| Courtesy: chacha.com |
Today’s Prompt:
You talk on
the phone with a relative who died years ago.
Word Count: 1,265
The clock on the side table
said it was 03:00 in the morning. Ekong (/hay Kong/) had woken to the sound of
his phone buzzing. The caller’s voice was eerily familiar or it was someone
with a weird sense of humor.
“Hello?”
“Hello,” said the caller.
He felt a strong urge to ask, who is speaking? He decided against it.
“Been a while, eh?”
“I guess so.” Ekong fidgeted. He might have known who
it was if his mind wasn’t working so hard to shut down the possibilities. He
stood with the receiver rammed against his ear stuck between knowing and denial, which in one word translates as confused.
“How have you been on that side of the universe?”
The speaker was playing Ekong,
trying to make him take a shot at who was on the phone.
“Fine, I guess. And how has it been on your side of it?” That was so lame, he
thought to himself, it sounds like a
rehashed line. He bit his lip and waited in breathless expectation of judgment.
“I’m fine, Ekong.”
Ekong heard soft snickering on
the other side. So like her to laugh at him in his awkward moment.
Silence thick and solid as a
concrete wall wrapped up the pause.
Ekong cleared his throat. “Hello,
are you still there?”
“I’m here, alright. You still having a tough time
making up your mind who your mystery caller is, Mr. Doubting Thomas?”
She always knew how to make him
crack up. Ekong chuckled as the weight of realization cracked up the ice of restraint
and denial. The chuckle died away when awareness bore down on his mind; there
was never going to be a promise to be home early after the call, cause she was
never gonna be home. Never again. He was never gonna be able to wrap his arms
around her or kiss her goodnight or have her cry on his shoulders. He lost his confidant
forever cause she was…
“Dead.”
He needed to hear himself say
that to believe this was really happening. His hilarity morphed into a moan; he
tried but failed to shut off the flow of tears.
“Are you crying again, Mr. Doubting Thomas?”
“Don’t call me that.” Anger surprised him and ran
away with his tongue. And it was a shock for him that he still blamed her for
what happened. “This is not funny. Not anymore. Do you have any idea how many nights
I cried myself to sleep?”
“Hey, Sugar. I’m sorry, I was trying to…”
‘Catch
you in a bad mood,’ is what she would have said.
“No. that was a really nasty thing to say. I apologize.”
“Jessie,” she said.
“What?”
“Say, I’m
sorry, Jessie. Say my name.”
“I’m sorry, Jessie.”
Now that it was finally out
Ekong sensed relief wash over him. He wasn’t imagining things. This was for
real.
“That makes feel good. Better.”
“Jessie, can I ask you a question?”
“Hmm, hmm.”
“How can we… you know…”
“Talk to each other?”
“Yeah, how can you communicate from that side and through the phone?
You’re…”
“Dead?” she completed his sentence for him. “To be
straight with you Ekong, I’ve not yet figured it out myself. Maybe, it’s just
God being God; trying to humor us a little. I saw a phone up here and an image
flared in my mind—me calling you. I did it and…”
Clack!
“Jessie! Jessie!” This cannot be happening, not when
he was beginning to have a good time. “Jessie, talk to me.”
“Hey, Sugar. I’m here. I dropped the receiver, some
guy bumped into me. Is that weird or what? We ain’t compelled to be perfect. We still make mistakes but not the type
where people get hurt or killed.”
“You neither feel
pain nor regret?”
“You can if
you want to. Without argument, it’s totally different than a sadist POV. It’s
not like you could harbor sentiment, though. You can share your loved one’s aches and when you do, you find the ‘yoke is easy and the burden is light’
as the songwriter says. It’s because up here we understand—we know, troubles will pass and pain don’t last.”
“How did it happen?”
Ekong blurted out the words and
clapped a hand over his mouth. The question was a spontaneous reaction to
nights of nerve-racking and bizarre nightmares. “I’m sorry. Forget I said
that.”
“Oh no, it’s okay, Ekong. I would have asked the same
question if the situation was reversed.” She fetched a sigh. “I was travelling
across that bridge when my cell phone buzzed. I placed it on the dashboard
earlier and I reached for it.”
“Oh God.” Ekong moaned.
“I wasn’t gonna pick the call, just wanted to know
who the caller was is all.” She sounded like she was trying to hold back the
tears; her voice was thick with it.
“Are you crying?” Ekong asked.
“Not yet, I’m still holding it.”
“Does that happen a lot up there?” he asked a little
uneasy himself and battling the sea welling up in his eyes but failing.
“It’s not regret or remorse, if that’s what you’re
asking. I’m feeling your pain. We’re
on the same frequency now and that bond allows me to share it with you. Tell me
Ekong, are you crying?”
“I guess there’s no hiding anything from you as long
as we’re communicating on this frequency.
Yes, I’m crying and struggling to keep
it together. I miss you, Jessie.”
“I miss you, too.”
Awkward silence.
“Look, I don’t how long we’ve been given so I really
wanna rush the accident story. Okay?”
“Did you know they blamed it on Carol?”
“What? Who is they?”
“People.”
“What the hell did they do that for?”
“Cops found your mobile phone. They thought your
friend got you attention by calling you up while you were driving.”
“She had no way of knowing where I was, did she?”
A thought struck Ekong. “Isn’t
she there with you?”
“Why would she. Ain’t she there with you?”
“Not anymore. Suicide. She couldn’t stand the guilt
that she got you killed. Drug overdose, in point of fact.”
“That’s awful. She called a second time just before
the accident but I didn’t bother to check on the caller. I thought Carol again. I was just at the point where the bridge gave on the expressway.
I ran over a bump and juice spilled on my lap. I snatched my eyes off the road
for the breadth of a second and that was enough to bag me a permanent
retirement ticket. The driver had his eyes off the road, I saw him seated
behind that big wheel looking sideways for lord-knows-what. When he saw, it was
too late to step on the brakes. I felt my flesh and bones disintegrate as my sedan
argued with a Mack truck bringing in tons of heavy-duty pipes.
My windscreen exploded. A few seconds later, I felt me sneaking out of my stiff through a
gash axed open by a shard of glass from my busted windshield. The fragment that
slit my throat was still sticking out of my neck when I slid out of my physical
body.”
Ekong did not say a word for a
long time. He was too shocked for tears.
He woke to the ringing of the
alarm an hour later and noticed the receiver in his hand. And then he
remembered. By thunder, he remembered everything. He rammed the receiver up to
his ear, the line was dead but he didn’t seem to mind.
“I love you, Jessie,” he said.
Eneh
Akpan
June 26, 2013
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