Telephone

Telephone 

Maddie sat in the dingy, low-lighted room, waiting for the telephone to ring. She glanced at the wall mounted clock as it ticked, ticked, ticked. Her gaze shifted quickly back to the un-ringing phone. With sweat dripping from her brow, she nervously looked back up at the clock. The seconds ticked by deafeningly. Her heart was racing. Her eyes darted back to the still silent phone. Her gaze remained on the object as the clock’s Second hand’s ticks pounded tauntingly within her head. She focused all of her might on the phone, staring at it, willing it to ring. Beads of perspiration fell in slow-motion from her face. Then, suddenly, the phone burst into a roaring ring! 

Maddie immediately swooped up the receiver and brought it to her ear in a haste. “Hello?!”  

Earlier 

It was a gorgeous day in the small, friendly town. The sun was high. The breeze was pleasant. 

Twenty-one-year-old Maddie was in her home listening to music while she prepared for the outing with her friends who would be picking her up shortly to carpool for a day out.  

Maddie had a simple life.  

She brushed her shoulder-length, brunette hair in the mirror. Her figure stood a petite one. Brown eyes. A typical girl. 

The nearby car horn sounded; this made Maddie smile, as she knew that it was time to relax with her good friends for the day. 

She checked her appearance in the mirror one last time before exiting her apartment to engage in a fun filled day with her girlfriends. So careless on such a beautiful day.  

The group of girls walked into the bar. It was only mid-afternoon, but it was the weekend, and in this small, comfortable community, the people of the town never judged one another on how they spent their free time. They were all just enjoying such this beautiful of days. 

While riding in the vehicle toward their destination, Maddie’s phone rang. The brief conversation was an unusual transpiration, as Maddie relayed to her friends, “I just received the oddest call on my phone.” 

“What did it say?” asked her friend. 

Maddie replied, “They told me to go to some location tonight. To not feel so ‘comfortable’” 

“What location?” asked her friend. 

“I don’t know,” Maddie answered. “They named some strange address, and then hung up.” 

“Ignore it,” advised Maddie’s friend. The friend added, “It was probably just some Spam phone call, or an automated call gone wrong!” 

Maddie agreed, and so shrugged off this seemingly random phone call. However, somewhere in the back of her mind, Maddie felt a determination to secure an identification and cause for this off-putting exchange with the stranger whom had called. 

Maddie was hanging out with her buddies at the local town hangout. While at the bar with her friends who were all mingling about, Maddie felt her cellular phone vibrate and heard its muffled ringtone through the dense music and boisterous all-around chatter and laughter. She spoke to one of the ladies with whom she had been hanging, “I have a phone call, I’ll be right back!” 

Assuming that her friends would advise her to ignore this intriguing call, Maddie slipped away to the ladies’ restroom to answer her phone call. She felt thankful that the restroom stood completely unoccupied in all of its stalls. Here, she was much more able to hear the caller’s words, as opposed to being in the crowded areas of the party-goers' establishment. She, once again, was given instructions to appear at the caller’s specific location and at the specified time. 

The voice said, “Isn’t it exciting not knowing what will happen in your near future?” And then the call ended. 

Maddie had no resources as to confirm the location from which the call had hailed, and she certainly did not want to further alarm her friends of these inexplicable and random happenings. She danced the night away and woke in her home. 

To Maddie’s surprise, she was awakened by a phone call while she was nestled in her bed. It was from an anonymous caller. The voice said, “Isn’t it alluring not knowing what will happen?”  

“Who is it?!” Maddie exclaimed to the caller on the other end. 

Instead of a response, the mysterious caller listed an address to where this person could be met. 

And so, Maddie followed the instructions from the mysterious caller, as she was so desperate to conclude some sort of answer! Whatever that answer may have been, she would have ceased at nothing in solidifying whatever message this contactor seemed so desperately to have been attempting to convey! 

The directions lured her to a vacant building made up of just one room, one sitting stool, and a rotary telephone atop a small stand underneath a dim, wire-swinging light bulb.  

“Hello?” Maddie called out. Her voice somehow echoed. No response was received. Cautiously, Maddie approached the sitting stool with the phone nearby on its stand. Maddie sat on the stool. Her arms crossed themselves against her chest. She wondered what would happen next, in this ambiguous, unsettling space. Not knowing how this would all end is what made this so suddenly captivating. 

Her eyes fixated upon the telephone on the slim table in the otherwise bare room. Its presence seemed to possess her. The object arrested every fiber in her being, as she found herself absolutely needing to know what information occupied that end of its soul. The telephone held all. The telephone seemed to be an object of freedom.  

What could possibly happen now? Her heart raced, as she had no idea!  

She sat, staring at the phone. And then it rang! 

Her heart skipped a beat! How did she arrive here? How had this magical amazing object seem to become everything in which she had invested? 

She was so enthralled. 

She suddenly grasped the receiver of the telephone and hastily placed it against her ear. “Hello?!” Maddie called out in a panic, but to no response...