The Phone

The dull black surface reflected the light of the strained sun through the windows. It lay like a coiled snake, something that must be handled with deadly care. A gray featureless sky hung over the house, rays of sun bleeding through to illuminate the room. Skeletal claws reached up from the corpse of trees outside, half melted snow lay in patches on the ground. What wasn’t covered with snow was the lifeless brown of dead scrub. The color had been leached from the germanias on the table, the green leafs and red blossoms. They cast a depressed air in the room with there vividness gone; the room was missing something. In the weeks after the Christmas holidays life settled down to it’s slow, monotonous tone. The bleakness of the winter cast pallor throughout the house. None of the color and vibrancy that was the holiday’s and characterized the songs and pictures and poems of winter remained. The lights were out, shadows danced in the corners and under the table. Motes of dust cavorted in the beams of weak sun that shown in patterns on the rug. The threadbare Oriental rug covered a hardwood floor stained by years of occupation. Dog hair was strewn randomly across the rug, adding to its worn and patriarchal look. It remembered the many footsteps of the family that lived in the house. Now a foot rested on it’s end, someone sat on the couch. The foot tapped nervously, unsure. The lights of a car shown from across the ravine through the trees. Fingers ran over the sand-dusted darkness of the back. A dimple in the surface drew their attention, they sank into it, one at a time, it was too small. On the front the thumb caressed the buttons, soft rubber, raised from the hard plastic. It stopped over one, so receptive, a small pressure and it’s done. No, don’t push; not ready to do that. It must be done, what else can be done? It’s expected, or maybe not expected, but it should be done. No, later, why? It doesn’t need to be done. The thumb resumed its movement leaving the gentle rubber, returning to the unforgiving plastic. On the back the fingers moved again, finding a thin crack in the armor, worrying at that until it came loose. Suddenly, the armor broke and the bottom dropped off. Scrambling the fingers tried to catch it and slam it back in place. There. It was done; they had saved it the chink was repaired. But the crack was still there, not to worry, ignore it, what can be done? The thumb moved up towards the top, over a bulb it stopped, then moved to more plastic. The bulb was even colder and less open than the plastic, stay away. The shape was strange, a curved rectangle. It had a flat, square bottom, but round sides leading to a circular top. The face of the circle reflected the face of the boy holding it. A frown cut through the middle, pitch-blackness in against a background of scrubbed black. The thumb returned to the tractable buttons again. It remained on one in particular. The gray top was broken by a lighter shade, out lining a number, “7”. The thumb remained there; it began to softly push on the malleable surface, dimpling it into the hole cut in the hard plastic armor.
“BEEEEEEP”, suddenly the coiled monster came to life with a roar, a small red eye blinked open in the top, glaring out at him with diabolic intent. He jumped; his thumb flew the ice blue button in the corner by the devilish eye. Slamming down on it, another roar sounded as the beast fell back into sleep. His breath whooshed from him in a gust, stirring the dust motes in the air. His muscles, unconsciously tensed, released and he fell back into the couch. He stared down at it for several moments, why was this so hard, there was no reason he shouldn’t be able to do it. Just push the buttons in the right order. Not at all hard. Then why couldn’t he do it? He needed to, if he didn’t he knew it would nag his conscious for the rest of the day. He had to know what was happening. His fingers resumed their roaming over the back; the thumb stayed still on its button. He was running out of time, he had already probably wasted a quarter of an hour, sitting here. If he didn’t do it soon he would have to wait for hours and then resume this slow process of dragging himself to the cliff to jump. All the time he had spent here would have been wasted. He stopped the random movement of his fingers on the back and suddenly clenched his fist. The knuckles blanched, turning bright red before drained of color to be blank white. The armor creaked under the force of his grip. Slowly he pressed the button again, “BEEEEEP” the being roared back to life, the eye flashed open again. He dragged his gaze away from it and quickly sped his thumb over several more buttons, slowing again when it reached the button embossed with a “2”. Lightly he pressured it until it sunk below the level of the armor. The eye flashed in pain as he released it, letting out a muted roar. Slowly his forced his finger down to the button traced with a “4”. His finger moved through mire of thickened air, resistance delayed him. When he finally reached it the finger rested on the button, no force was applied. Before he moved, the terror began to speak, “We’re sorry but…” realizing what this meant he quickly went back to the ice button, no resistance hindered him this time, and forced it down. You fool, what are you waiting for, enough already do it. But it wasn’t my fault that time, I ran out of time. You let yourself believe that if it makes you feel better. You still didn’t go through with it. But it’s true, I couldn’t have. Whatever, but you are running out of time, go NOW. His fingers still maintained their death lock on the serpent. Looking down into its lifeless eyes his thumb moved again, and returned to its button. Quickly pushing it down he watched it come back to life with a vengeance but had been expecting this and moved quickly before he could think about what was happening. His thumb flew over the armor; no hindrances slowed him this time. Finishing the last button he watched as the creature settled into complacency before bring it to his head. It let out sounds of comfort at regular intervals, before they were suddenly cut off with silence before its voice sounded. “We are sorry but…” Hearing this he jerked it away from his head, and found the ice button again punching it in as it died. He looked at the clock, it was too late, and he was done. No time was left, he had failed. He knew it would hound him until he tried again to build himself up to the cliff and jumped. It would have to be done later tonight, thief time, had stolen yet another opportunity. He would reacquaint himself with this beast again later when he tried to call her.