, and I can feel my cheeks burning, mouth dry – I blush when I’m anxious.
We’re introduced to one another, reminded that we are alone and anonymous, and to be kind. Our host leaves us with the provocation to, “describe your childhood home.” At first we stumble, nervously learning to navigate this new intimacy, but before long we settle into a conversational rhythm alternating between shy laughter and sudden depth.
This intimacy of audio appeals to me – it’s why I make podcasts. To listen deeply is a generous act, and often the listener gains as much from this generosity as the person being heard. The human voice is as unique as our thumbprints, and learning the cadence of a stranger’s voice is a connection with a depth that feels lacking in our current context – when we are at home, or confined to the 5km radius around our houses. When we are working and walking alone most of the time.
I have always loved talking on the phone, even when we aren’t in the middle of a pandemic, with the bulk of our social interactions mediated through screens. In primary school, I would spend the afternoons in after school care with my best friend – climbing trees, crafting and playing Pokémon. As soon as we arrived home, we would call each other and sit on the phone until it was time for dinner or bed. That early experience of the phone was as a way to maintain connection – to keep the conversation going even when distance cut in.
I’m old enough to remember when the Internet made its way into our house – the sound of dial-up and the slow opening of an ever-widening window of information and connectivity. When I was a teenager, MSN Messenger fulfilled the same role as the phone in many ways – we would log on as soon as we got home from school and spend our evenings talking to the same people we’d spent all day in classes with.
We talk about this – the way that phone calls have been superseded by instant messages, the way so many people our age hate to speak on the phone. We dial ‘1’ for further prompts from our host as our discussion winds late through the night.
We talk about fashion and theatre, grief and healing, love and relationships. We share vivid images of the places we grew up in – the people we were, and edges of the people we have become. We never tell each other our names.
Our final prompt asks us what we will take away from the conversation. My Dark Talk Time partner says she will remember what I said about love, and healing from its loss. I tell her I will remember that although it can be so difficult at times to be settled within yourself, I have been reminded how to find stillness and how to work out what I need. At one point, I run outside and hold the receiver to the sky, “Can you hear it? It just started raining here.”
By the end of our conversation, we have reached a comfortable laughter and silences that hold secret knowledge. I’m reminded of phone calls in my late teens, running out of things to say and just sitting together, breathing – “you hang up! No, you hang up!” and then we thank each other, and we do.