I Prefer to Stay in my Cabin in the Woods, Away From all the Electromagnetic Frequencies

Echoes of a Laundromat

It is getting late, and we are on the run-down edge of town, where broken streetlights flicker and the paint on the buildings looks lacklustre, peeling away in long, mournful strips.

“What do you think happened—to Frohike, I mean?” I ask the missus.

“I don’t know—maybe he got confused—he was talking about getting lost in the woods—I can’t work it out.”

“So a passerby called an ambulance, and he is in the hospital.”

“Yes,” my missus replies, holding a large black bag containing a duvet from Frohike’s camper in one hand and a large carrier in the other. I am holding onto the hound with one hand and carrying another black bag containing a duvet in the other. Frohike, aka my brother-in-law, was not at his camper when we arrived the previous evening, but after a long search and a few phone calls, we eventually located him in what the hospital receptionist had described as the armchair ward.

I can feel the weight of uncertainty pressing down on us as we walk, each step heavy with worry and unanswered questions. The silence between us is deafening; the only sound is the soft padding of our footsteps on the cracked pavement.

The painted sign reads, “Duvets, Pillows, and Bedding Washing Service: Sports Kits, Horse Rugs, and Pet Bedding.” in big blue letters. Inside, the air is filled with the steady hum of washing machines and the faint scent of detergent mingled with the musk of worn fabric.

“Come on, pup.” I urge my hound in, but she is very reluctant.

“Hold the bag, can you?”

The missus tugs the duvet out of the black plastic bag and feeds it into the drum of the washing machine. It is a place of routine, where the rhythm of everyday life played out in cycles of wash, rinse, and spin.

Two young students chat while the drums spin around.

“Sorry, mate,” I say as my hound backs away. “I think she is worried by the machines.”

“A lot of EMF in here,” he replies.

“Everything can be described in terms of frequency and vibration,” I begin to say.

“Nikola Tesla said if you want to know the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration,” he interjects, looking at me closely. The hum of the washing machines seem to take on a deeper significance as we continue our conversation about energy and vibration.

“Those machines only spin because of Tesla; that beastly banker stole the patents. Tesla’s AC motors pave the way for widespread use of electricity in homes and businesses, much more effective and versatile than DC current,” I say.

“JP Morgan, the Federal Reserve, American banking and the finance sector, the brutal control of industries, and Tesla—yes, that’s true in part,” he replies.

It turns out that he lives in a remote area out of town, like Frohike, but on the other side of the forest. He is an electro-sensitive person and cannot tolerate being around electricity for long. My hound relaxes, finds a spot near the window, and curls up.

“I was explaining to the lady who owns this place all about it,” and he tells me all about her.

In the daytime, she sometimes sits by the window, flipping through a dog-eared paperback novel.

She talked about predictability, the mechanical clunk of the machine, and the way the laundrette operated like clockwork, each machine a cog in the grand mechanism of her livelihood.

“When I first started coming here, I think I made her uneasy because the proximity to so much energy was making me feel intense, and I looked a bit jittery, I suppose.”

He tells me what happened. He says that he was just trying to be friendly and strike up a conversation.

“’Do you know what these machines are doing to us?’ I asked her. She frowned and said, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘The EMF,’ I say to her, and I suppose I was getting agitated, and the old voice was rising slightly. ‘Electromagnetic fields. These machines emit them. They’re everywhere, poisoning us, controlling us.’ She rolled her eyes at me. I suppose she had heard snippets of all the conspiracy theories before, but then she explained to me, ‘Well, I’ve never had any problems with the machines. People use them every day without any issues.’ I had a bit of a rant and told her. ‘That’s what they want you to think,’ I said. ‘The government, the corporations—they’re all in on it. These fields are invisible, but they’re lethal. Cancer, neurological damage—they’re slowly killing us.’

At this juncture, my missus nudges me, “I am going to get some groceries from the shop next door to take to the hospital.”

“Sorry,” he apologises for wittering on.

“Please finish your story,” I say.

“O, she started saying, ‘What can we do?’

‘We have to fight back.’ I tell her that we have to shield ourselves. There are ways—devices, techniques. But it’s a constant battle.”

He falls silent, scratches his chin, and looks directly at me.

“I think that she thinks of me as a loony tin foil hat idiot, but a harmless one,” he concludes.

“A friend of ours suffers from electro-sensitivity—gets ill if he is near the 5G towers—couldn’t use a mobile phone except in emergencies—he would switch everything off at night. Have you tried using Faraday protection?” I ask him.

“No, I haven’t tried. I rarely venture into the town. I get really tired and feel sick if I am in town too long. I prefer to stay in my cabin in the woods, away from all the electromagnetic frequencies,” he adds with a chuckle. “It’s my safe haven from all the technology that seems to be taking over our lives.” He packs his clothes into a reinforced carrier bag and walks out of the door.

Under the surface, I wonder what invisible forces are at play—ultimately, we must trust in the intelligent universe; we may never know what unseen dangers might be lurking in the ordinary hum of everyday life.

The next afternoon, we visit Frohike in the hospital. We will not be using hand sanitizer or donning blue masks, but it is obvious that many are still captured and indoctrinated by government programming.

“Look,” my missus says, pointing to the walls as we walk along the corridors and look into adjoining wards. All of the screens have been turned off, and all are turned to face the wall. It’s as if the patients are being shielded from the constant bombardment of technology.

Eventually we reach Frohike’s Ward, and he smiles at us as we walk in.

“Are you taking me home?” He looks at us with hopeful eyes.

“I think that they may want to run a few blood tests first—an MRI scan to check you out,” I reply.

The missus sits down in the plastic chair beside his bed and takes his hand.

“I love you. We will get you home as soon as we can. I promise.”

Frohike squeezes her hand and nods, his eyes filled with gratitude.