Don't Answer it!

She looks at the caller ID readout, hesitant to answer, for one never knows what waits on the other end of a ringing telephone, particularly a call from a blocked number. Her stomach becomes involved in the decision of whether to answer, lurching with each ring, reaching up through her throat for the cell phone. Her mind joins in, curious and sharp. “It could be something important,” she whispers, unaware that she had whispered at all, and that her entire being was conspiring against her.

Magical thinking has sometimes resulted in disaster for her, yet at other times proven to be a fruitful path. “Perhaps it’s an agent wanting my manuscript, or a serendipitous call offering me employment in some thrilling location.”

Her hope rises, teasing her anemic life, inspiring it to beg for a morsel of something delicious, releasing all of the impatience and discouragement that she’d, up till this point, managed to keep under control, and ushering them to the foot tapping forefront.

Her pulse beats out an exciting tempo. Like a disoriented fly banging itself against a closed window, she’s become ensnared between the endless horizon and the suffocating banality of the uneventful.



She answers. “Hello.” Waiting for a clue, perhaps a familiar voice. But what ensues is a long pause initiating the recorded message of a telemarketer, plunging a dagger into the heart of her fragile fantasy.

She disconnects, staring at the small rectangular device, a device capable of crawling inside her head, and drawing a crowd. Tossing it onto the bed she grins at her own foolishness, and says, “Okay, move along. There’s nothing to see here.”