Forging the Chain

"Mr. Harrigan's Phone" and Cell Phone Addiction: Part One of Two

Photo by Akshar Dave🌻 on Unsplash

The Chains We Forge

It’s the way that I’m drawn to it that bugs me.

Like the damn thing is a talisman.

Like I can’t bear to be without it. (Because maybe I can’t?)

It’s not just annoying, it’s insufferable—the anxiety, I mean. The twinge of unease that flares up when my phone isn’t near and I’m forced to brave the contours of my own wild mind.

Am I addicted?

It sure feels like it.

Hooked on the most socially accepted drug in the world: my phone.

“I keep my hand in,” Mr. Harrigan said.

Yes. Don’t we all.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it?—we can’t help ourselves.

Which is why I’m going to sing the praises of “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” by Stephen King for a minute. It’s a simple novella, liable to be overlooked in King’s vast canon; as cozy and heart-warming a ghost story as you’re likely to find. Yet even if “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” is never spoken of in the same reverent tones as classics like “The Mist,” “The Body,” or “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,” it nevertheless delivers a haunting vision of our technological dependence well worth remarking upon.

And given where we find ourselves in this cultural moment—when so much of how we think, view, and feel about the world is framed by devices, apps, and algorithms—its message feels especially pertinent.

Recapping the Story (Warning: Spoilers Ahead)

The story begins in 2004, in (the fictional town of) Harlow, Maine. Nine-year-old Craig lives alone with his widowed father. One Sunday after reading a lengthy—and challenging—Bible verse at church, Craig is offered a job by Mr. Harrigan, Harlow’s resident eccentric billionaire. The job is simple: read aloud to the old man. Easy work, even if the pay is modest, so Craig accepts. Over time, the pair form a unique bond and grow to cherish each other.

Each year, Harrigan sends Craig four scratch tickets in recognition of a job well done. When Craig hits the jackpot—winning $3000—he uses part of the prize money to buy Harrigan a first-gen iPhone as a token of his appreciation. Harrigan is skeptical to the point of revulsion at first, that is, until he learns how the device can benefit his financial dealings. Soon, he’s hooked.

When Harrigan dies some time later, Craig, grieving, slips the phone into his old friend’s jacket pocket before the burial, a memento of their friendship for Harrigan to take with him into the afterlife. Later that night, Craig calls him up to hear his old friend’s voice one last time. He leaves an appreciative voicemail as a final goodbye.

But something strange happens.

The next morning, Craig discovers a cryptic message sent from Harrigan’s number in reply to his call. Evidence, perhaps, of a lingering connection beyond the grave. Stranger still: when Craig phones Harrigan again, this time to confide about his ongoing difficulty with a school bully, the bully is later found dead.

The cycle repeats years later when Craig calls Harrigan again to lament the light penalty given to the drunk driver responsible for killing his favourite high school teacher. A disturbing pattern has now emerged. Each time Craig confides in Harrigan about a problem—whose phone battery should have run out a long, long time ago—the person responsible for his troubles winds up dead.

Fearing that he’s preventing Harrigan’s soul from moving on (and perhaps degrading his own by proxy), Craig decides to let go of his old friend. So he tosses his old iPhone—his connection to Harrigan’s vengeful ghost—into a watery quarry, closing the circle. But try as he might, Craig can’t bring himself to ditch his current phone, even after everything he’s experienced.

“In the twenty-first century, I think our phones are how we are wedded to the world. If so, it’s probably a bad marriage.”

Ghost Story… Or Dire Warning?

I read “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” as a warning—stark, urgent, all too easy to ignore.

As I mentioned, Harrigan is quite reluctant to accept the gift when Craig first offers him the phone. I picture him looking like Bilbo when the old hobbit sees the Ring for the last time: terrified by the object’s power, yet unable to resist its seductive call.

His explanation is unforgettable:

“…Thoreau said that we don’t own things; things own us. Every new object… is something more we must carry on our backs. It makes me think of Jacob Marley telling Scrooge, ‘These are the chains I forged in life.’… If I had that [iPhone], I would use it.”

He’s right, isn’t he?

We have our phones, and so we use them.

But at what cost?

We are, all of us, modern-day Fausts. And we sold our souls to a charismatic devil dressed in blue jeans, frameless glasses, and a suave turtleneck.

For I suspect that you must feel it, too—that unease I mentioned earlier; the sense that your phone is as much a burden as it is a boon.

… Or am I wrong, and has your life improved immeasurably since you first adopted it?

Link By Link

So yes: I think we’re forging our chains right now.

With every swipe.

With every click.

With every scroll.

That itch to pick it up? That compulsion to fill every silence with noise, noise, and more noise? That’s what Harrigan was talking about. What Thoreau foresaw.

The smartphone isn’t a mere convenience… it’s a link in the chain we use to bind ourselves.

Leave it to Stephen King to see it all so clearly (and to render those hard truths in such beautiful prose). The man certainly knows a thing or two about the territory. He’s no stranger to addiction himself; he’s well-acquainted with its shape, its cost, its seductive allure.

We’ll continue to explore these themes next week, in Part Two, but for now, let’s establish this:

King isn’t just telling a spooky little tale here.

He’s documenting our fall from grace.

It’s not death we should fear—

No. It’s the chains we forge in life.

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