The Call

He watched his roommate pace back and forth for hours. Each time he passed the phone, he would linger for the briefest of moments. Unusually bright eyes caressed each curve and dirt stained buttons. He had tried to get his roommate to sit down, to be distracted by the routine they had built up together.

A little food, a little smoke, a lot of gaming accompanied by deliveries of pizza. But his roommate wanted nothing to do with it today.

He was waiting for a call.

“Dude, it’s been hours since…” His roommate turned and stared at him with the viciousness of a fervent man. He raised his hands up in surrender. “Alright, I’ll leave it. But you’re starting to worry me.”

When the pacing stopped, the sudden silence jerked his head upward. It filled him with a horrible sense of dread, a twisting foreboding. His love for horror movies rewarded him with a new script playing in his head.

He found the roommate, squatting before the phone, staring intently at the scratched LCD screen that would light up with the calling party’s phone number. The eyes were sunken slightly, as if the power of his roommate’s stare was so powerful, it was pushing the bloodshot orbs deeper into his head.

He tried to say something, but the words died in his throat. He thought to raise a hand, but knew the roommate would only see the telephone. Quite unnerved, he scrambled to the nightstand drawer, retrieving the hollowed out book that contained their combined share of cannabis. But he was so unnerved by the roommate’s obsession, he fumbled the stinky contents and spilled it on the carpet.

“Damn. Fuck. It’s okay, I can get it up. But we won’t be cooking with this batch. Well, not brownie cooking, but you know what I mean, right?” He looked back to the roommate, who was now curled up on the couch holding the cordless phone. He laughed the nervous laughter of near panic, and started chewing on the occasional piece rescued from the rug.

Just as he finished picking up all the stray pieces, a sharp high pitched sound sliced through the room. The phone was ringing. After the third ring, he turned to see why it had not been answered yet.

His roommate was on the other end of the couch. His eyes wide in utter terror, his face blanched in bloodless fear. On the fifth ring, he began to creep towards the phone. On the seventh ring, he picked up the handset and checked the Caller ID. Recognizing it, the roommate wavered as if he was going to pass out from the shock. On the eigth ring, he held it up to his face.

On the ninth ring, he heard the only word his roommate had spoken for the past two days. The roommate pressed the “chat” button, swallowed hard, and greeted the caller with a half question, half greeting.

“Hello?”

~fin~

This short inspired by and written for Sunday Scribblings #288: “The Call“.