Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
The once endearing song I had on my phone as a ringtone blared, just an obnoxious reminder of being too lazy to even change it, and pulled me from my sleep. I lifted my head up from my desk and stared at the computer monitor in front of me. A thread about nothing spectacular he was sure. I pressed the F4 key to refresh the page and sure enough, the thread had since long died or been pruned. Just another fleeting memory that I could not even be bothered to try and remember the contents of.
Still, the ringtone played on its second loop. I picked up the phone figuring if someone was calling, or rather if anyone was calling me, it must have been an emergency. Even thinking that much was a mistake; the area code was foreign.
A wrong number.
Swipe to ignore.
Even though the sound was muted, I kept looking at the phone wondering if the caller would at least have the decency to leave a voicemail after having called so early in the morning.
Nothing…
Taking his eyes off the phone for a moment, it vibrated in his hand.
[Two New Voicemails]
One he knew straight away was from his mother. She was calling to ask me about something that I should probably be more concerned about, but I still couldn’t even listen to the voicemail. Selecting the second voicemail, only a few seconds, but no matter how short it was, it was still just too long to listen to. Instead, I just decided to resume my busy life of monitoring the internet.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
The ringtone started up again. I rolled my eyes and gave the phone a second look despite knowing that it was probably that unknown number. Sure enough, there it was, blinking at me. He swiped the ‘Ignore’ command again, to be met again with a voicemail, again to be ignored. Then a third time they called, which I still refused to pick up purely on principal at this point.
In the brief moment between ignoring the call and the next one inevitably starting at this point, I chose to do the sensible thing and set the phone to silent. Problem solved. Now at this point they could call as much as they wanted to and I could just delete all the voicemails whenever I woke up next. I went back to my computer and decided to see if anything interesting was going on with anyone of little interest.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
The ringtone played, seemingly louder this time, though he was sure that this was because of the silence he was expecting. Looking over at the phone, knowing full well that while he hoped it was another called it wouldn’t be, he checked the caller anyway. Sure enough, the same caller. At this point, it was more of an annoyance that the phone was still ringing even after putting it on silent. He wasn’t sure if there was something critically wrong with the phone, but instead he went with the next smartest decision and shut off the phone entirely. It wasn’t like I was using it now anyway.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
If anything, this phone call sent a couple of chills. The silent function not working could just be a glitch. Something I can chalk up to faulty programming or something on the phone’s part, but the phone was off. At least to my knowledge there isn’t anything that can make a phone come back on like it was. Yet, he could not deny the fact that it was still ringing and that someone on the opposite line desperately wanted to talk to him.
I waited for the phone to stop ringing again, afraid of messing with the phone while it was ringing for some reason, and this time took out the battery. There was no way it could ring without a source of power. Maybe he had some virus that was making the phone pop back on. A really aggressive virus maybe that was accompanied by very aggressive telemarketers. However, I was still afraid of it ringing again.
Instead, I was greeted by a moment’s silence. I stared at the phone as one with arachnophobia might stare at a spider. I silently prayed that it wouldn’t go off again even if logically there was no way it could go off again and was rewarded with stillness. I sighed deeply and turned again to my computer.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
That ringtone was going off again and was now a gleeful source of dread. Whoever it was, they must have really, really wanted to talk to me. I picked up the phone, looked at the battery on the table, the very same one that was for the phone he held in his hand, and knew that logically he must have been in a dream. I would just have to wake up, a relatively simple thing now that I knew it was just a dream.
I looked around and looked at my dark window. It wouldn’t be too hard to jump out and wake up by the time I hit the ground outside. I ran at a full sprint to make sure I was fast enough to break through dream glass. Leaping through the air I could have sworn I felt the cold of the window pane before it bulged out with me bursting through.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
My eyes snapped open hearing the ringtone once more. I raised my head from the desk and looked at the computer monitor in front of me. A thread I was keeping track of long ago was still on the screen, no doubt having been deleted long ago through either desertion or pruning by some of the admins. I hit F4 on the keyboard and sure enough, the thread could not be found. He was sure it was nothing spectacular or amazing anyway. It was just another one of hundreds, if not thousands of threads a day.
The ringtone was blaring that exhausting pop song and it must have been for who knows how long. The brain does tricky things though. Perhaps it had only played once but my brain looped it and accelerated in my head. Unlike the dream, it still could have been an actual emergency worth checking up on. I looked at the phone and it still blinked the same numbers from my dream.
A dark sense of déjà vu made my skin crawl. If anything, the fact that I could feel that worried me. There was no way I could be inside of a dream anymore… Right? I picked up the phone and immediately felt the weightlessness it possessed. I turned it over and popped off the battery casing praying that there would be a battery in there and I was just delusional, but that didn’t make a battery magically appear. I found the battery sitting next to the keyboard and the phone continued to ring in my hand.
In an act of desperation I threw my phone at the wall and watched it come apart. It stopped. I stared at the pieces. Anxiety crawled up his skin while he looked at the pieces daring them to start playing again. Even still, the anticipation grew to be too much of a burden and he began to stomp on what remained of the phone before they could even begin.
Now that the remnants were in small shards of plastic, metal, and glass, were in no condition to even begin playing, I flopped down in my chair and let out a sigh of relief. There’s no glitch, virus, or malfunction that could make that receive a call now.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
The song didn’t come from his phone this time, but it came from his computer now. He was afraid to look at the screen. He didn’t want to look, but he knew that no matter what he did, that song was going to keep on playing. I turned slightly and opened up eyes. Youtube had popped open, went to that song, and skipped right to the chorus. In the bottom left hand right hand corner, there was a notification for a Skype call.
I tried turning off the monitor, but something wouldn’t let me. He tried turning off the computer itself, but something wouldn’t let him. I unplugged all the cords, muted the speakers and did everything I could think of to cut off all power to the computer. Unsurprisingly, it was just in the same case as the phone where it would still play. Only this time, there was no ten second reprieve between plays as the mystery caller left a voicemail. It just kept on looping.
Unable to take this maddening song, I picked up my computer tower and gave it the same treatment I gave my phone and flipped my monitor onto the ground. I stomped on them both and with each step, the song got a little quieter.
As the song felt like it was giving up and sputtered out its last bit of effort toward singing that song again, I lifted my foot as high as I could and brought it down just as hard in one last shot to kill it.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
He lifted his head off his desk, staring straight ahead at the monitor in front of him. It displayed a thread whose relative age was unknown to him. Had it been hours, minutes, or mere moments since his head went down and he dozed off? He didn’t know. I pressed the F4 key and froze as the page displayed with a message saying the thread no longer existed. I knew it would say that. This just happened.
He grabbed his phone and stared at it. The same unknown, foreign number blinked back at him in response. It felt the same weight as normal. Popping off the battery case, he saw the battery was still there; which was a relief in its own way.
This time, he decided to answer the phone. Whether it was out of bravery, fear, or curiosity, even he didn’t know.
“He-hello…?”
“It’s about time you picked up your phone, hombre!”, it was a boisterous female voice, definitely not was he expected. Even the greeting was far from normal.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I was…sleeping”, which wasn’t far from the truth.
“Except for the part where you threw me at a wall, stomped on me and… Y’know what, let’s forget that and just start fresh. I’ll apologize for harassing you if you apologize for stomping me into bits”
I paused for a moment. I wasn’t sure if I was talking into the phone or if I was actually talking to the phone at this point.
“I’m sorry I stomped on you?”, he wasn’t sure if he was truly apologetic, but mostly because he wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for exactly.
“Sounds half-ass but whatever. I'm calling because I need to tell you something", there was a pause, "something important."
and this is crazy…
The once endearing song I had on my phone as a ringtone blared, just an obnoxious reminder of being too lazy to even change it, and pulled me from my sleep. I lifted my head up from my desk and stared at the computer monitor in front of me. A thread about nothing spectacular he was sure. I pressed the F4 key to refresh the page and sure enough, the thread had since long died or been pruned. Just another fleeting memory that I could not even be bothered to try and remember the contents of.
Still, the ringtone played on its second loop. I picked up the phone figuring if someone was calling, or rather if anyone was calling me, it must have been an emergency. Even thinking that much was a mistake; the area code was foreign.
A wrong number.
Swipe to ignore.
Even though the sound was muted, I kept looking at the phone wondering if the caller would at least have the decency to leave a voicemail after having called so early in the morning.
Nothing…
Taking his eyes off the phone for a moment, it vibrated in his hand.
[Two New Voicemails]
One he knew straight away was from his mother. She was calling to ask me about something that I should probably be more concerned about, but I still couldn’t even listen to the voicemail. Selecting the second voicemail, only a few seconds, but no matter how short it was, it was still just too long to listen to. Instead, I just decided to resume my busy life of monitoring the internet.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
The ringtone started up again. I rolled my eyes and gave the phone a second look despite knowing that it was probably that unknown number. Sure enough, there it was, blinking at me. He swiped the ‘Ignore’ command again, to be met again with a voicemail, again to be ignored. Then a third time they called, which I still refused to pick up purely on principal at this point.
In the brief moment between ignoring the call and the next one inevitably starting at this point, I chose to do the sensible thing and set the phone to silent. Problem solved. Now at this point they could call as much as they wanted to and I could just delete all the voicemails whenever I woke up next. I went back to my computer and decided to see if anything interesting was going on with anyone of little interest.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
The ringtone played, seemingly louder this time, though he was sure that this was because of the silence he was expecting. Looking over at the phone, knowing full well that while he hoped it was another called it wouldn’t be, he checked the caller anyway. Sure enough, the same caller. At this point, it was more of an annoyance that the phone was still ringing even after putting it on silent. He wasn’t sure if there was something critically wrong with the phone, but instead he went with the next smartest decision and shut off the phone entirely. It wasn’t like I was using it now anyway.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
If anything, this phone call sent a couple of chills. The silent function not working could just be a glitch. Something I can chalk up to faulty programming or something on the phone’s part, but the phone was off. At least to my knowledge there isn’t anything that can make a phone come back on like it was. Yet, he could not deny the fact that it was still ringing and that someone on the opposite line desperately wanted to talk to him.
I waited for the phone to stop ringing again, afraid of messing with the phone while it was ringing for some reason, and this time took out the battery. There was no way it could ring without a source of power. Maybe he had some virus that was making the phone pop back on. A really aggressive virus maybe that was accompanied by very aggressive telemarketers. However, I was still afraid of it ringing again.
Instead, I was greeted by a moment’s silence. I stared at the phone as one with arachnophobia might stare at a spider. I silently prayed that it wouldn’t go off again even if logically there was no way it could go off again and was rewarded with stillness. I sighed deeply and turned again to my computer.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
That ringtone was going off again and was now a gleeful source of dread. Whoever it was, they must have really, really wanted to talk to me. I picked up the phone, looked at the battery on the table, the very same one that was for the phone he held in his hand, and knew that logically he must have been in a dream. I would just have to wake up, a relatively simple thing now that I knew it was just a dream.
I looked around and looked at my dark window. It wouldn’t be too hard to jump out and wake up by the time I hit the ground outside. I ran at a full sprint to make sure I was fast enough to break through dream glass. Leaping through the air I could have sworn I felt the cold of the window pane before it bulged out with me bursting through.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
My eyes snapped open hearing the ringtone once more. I raised my head from the desk and looked at the computer monitor in front of me. A thread I was keeping track of long ago was still on the screen, no doubt having been deleted long ago through either desertion or pruning by some of the admins. I hit F4 on the keyboard and sure enough, the thread could not be found. He was sure it was nothing spectacular or amazing anyway. It was just another one of hundreds, if not thousands of threads a day.
The ringtone was blaring that exhausting pop song and it must have been for who knows how long. The brain does tricky things though. Perhaps it had only played once but my brain looped it and accelerated in my head. Unlike the dream, it still could have been an actual emergency worth checking up on. I looked at the phone and it still blinked the same numbers from my dream.
A dark sense of déjà vu made my skin crawl. If anything, the fact that I could feel that worried me. There was no way I could be inside of a dream anymore… Right? I picked up the phone and immediately felt the weightlessness it possessed. I turned it over and popped off the battery casing praying that there would be a battery in there and I was just delusional, but that didn’t make a battery magically appear. I found the battery sitting next to the keyboard and the phone continued to ring in my hand.
In an act of desperation I threw my phone at the wall and watched it come apart. It stopped. I stared at the pieces. Anxiety crawled up his skin while he looked at the pieces daring them to start playing again. Even still, the anticipation grew to be too much of a burden and he began to stomp on what remained of the phone before they could even begin.
Now that the remnants were in small shards of plastic, metal, and glass, were in no condition to even begin playing, I flopped down in my chair and let out a sigh of relief. There’s no glitch, virus, or malfunction that could make that receive a call now.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
The song didn’t come from his phone this time, but it came from his computer now. He was afraid to look at the screen. He didn’t want to look, but he knew that no matter what he did, that song was going to keep on playing. I turned slightly and opened up eyes. Youtube had popped open, went to that song, and skipped right to the chorus. In the bottom left hand right hand corner, there was a notification for a Skype call.
I tried turning off the monitor, but something wouldn’t let me. He tried turning off the computer itself, but something wouldn’t let him. I unplugged all the cords, muted the speakers and did everything I could think of to cut off all power to the computer. Unsurprisingly, it was just in the same case as the phone where it would still play. Only this time, there was no ten second reprieve between plays as the mystery caller left a voicemail. It just kept on looping.
Unable to take this maddening song, I picked up my computer tower and gave it the same treatment I gave my phone and flipped my monitor onto the ground. I stomped on them both and with each step, the song got a little quieter.
As the song felt like it was giving up and sputtered out its last bit of effort toward singing that song again, I lifted my foot as high as I could and brought it down just as hard in one last shot to kill it.
Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy…
He lifted his head off his desk, staring straight ahead at the monitor in front of him. It displayed a thread whose relative age was unknown to him. Had it been hours, minutes, or mere moments since his head went down and he dozed off? He didn’t know. I pressed the F4 key and froze as the page displayed with a message saying the thread no longer existed. I knew it would say that. This just happened.
He grabbed his phone and stared at it. The same unknown, foreign number blinked back at him in response. It felt the same weight as normal. Popping off the battery case, he saw the battery was still there; which was a relief in its own way.
This time, he decided to answer the phone. Whether it was out of bravery, fear, or curiosity, even he didn’t know.
“He-hello…?”
“It’s about time you picked up your phone, hombre!”, it was a boisterous female voice, definitely not was he expected. Even the greeting was far from normal.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I was…sleeping”, which wasn’t far from the truth.
“Except for the part where you threw me at a wall, stomped on me and… Y’know what, let’s forget that and just start fresh. I’ll apologize for harassing you if you apologize for stomping me into bits”
I paused for a moment. I wasn’t sure if I was talking into the phone or if I was actually talking to the phone at this point.
“I’m sorry I stomped on you?”, he wasn’t sure if he was truly apologetic, but mostly because he wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for exactly.
“Sounds half-ass but whatever. I'm calling because I need to tell you something", there was a pause, "something important."
"There is more to this life than you can imagine and I want you to experience it all.”
I was tempted to hang up
the phone. I've heard the exact same thing from friends who try to get me to do acid with them. While he assumed that he couldn't be force fed a pill through a phone, it still made him nervous.
No comments:
Post a Comment