The switchboard with no callers

An original narrative about an invented communications display.

The demonstration board had no connection to the world outside. Its calls came from a small box beneath the table, and the names above the sockets belonged to imaginary streets. I knew this because the volunteer had explained it before putting on her headset. Even so, the first red light made me sit forward.

She moved a cord from one socket to another. A second light appeared, then two together. The little box began supplying voices: someone asking for a shop, someone who had reached the wrong number, someone who would not stop repeating a name. The board filled with red points, a row of impatient eyes.

The volunteer did not hurry her words. She listened, answered and moved a cord. Between one voice and the next, her hand hovered just long enough to choose. I tried to follow each connection but lost track when a light behind her wrist began blinking. She noticed it without looking down.

Then the box fell silent. The volunteer laid the headset on the table and invited me to try. I had watched her hands and thought I understood the work. Facing the unlit board, I found myself hoping that the first caller would take a little longer to arrive.

How does the writer contrast the apparent urgency of the calls with the volunteer's control?