Oh, oh, telephone line

I predict, Gentle Reader, that Stephen King's latest novel, Cell, is going to do for cell phones what Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds did for, well, birds. You never look at them quite the same way again—birds, that is, not cell phones—especially when you see them behaving like they did in the movie. Alighting on telephone wires, then all taking off at the same time. Flocking.

Oh, just you wait until you read about how the phone-crazies, the people affected by The Pulse, who go insane because they carried and used their cell phones on the wrong day, also flock.

Seriously, you'll want to let that battery run out on your phone for a few days, at least.

While my cell phone was quietly dying on my kitchen counter over the weekend, I finished reading Cell and I have to say, it was good. It's been a long time since I couldn't put a Stephen King book down. For one thing, it's only 350 pages; practically a short story by King standards. For another, the ending doesn't suck. In many ways (though not that one), it reminds me of The Stand, my all-time favourite Stephen King book, and the first book of his I ever read. Good thing, too, because if I'd read, say, The Tommyknockers first, I'd have never read a second. Some of King's books blow dead rats, as he himself might say.

Quite a few do, in fact. Like, for example, Dreamcatcher, the first book he wrote after The Accident. Catharsis, yeah, I get it, but after reading 150 pages of King excruciatingly painfully detailing not one but two characters getting hit by cars, I closed the book and never picked it up again. And some, like It, for example, are terrific right up until the ending, at which point the evil clown who'd been hiding in the sewer, snatching chidren and having them for lunch, turns out to be a giant spider living in a cave. Or like in the miniseries Kingdom Hospital, where Peter Rickman rescues everyone from the fire in the mine by drawing a fire extinguisher on the wall, then using it. Yeah, you read that right. He draws a fire extinguisher on the wall—because, hey, he's an artist, so he can— then he uses it to extinguish the fire, thereby saving the little girl so her ghost can rest in peace.

The Stand has a ridiculous ending: the Hand of God comes down and smites the Bad People. Or is that smotes? But I forgive Mr. King for that one because he had a hand in making the miniseries of the book, and the miniseries starred Gary Sinise, one of my all-time favourite actors, and the casting of Laura San Giacomo as Nadine Cross was nothing short of fucking brilliant. And then there's Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, which is not a novel but a 94-page short story in King's 1982 collection, Different Seasons. Fucking fantastic story, with a fucking fantastic ending, made all the better when brought to life by Tim Robbins in the movie.

Ah, Tim Robbins. Excuse me while I swoon spoony for a moment.

[Talk amongst yourselves.]

OK, I'm back now.

So last night at Kickass Karaoke I noticed a cell phone lying on the table in front of The Viking who, until now, had been one of the normies.

"Is that yours?" I asked, surprised and slightly freaked out.

"Yup. I thought it was about time to get one," he replied, oblivious to the fact that he was about to turn into a raving lunatic, howling at the moon and biting the ears off of dogs. Sure, he'll still have great hair, but he won't have the presence of mind to use his hair gel any longer.

You wouldn't say that if you'd read that book, the panic rat inside my head sneered. Down, boy, I commanded it. It's just a novel.

"Call it," suggested The Viking.

Are you crazy? the panic rat thought into my head, If I do that, the next thing you know I'll be up on stage singing "Jessie's Girl" and realizing I only know the chorus and can't hit the key in the verse. I'll revert to novice karaokedom! My membership in the Kickass Karaoke Slut Club will be revoked! The panic was swirling in my head now, waxing into a cyclone of power. And you'd like that, wouldn't you, you smug, streaky-haired blond Viking, you? Sure, yeah, that's all part of your master plan, isn't it? Get me out of the picture so you can hog the stage. Don't think I can't see what you're up to, mister!

I bite the panic rat's imaginary ear off, to shut it up, and dig my cell phone out of my purse. OK, I didn't really let it die. I just turned it off.

"What's the number?" I ask The Viking, cool as a cucumber, but putting a few more inches between us, just in case. He wants me to call it so I can hear his ring tone. It's a song—of course it's a song!— and he seems quite proud of his choice. I have no doubt it'll be clever, and, since he's still a normie it won't be "Wind Beneath My Wings" or "You Light Up My Life." No; those'll come later, after The Pulse.

I stare at the tiny piece of live ordinance on the table. Its display screen flickers for a nanosecond, then lights up. And then it rings.

Someone is singing Def Leppard on stage, so I have to pick it up to hear what it's playing. I hold the cell phone to my ear, and watch my life flash before my eyes.

It's playing "London Calling."

* * *
I won't tell you The Viking's cell phone number, Gentle Reader, but I will let you know how you can turn your friends into phone-crazies. Click here.