The Call

Well that was awkward. Dropped phone calls, long breaks in dialogue, pushing forward a conversation that long ago had its legs broken. She doubts, she questions, she hesitates. Is she sure in her actions? The subsequent mental pause provides her with the answer. She moves into uncertain territory on uncertain feet. She had closed her eyes and exhaled as she hit “send”, teeth locked tighter with every ring. Fuck, this was a mistake.

“Hey”

Too late.

The voice on the other end is strange, unfamiliar. It makes her voice quiet and quake.

“Hey”

She replies with far less energy that she possesses.

She does not really remember the conversation. Something about snow, Tuesdays and long dog walks. All she had noticed was how his voice gradually began to trail as the conversation slowly died before it was over. When she presses “end,” she is filled with a unique blend of relief, regret and self-depracation. Finally, it was over, but it had gone terribly. She had fumbled for words, having only paid attention to half of what he had said. He had tried, she had not. Not deliberately or out of spite, but merely because her mind had shut off as it had become overwhelmed by its own self. Why? Why was she so stupid to make that call? She had been polite to a point but….

She made a vow to herself to find more self-control and singularity-of-thought. A vow she knew she would not keep even as she conjured it up. And so she was back to to square one: stuck between herself. Between one telephone tower and the other, broken into a thousand pieces of information, she is madly trying to find cohesion before she reaches the other end of the line.