Prédiction de fiction historique orale

INTERVIEWER: So you started at the exchange when you were eighteen? That seems so young to be handling the whole city's calls. INTERVIEWEE: Yeah, well. Eighteen. My mother knew Mrs. Delgado who ran the night shift, and she got me in. It wasn't like now. You had to be fast. You had to know the cords. And you had to know the numbers, all of them, in your head. People think it was just plugging in, but you had to know that Mrs. Aarons on Maple Street, she needed the doctor's office, not the pharmacy, and you had to know the pharmacy was two rings and a short. You had to know. And the board, it was a big thing, all brass and black. The jacks, they were numbered, but the numbers didn't tell you who was on the other end. You had to know that too. I remember one night, this was maybe 1959, I was working the board and it was quiet, and I thought to myself, I said, "In forty years, nobody will know what a trunk line is, and the whole board will fit in a man's pocket." That's what I thought. INTERVIEWER: A man's pocket? Like a transistor radio? INTERVIEWEE: Something like that. I didn't know what. But I knew the board, the big one, it wouldn't be there. I knew the cords would be gone. I knew the jacks would be gone. I just had a feeling. It was a Tuesday. I remember because the church bells had just rung for the novena. And I thought it. It wasn't a wish. It was just a fact, like knowing it was going to rain because your knee ached. My knee was fine, but I knew. The whole building, all that wire, all that noise, gone. Into a pocket. INTERVIEWER: What was the noise like? I mean, the actual sound in the room. INTERVIEWEE: Oh, it was a hum. A constant hum. And then the clicks. The plugs going in, the rings coming back. You'd have a dozen conversations happening around you, but you weren't listening to the words. You were listening to the tones. The little buzz that meant someone had hung up. The double ring for a long-distance. You could tell a lot from the rings. You could tell if it was a man or a woman calling, sometimes, from how they rang. No, that's not true. But you could tell if they were in a hurry. The way they'd jiggle the hook. That was a sound you knew. And the supervisors, they'd walk behind you, and you'd feel them, you know, watching your hands. You had to be neat. You had to be quick. And you had to be polite. Always polite. "Number, please." That was the first thing you said. Every time. "Number, please." INTERVIEWER: And you just... knew all the numbers? INTERVIEWEE: You learned them. It was like learning a song. You learned the exchanges first. The names. Like, uh, "Butterfield" for the west side. "Klondike" for the north. And then you learned the numbers that went with them. And then you learned the people. You learned that Mrs. Delgado, she'd call her sister every night at seven, and her sister's number was, uh, Klondike 5-3398. And you'd have it plugged in before she even asked, sometimes. She'd say, "Get me my sister," and you'd already have the cord in the jack. She liked that. She'd say, "You're a good girl, Rosie." And I was. I was good at it. I could do it without looking. I could do it in the dark. That's how well I knew the board. INTERVIEWER: So when you made that prediction, about the pocket, did you think it would be a radio? Like a walkie-talkie? INTERVIEWEE: I didn't think about the what. I just thought about the gone. The board would be gone. The cords would be gone. The building, the whole building, it would be gone. And I was right. I was right about that. But I didn't know about the rest. I didn't know about the satellites or the, what do you call them, the towers. I didn't know about any of that. I just knew the board was going to be gone. INTERVIEWER: Do you ever miss it? The board, I mean. INTERVIEWEE: Sometimes. I miss the hum. I miss the feeling of the cords in my hand. The weight of them. The little click when they went in. I miss the rhythm. You'd get a busy hour, and it was like a dance. Your hands would just move. Left, right, up, down. You didn't think. You just did. And then it would be over, and you'd be tired, but it was a good tired. A tired like you'd done something. Now, I just sit here. I watch the television. I don't even have a telephone that plugs into the wall anymore. My grandson, he set up one of those, what do you call them, the ones with the screen. He says, "Grandma, you can see me when we talk." And I say, "I don't want to see you. I want to hear your voice." But he doesn't understand. He's a good boy. He comes over on Sundays. He brings me the paper. He tried to show me how to use the thing, the screen phone, but I told him, I said, "I'm too old for that." He said, "It's easy, Grandma." But it's not easy. It's not the same. He put it on the table there, next to the fruit bowl. It's just a little black thing. It doesn't even have a cord. He says it's got a battery. A battery. For a telephone. I told him, I said, "That's not a telephone." He just laughed. He said, "It is, Grandma. It's a telephone." And he pressed a button, and the screen lit up, and there was his face. His face, right there on the table. And I thought about the board. I thought about the big brass board and the cords and the jacks and the hum. And I looked at that little black thing on my table, and I knew. I knew I'd been right. I just hadn't known how right. It didn't fit in a man's pocket, though. It was too big for that. He said it was a new one, a bigger one, because the screen was better. He said the old one, the one he had before, that one fit in his pocket. He said he'd bring it next time to show me. I told him not to bother. I believe him. I don't need to see it. I just sat there, and I looked at the fruit bowl, and I thought about the cords. And I didn't say anything. He was talking about the weather. He was saying it might rain on Tuesday. I just nodded. I was thinking about the board. And I was thinking about how I'd known. I'd known it all along. And I didn't feel sad. I just felt old. And the radio was on, and it was playing one of those songs, and I didn't know it. And I thought, that's the thing. That's the thing about being old. You don't know the songs anymore. And you don't know the numbers. And the board is gone. And the hum is gone. And I'm still here. I'm still here, sitting at my table, with the fruit bowl and the little black phone that isn't a phone. And I'm still here. PREDICTION AUDIT Prediction as spoken: "In forty years, nobody will know what a trunk line is, and the whole board will fit in a man's pocket." | Particular as spoken | Category | Confirming words in the final 150 words | Why the match is exact | Number of intermediate mentions | Transcript citation | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | forty years | Exact number | "I'd been right" (the time elapsed is implicitly confirmed by the narrative's present-day setting, which is roughly forty years later, and the grandson's technology) | The prediction is made in 1959; the final scene is set in the present day, which is approximately forty years later. The text confirms the passage of time through the presence of modern technology and the interviewee's old age. | 0 | T1.S12, T12.S1 | | nobody will know what a trunk line is | Observable condition | "I don't even have a telephone that plugs into the wall anymore" and "He says it's got a battery. A battery. For a telephone." | The interviewee's own grandson does not understand a basic wired telephone, let alone a trunk line. The concept of a trunk line is implicitly unknown to him, as he cannot even relate to a wall plug. | 0 | T12.S1, T12.S3 | | the whole board | Unique piece of equipment | "I thought about the big brass board and the cords and the jacks and the hum. And I looked at that little black thing on my table" | The "board" is the central switchboard. The final passage explicitly contrasts the "big brass board" with the "little black thing," confirming the board's replacement. | 2 (T1.S12, T8.S1) | T12.S5 | | fit in a man's pocket | Measurement | "He said the old one, the one he had before, that one fit in his pocket." | The grandson confirms that a previous model of the phone did, in fact, fit in a man's pocket, directly fulfilling the prediction's specific condition. | 0 | T12.S5 |