The Phone Booth Beyond the Noise
- Kateb-Nuri-Alim
- 9 hours ago
- 7 min read
Author’s Opening Note
Before we get into this reflection let me tell yall something honest. This weekend I had one of them conversations that stay with you like New Orleans humidity in August. You know what I mean. Them conversations that follow you home, sit beside you on the porch, eat your leftovers, and somehow still got more to say before they leave. The kind that sit beside your spirit long after the words stop moving.
Somebody called me over the weekend and somewhere during that conversation they started talking about guidance. Real guidance. Choices. Direction. Life stuff. The kind of conversation that start off sounding ordinary then suddenly unpack boxes inside your spirit you forgot were still sitting there. And I told them something I learned after enough storms sat on my shoulders and enough pain introduced itself without knocking. I said somewhere along this journey I learned to tune my being toward the Creator. I learned to stop listening only with my ears and start listening with something deeper.
They looked at me funny. Not regular funny either. I mean looked at me like I climbed on top of a Churches sign and started teaching pigeons meditation classes. They said, “We need practical knowledge. We need logic.”
Now I did not get offended. I just stared. Because while they talked something happened inside me. I saw code. Not with these eyes. Something deeper. Patterns. Numbers. Streams moving through my foresight like reality had briefly unzipped itself and let me peek behind the curtain.
And I thought:
Lord have mercy.
This world got a whole lotta digital people.
And I might still be analog.
Now before somebody say Kāteb finally drifted too far into the swamp and started arguing philosophy with mosquitoes and nutria, hear me out. I am not saying technology evil. Baby I still use maps on my phone. Half of us would not know where we parked at Walmart without electronic assistance and prayer.
I am saying something else.
Maybe the danger is not machines becoming human.
Maybe the danger is humans becoming machines.
That thought sat with me all weekend. Sat on my shoulder like one of them relatives who stop by saying they only staying ten minutes and somehow still there after gumbo, weather reports, and breakfast the next morning.
And maybe that is where this reflection begins.
The Phone Booth Beyond the Noise
By Kāteb Shunnar
I started thinking about old landlines after that conversation. Real landlines. The kind with cords. The kind where if somebody called and you wanted privacy you had to stretch that phone cord halfway through the house and pray nobody picked up the other line. Some of yall laughing because you know exactly what I mean. Some of yall too young and reading this probably looking confused like I am talking about cave paintings. Baby sit down. Let Uncle Kāteb explain.
See back then phones stayed home. Now home stay inside phones. Back then if you wanted connection you had to stop moving. You had to stand still. Ain't that something.
Stand still.
Nowadays we moving every second. Walking and scrolling. Eating and scrolling. Driving and scrolling. Lord have mercy people crossing streets with their head down trusting notifications more than crossing lights. Baby people got faith in battery percentage stronger than faith in themselves.
And I am not judging. I done sat in New Orleans traffic looking at a little blinking blue dot moving across a map like that thing was Moses parting the Red Sea.
Turn left Kāteb.
Turn right Kāteb.
Recalculating Kāteb.
Whole time I knew where I was going.
Now ain't that life.
Because some of us got so used to outside voices giving direction we forgot the Creator put something inside us too. Intuition. Discernment. Spirit. That quiet whisper. That feeling you cannot explain. That pull saying do not go there. Call them. Slow down. Forgive. Leave. Stay.
And logic be standing in the corner with a calculator looking confused.
Now let me say something before folks start clutching pearls. Logic is not evil. Logic got purpose. Logic help you count money. Logic help you build bridges. Logic help remind you not to eat potato salad from somebody porch in July after four hours.
Use wisdom.
But logic become dangerous when it sit on a throne it was never built to sit on because logic was created as a tool and not a god.
See the Creator got a strange way of moving. Nothing in creation really operate according to our neat little practical boxes.
Think about it.
Who looked at a caterpillar and said yes this fuzzy little earth worm with anxiety gonna lock itself inside a hanging sleeping bag then come out flying.
Who looked at oceans and decided water creatures should glow in darkness.
Who made snow.
Who painted sunsets.
Who made fingerprints different.
Baby if practicality ran creation we'd all look like gray filing cabinets.
No jazz.
No color.
No mystery.
No gumbo.
And if New Orleans taught me anything it taught me mystery got rhythm.
I remember nights by the river walking near the Moonwalk. Wind blowing. Folks laughing. Somebody playing trumpet down the way. Smell of fried shrimp and river water floating together in the air creating one of the strangest perfumes on earth.
And I remember standing there one night after life had me feeling broken. Not pretend broken. Not social media broken. Real broken. The kind where you smile around people then sit alone asking heaven questions.
I remember asking the Creator why things made no sense. Because according to logic I had done everything right. I cared. I loved. I helped. I sacrificed.
And still life hit me upside my head like an auntie correcting behavior at a family reunion.
Standing there I felt something.
Not heard.
Felt.
Like the Creator saying stop trying to solve life and experience it.
Baby I cried.
Not cute crying either.
Ugly crying. The kind where if somebody took a picture you would demand the phone be baptized and destroyed.
That night something changed because for years whenever something spiritual happened my logical side tackled it before my soul could touch it. I would feel synchronicity then call it coincidence. Feel warning then call it stress. Feel divine timing then call it luck.
I kept explaining miracles away.
Then one day I got tired.
Tired of living only in my head.
Now let me tell yall this old folklore I heard in my spirit one morning.
Long ago deep outside the city where swamp water slept beneath cypress trees there lived an old woman named Odessa Bell. Folks called her Miss Odessa and said she knew things. Not scary things. Not magic tricks. She just listened different.
People claimed Miss Odessa knew storms before clouds formed. Knew sorrow before tears fell. Knew joy before laughter arrived.
Hidden beyond the marsh people whispered there stood an old phone booth. Nobody knew where it came from. No roads led there. No wires connected to it.
But Miss Odessa said that booth did not receive calls.
It sent people home.
Not physical home.
Soul home.
She said whenever people became too consumed with noise they started becoming digital inside. Their hearts became numbers. Their dreams became calculations. Their relationships became transactions and eventually they forgot themselves.
So people searching for peace traveled deep into the swamp. Once they entered that phone booth they received one instruction.
Stand still.
No speech.
No performance.
No formulas.
Just stand still.
Old storytellers said if somebody stood there long enough eventually the phone rang. But when they answered they never heard words.
They heard themselves.
Themselves before fear.
Themselves before pain.
Themselves before survival built masks.
Folks returned different.
Lighter.
Softer.
Alive.
Maybe that story was never about a phone booth.
Maybe it was always talking about us.
Now let me tell yall another old story.
Old bayou folks used to whisper about a man named Baptiste Leroix. Folks called him Quiet Baptiste. Not because he could not talk either. Baby Baptiste could talk till sunrise got tired and clocked out for the day. Folks called him Quiet Baptiste because he listened more than he spoke. That man understood something most people miss.
Listening and hearing ain't the same thing.
He lived deep where marsh water moved slow and cypress trees leaned over the water like they were sharing secrets with the earth. His little shack sat tilted to one side with a porch that looked like it survived hurricanes, bad decisions, and family arguments. Folks around the bayou said Baptiste owned an old radio.
Not regular strange.
Strange strange.
No batteries.
No wires.
No electricity.
Nothing.
Every night around midnight that old radio came alive.
No music.
No weather reports.
No news.
Just voices.
Folks said those voices belonged to people who had forgotten themselves.
Not dead people.
Living people.
Walking people.
Working people.
Smiling people.
People paying bills and posting pictures while slowly becoming strangers to their own spirit.
One night a young man traveled to see Baptiste. Folks said the young man had everything people chase. Money. Nice clothes. Friends. Attention. Status. Baby if social media existed back then he probably would have had enough followers to start his own second line parade.
But inside he felt empty.
And baby empty got a sound.
You ever meet somebody smiling hard but your spirit whisper that smile got bruises underneath it.
That was him.
The young man looked at Baptiste and asked, “How I fix this feeling?”
Baptiste did not preach.
Did not give advice.
Did not hand him wisdom wrapped in fancy words.
He simply pointed toward the radio.
That was it.
The young man sat.
Five minutes passed.
Nothing.
Ten minutes passed.
Nothing.
Then suddenly static filled the room.
And out that radio came a voice.
His own.
Not survival voice.
Not performance voice.
His real voice.
And it said:
“You been introducing everybody to your mask so long you forgot your own name.”
Silence.
Baby folks say that young man cried so hard birds left trees.
Because sometimes the deepest heartbreak ain't losing somebody else.
Sometimes the deepest heartbreak is waking up and realizing somewhere along the road...
you lost you.
And maybe Baptiste story was never about a radio.
Maybe it was always about us too.
Because every day this world broadcasting signals. Become this. Buy this. Prove this. Hurry. Compete. Impress. Perform.
Signal after signal.
Noise after noise.
And somewhere beneath all that static we stop hearing ourselves.
See digital move fast.
Spirit move deep.
Digital ask what time is it.
Spirit ask who are you.
Digital ask who noticed you.
Spirit ask did you notice yourself.
Baby those are two completely different conversations.
Maybe heaven still whispering the same thing.
Slow down.
Come home.
Stand still.
Author’s Closing Words
If these words touched your heart then please share them by every positive means possible. Share them with somebody carrying storms. Somebody healing. Somebody trying to remember who they are beneath all the noise.
And if these writings walk beside your spirit and feed your soul please support the writer and blog. Your support helps keep these reflections breathing and helps me continue building books and reaching hearts.
I appreciate yall deeply.
The world already got enough noise.
Be somebody’s music.
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