CHESTER, Connecticut — When you make a wish, who's listening? Inside a red phone booth on Main Street in Chester, your wishes are on direct dial with the universe.
"It's just this quiet, reverent place where you can go and leave a wish," said interior designer and Wish Booth Co-Designer Caryn Paradis.
Paradis and local artist Christopher Owens built the Wish Booth from the ground up.
"We come in, and here's our vintage phone from New York City. It's a rotary-style phone, and what we've done is give it new computerized guts," said Owens.
Attached to the phone are instructions for the public to unload their heart anonymously and free of charge. It's as simple as picking up the phone, listening to a voice prompt, and talking.
Owens and Paradis said more than 1,000 wishes had been made so far. "The messages that we got are stunningly intimate," said Owens.
Each call is a story of hope, headache, loss, and love.
"We got a phone call, Christopher got a phone call, that someone wanted their wishes. Could you send us a recording of our wishes because they both wished to marry the other one, and I think that's how they discovered they wanted to get married," said Paradis.
Paradis and Owens are the keepers of those sacred conversations and the only ones with recordings of each wish.
"We feel a sense of responsibility. We've listened to a few and Chris and I were in the same room listening to them. We both burst into tears," said Paradis.
For Owens, the magic of the booth is hard to explain, but he knows it's there.
"Losing my mom recently to Alziehmer's after a four-year decline. The fact that this was created at a time when somebody so important to me was getting ready to pass on, it was really inspiring because rather than sad, I felt happiness and beauty," said Owens.
Neighbors inside the booth feel the magic, too, including Laura Edwards.
"You have no idea. You have no idea how at the end of the rope I was," said Edwards. "I couldn't pay my rent and my job was not paying me either. I got in that booth. I just talked to God, which I believed was in there, and by the time I got home, everything I had wished for and needed happened."
Paradis and Owens said the response to the Wish Booth has been overwhelming so far, and they only hope the wishes keep coming.
"We're all so focused on ourselves and how we're conveyed to the world, and instead, this lets us turn inward and think about what we really, really want most or what we really hope for the most," said Paradis.
Angelo Bavaro is an anchor and reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at abavaro@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
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