SR&R Excerpt

From out of a dream comes the sound that I detest, the telephone. It is still dark, and I reach my hand out for the receiver, picking it off the cradle with hand that still seems half asleep. I don’t look for the clock, as I bring the phone to my head.

“Hello...” the fog of sleep still evident in my throat. “Who is this, do you know what time it is?” my mind starting to race to hear the voice of someone speaking on the other end of the connection. Their voice is too low, it is distant, like from some miles away. I open my eyes, and look at the phone, turning the receiver over, I put the earpiece to my ear and the mouthpiece to my mouth, and repeat. “Who is this, and do you know what time it is?”

“Hello, Mr. Thompson, yes, I do know what time it is, I most certainly do.” his voice was bubbling and nervous. Something seemed vaguely familiar in his voice. “It is 3:12 AM exactly, your time Mr. Thompson.” he continued.

My patience was wearing thin, and he still had not answered my question.

“And you are?” I said, with deliberate slow vowels.

His voice echoed in my head, as he said, “Dead” and then the connection followed.

“Prank call” I said allowed as I hung up the phone and prepared to allow sleep to once again take me back to that lady in the red dress. I closed my eyes, and I could not shut out the hollow sound of his voice, dead he had said.

I replayed the moment in my head, man called, he was definitely a man, and addressed me formally as Mr. Thompson, and then told me what time it was, what time was it? It only made matters worse. I opened my eyes and looked at the clock, 3:17, my time I thought. Why it is always my time, but not his time apparently, so he was not on the east coast.

I sat up in bed and reaching over to my nightstand, I picked up my notepad and a pen and scribbled down a few notes. He said it was 3:12 AM my time. He called me Mr. Thompson, twice, and he said it was exactly that time. Lastly he said he was dead. Although unlikely at the moment as he was talking to me, but maybe soon there after. I noted that he seemed nervous, and then the voice went hollow, empty, like he was resigned to his inevitable fate.

Why call me? Why not call the police, or someone else, why me, who was he, someone I once knew, someone I met before. I tried to place the voice, but it was not really familiar, and I was half asleep still, so it seemed even more common. What had he been saying to me when I had the phone reversed? I could not remember, it was all just too foggy still.

I put the pad and pen back on the nightstand, laid back in my bed, my head upon my pillow, and wished for a pleasant thought, an image of the lady in red still on the edge of my mind, but she was fading into the smoking interior of the tavern fast. A long half hour or so later, sleep did reclaim me, but the lady was nowhere to be seen.