The phone call

She sits beside the dead phone. Not actually dead though. She knows when she puts the receiver to her ear its heartbeat comes alive. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. A dead kind of heartbeat. Like a shiver. A beat without the pound. Of blood pumping. Gushing. She puts the receiver back down. Gently. It turns back into a dead toad. A dead plastic amphibian. Its heart smothered inside a hard plastic stone. The silence. Curling through its coiling wire. Emerging out from its squatting behind. Streaking across the wall. Through the hole drilled on top of the door. Escaping out of her reach. Out of her sight. How long she’s been sitting there. By the dead phone. She doesn’t know. She’s lost track of time. Time that trickles. In little dribbles of droplets. From the leaking tap. She must call the plumber. She tells herself again. The washer must be replaced. The drip drip drip falls like hammer blows in her head. She tries to gag it with a piece of rag. But it soon soaks through. And begins again. Drip drip drip. The silence. The stillness. The deadness. And the drip drip drip. She reaches again. For the grey receiver. It’s dead plastic skin stings her. She withdraws her hand. Sharply. The morning crawls. On hands and knees. The sky gapes through the window. The trees wait. Unmoving. The crows and mynahs and pigeons are busy in the branches. Squawking.  Cawing. Quarreling. Grumbling. Flapping and flying. Back and forth. Fetching twigs and bits of rags. Building their nests. The female heavy with unborn eggs. Her hand reaches once again. For the phone. She puts it to her ear again. Ignoring its dead brrrrrrrrr. She begins tapping. The number slowly. The number. Branded on her skin. With the hot iron of remembering. 6..8..7… The phone waits. For her to finish the number. Uninquiring. Almost amused. At her diffidence. At her cloying timidity. Listening to her pulse. Beating back in dull thuds. Waiting. Without interest. For her to finish the number. For it to make the connection. Her finger hovers. Over the next number…3… And falters. Time ticks. A brief second. Lasting an age. The phone gives up. Intoning impatiently…beep..beep..beep… In her ear. She drops it. Startled by the bite of the plastic beast. She stares at it. It stares back. A frog waiting for a fly. To pass by. To swoop its sticky tongue out. Snatch it. And crunch it into digestive juice. She is mesmerized. Without volition. She touches its clammy skin again. She puts it again to her ear. And taps. Quickly. Without pausing. Without hesitating. The full number right through all its digits. The plastic beast makes the connection. She hears the brr..brr..brr..brr… At the other end. The pulse at the base of her neck. Throbbing. Time hangs like a snake in the branches. Waiting for the kill. Then she hears it. The phone being picked up. At the other end. Hello.. Says the plastic beast. She holds her breath. She clamps the beast’s mouth with her free hand. Her pulse beats. Hello… It says again. With an electronic voice. And again… Hello..Who is this?… It demands in her ear. Then one last time…Hello-o-o! Then click…. The plastic beast goes dead in her ear.

-by Rita Putatunda