Boring Nights

by Extra

Sitting around one night, Carl was very bored. The apartment was full of summertime convection that was leaking into the night air far too slowly. His roommate, Andrew, was in the other room, probably reading a book very intently. Carl didn't even want to bother with the customary "What do you want to do? - I don't know, what do you want to do ?" so he just sat on his bed with a Rolling Stone on his lap, staring at the phone plug on the opposite wall.

Then, for some reason too psychologically complex to go into, he thought, "I wonder what happens when you call your own telephone number?" It wasn't a particularly intriguing concept but with the best of western culture being so boring at that particular moment, Carl sprang up to get the phone from the other room. Andrew, glanced up from his thick book and with a slight query on his face said, "What are you doing?" Carl gleefully responded encrypticly, "Making a phone call" and disappeared behind his closed door again.

Sitting on his floor in front of the plug, Carl carefully plugged the phone into the socket. He then picked up the receiver and dialed. to his surprise, he heard a ringing signal which rang twice before it was picked up and a voice said, "Hello?" Startled, Carl quickly said, "Sorry, wrong number" and hung up the phone. He sat there wondering how he could've dialed the wrong number. He thought he must have dialed a friend's number and the voice did sound a bit familiar, so he picked up the receiver and quickly dialed, hoping he would make the same mistake. "Maybe I called Chris by mistake," he thought. The phone rang hopefully and was soon picked up. The voice said, but not to him, "Could you answer the door?" Then, before Carl could say a word, he heard a loud crash on the other end followed by a short, gargled scream. The voice on the phone cried, "Oh god, this can't be hap-" and was cut off by a loud bang, like the fireworks Carl used to hear in the cemetery that he thought were gun shots. Then the line went dead.

Carl sat there breathing heavily, his mind thrusting a dozen thoughts through itself. "Should I call back?" "Should I call the police?" "Should I call the phone company" "Should I tell Andrew?" He knew he wasn't going to tell Andrew, who would make him choose one of the other options. Of course he didn't choose any of them but rather sat on the floor rationalizing and calming down. He soon composed himself and went into the other room to go and get a glass of milk.

"Whom did you call," Andrew asked as Carl passed through the room. "Um, uh, just my parents," Carl replied. "Ahhh," Andrew responded knowingly. By the time Carl finished his milk he was thinking jokingly, "Well, at least I have something interesting to put in my letters."

The next day Carl was listening to a pop station while at work, rationalizing that he was checking if there was anything interesting on pop radio at the time but knowing that part of him was expecting a news report about a shooting somewhere. The reports were as deadening as most of the music and all of the DJ's, stuff about a presidential visit and the traffic report. By the end of the day, Carl was wondering if he imagined the whole thing with the part of his brain which does such wondering.

It was night again and Carl was startled in his room by the ringing of the phone, reminding him that he forgot to put it back last night. He picked it up and said, "Hello?" but his reply was a blurted mumble and the click of a phone. "Who is it?" Andrew asked from the other room. "Wrong number," Carl said. He hardly got back to reading the biography of Rod Serling he found in the library he the phone rang again. At nearly the same time, he heard a knock at the apartment door. Carl picked up the phone and at the same time said, "Could you answer the door?"