The vanishing pay phone

Hung up
Toronto, ON
August 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Just outside the gritty brick exterior of a convenience store that’s probably been on this busy midtown street corner since the beginning of time, an equally ancient pay phone clings stubbornly to life, a battle scarred reminder of how we once communicated.

I’m not sure I have the courage to actually touch it, but I can’t catch anything by taking a photo, so it doesn’t take long before I’m composing away.

I wonder how long this particular phone will stick around. And how we’ll remember these coin-fed relics when they finally disappear from the shadowy corners of our communities.

The irony that I’m shooting photos with my smartphone - the very device that relegated these once-ubiquitous phones to obsolescence - isn’t lost on me. It’s called progress, but it can’t hurt to linger for a bit over what’s lost when the dial tone goes silent for good.

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