The Phone Call:
By: Christine McFarlane
I am in a deep sleep. In the distance I hear the sound of my cell phone ringing.
RING…RING…RING. I don’t want to get up to answer it. I just want to sleep. The
incessant ringing though makes me finally open my eyes, crawl out of my bed and
reach for my glasses.
As I am putting them on I look at the time. It is 3 a.m. I wonder who can be calling at
this gawd awful time. My heart starts to thump, fear registers in my foggy brain, as I
cross my room and pick up my phone. I flip it open, squinting to see if its a number I
recognize. Its not-but I figure I had better answer it anyways.
“Hello? Hello?” I say rather crossly.
A chirpy voice says“Hello, is this Christine McFarlane?”
“Yes, it is, why are you calling me at this dreadful hour?”
I am thinking to myself, this had better be a damn emergency! There is silence on
the other end of the phone for a few seconds and then the person says
“I’m sorry for calling at this hour, but I have some news to tell you and it couldn’t
wait until morning.”
My mind races as I wonder who the hell this could be! I’m inclined to hang up, but
then I think- what if there has been an accident? I take a deep breath and brace
myself for the worst. I am surprised though when I am told..
“Christine, I’m Cheryl, a representative with the Windsor Casino. I’m calling on
behalf of your sister Marjory. Your sister has just won Megabucks in the amount of
13 million dollars, and she wants you to be here when she picks up her monies.”
I start to laugh. “Yeah right,” I say rather curtly into the phone.
“This must be some type of joke!” I say.
“This isn’t a joke Christine,” She sounds annoyed because I’m not taking her
seriously.. I hear the exasperation in her tone of voice.
I’m impatient. Its 3am, and I could be sleeping. I growl...GRR and then say
“Listen, I want to speak to my sister right now !”
“I’m sorry” Cheryl says, “Your sister asked me to call for her.”
“We want to send a limo to pick you up, but we don’t know your address or where
you are.”
“Why?” I ask the lady “should I tell you where I live when you won’t put my sister on
the phone?”
The voice on the other end then says “To be honest with you, your sister can’t come
to the phone because she is with our people right now filling out some forms and
getting ready for her photo op.”
“The media is all over this win, because we haven’t had anyone win in quite
awhile,”she rushes to tell me, as though she innately knows that I am going to hang
up on her, if she doesn’t explain herself fast.
Mumbling under my breath, ‘oh for God sakes,’ I reluctantly say “ well what the hell
do you want from me?”
“We need your address Christine, that’s all. We want to send a limo to pick you up.
This will all be courtesy of Windsor Casino,”
“You’re sure I don’t have to pay for this?” I ask, while thinking about the twenty
dollars I have to my name in my bank account, and the shiny new credit card that
arrived in the mail the other day but I haven’t yet activated.
“No, you don’t, its on us,” Cheryl says
“Well, okay” I say.
Though all this sounds mysterious to me. something inside tells me not to hang up,
to cooperate with this lady on the other side of the line. I shake my head, hoping the
cobwebs will clear. I run my fingers through my hair and find myself telling the lady
“I live at 2 Mount Clair Road. Its in downtown Toronto.” and “I will come as long as I
get to talk to my sister as soon as she is done with your people”
Cheryl’s voice raises an octave, “ Okay Christine, we will be there shortly!
“There is a phone in the limo that you can use, but in the meantime feel free to call
whoever you want to let them know about your sister’s win!”
“Okay, talk to you later, Christine” Cheryl says.
I hear a click and then the dial tone on the other end. I hang up my own phone and
take a deep breath, cursing as I turn around because I almost fall over the fan that is
sitting in the middle of my floor.
“Damn I am tired,” I think to myself as I run my fingers through my hair. I can’t go
back to sleep now. The phone call has me wide-awake now and I start thinking
about all the things I have to do to get ready. Oh my god, Oh my god, I have to
shower, have a couple of coffees, have a cigarette, and figure out what the hell to
wear.
A million questions start surging through my brain. I wonder, how long will I be
away from my apartment, will I have to let my landlord know that something has
come up and I have to be away?
Grunting in frustration, I busy myself around my apartment. It seems like I have
been puttering around my apartment forever-I look at my watch, the digital
numbers that are glaring out at me say 6am. All of a sudden, there’s a loud knock
outside my door.
“Oh shit!” I say to myself, they’re here.
I am trying to be quiet so as not to wake the rest of the building, but it is no use-the
knocking at the side door gets louder, and in my rush to get to the door I trip on the
stairs, the lights come on, and I hear footsteps.
A loud voice yells “What the hell is going on, I’m trying to sleep!”
My heart thumps as I say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”.
I pick myself up off the floor and run to the door. BANG...the door slams behind me.
A great big black limo is waiting at the curb. It seems out of place, this fancy car.
You usually only see delivery trucks in my neighborhood because where I live is
surrounded by restaurants and seedy looking bars.
I hop into the waiting limo. The driver turns around and says
“I will drive as fast as I can. The phone is right there in front of you, you can call your
sister or whoever you want.”
As I sink into the soft leather of the backseat in the limo, and go to pick up the car
phone in front of me, I realize- in my rush to get out of my apartment building, I had
left behind my bag. I’m just about to tell the driver this when all of a sudden I hear
RING....RING....RING....
I shake my head and sit up. I realize that this was all a dream.
( my first attempt at fiction, its a work in progress)
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