Calling Card

CALLING CARD



By Mordecai J Banda



The man wore a raincoat, even though it was not raining. It was black and glossy, in contrast to his colourful yellow shirt and faded red jeans. In the night only the raincoat caught much attention. The light bounced off its many wrinkled surfaces, and the man had intended for that effect, though he had not consciously decided on IT. In the muted lighting of the deserted street, the man talked brightly to an old elm tree by the side of a road,

“Hello, there, good old tree. How’re you holding up?” The tree of course remained dumb.

And to the red fire hydrant he met some steps away, “Your day's been busy? How many fires? How dog toilet duty today, Mr?” The hydrant did not respond, of course. The man laughed loudly. He hunched over and slapped his knees repeatedly, caught in a sudden ridiculous fit. When he was done he walked past these two objects he met everyday, and walked for a short while into a more lighted street. It wasn’t exactly the city, but it was modern enough. One or two bars were open on this street, and some cars were parked around for the night. The moon overhead was half-covered in a tattered cloak of clouds, and occasionally a car rolled past. The man smiled sadly at the night, the loneliness returning only for a while, then he chuckled again and crossed the road, talking to it as well with his eyes fixated on it’s dark surface.

“Hope you’ve held up there, my friend. Plenty of cars to roll over you yet. Don’t worry; I’ll tread softly.” The road did not respond, of course.

The man arrived on the other end of the street. He found that he was directly beneath a glaring yellow street lamp. And he looked at his own arms, enjoying the reflections that bounced off the raincoat. Then beyond his own arms he saw something green on the floor, and he smile vanished and curiosity set in. “Hmmm, what is this?” He bent down into a squat. Both of his arms rested on his legs - like the homicide detectives do - and he looked at the green rectangle. He tried picking it up but its thinness refused him any proper grasp. He scratched it out with his long thumbnail, and brought it closer to his face. It was a card. A telephone company calling card. The man inspected this with interest, because he was surprised to see that there was no film to scratch off it like he always found. It had a simple logo of a cone-like tower with a telephone receiver at the top. This was complimented by a yellow glow and capitalized and curving words written “Before Babel” The man had never heard of such a company.

He frowned and smiled at the same time, making his face look horribly scrunched and he turned the card open to see a seven digit code: E-D-E-N-7-1-2. The man nodded as if he understood. He decided he should try this card out. He looked along the street, and suddenly he noticed a regular, clean enough phone booth. He stood up and walked over to it. Vaguely he wondered what this was all about, and he had a sense of adventure and fate. Then the loneliness returned: but that was countered with a sweet feeling of excitement as well. The man entered the phone booth. He coughed at a sudden smell of urine that assaulted his nostrils, and then he lifted the receiver. He cradled it between his ear and shoulder, and brought the card up to eye-level. The streetlamp outside brought in just enough ambient light to illuminate the strange code, and the man looked at the letters again with some uncertainty. It was probably a calling card for something else, it could even be a simple business card, but he decided to try anyway. He noticed the letters in the code, frowned and then after some thought, he decided to replace the letters in the code with the numbers they were under like on a cell phone. He stood in the booth thinking over the particular connections for a while, and tapped in 3-3-3-6-7-1-2. The tones pulsed softly in his ear. As soon as he finished he felt his ear go numb, and then there was no dial tone: complete silence, in fact. A shadow dimmed the ambient light slightly and the man, heart thumping, spun around to see...

Just a dog. A big, brown old dog. It looked sad, but it looked at the man. The man felt the fear vanish and he joked, “Well, can I have your number doggy?”

The dog did not respond, of course.

The man, feeling his happiness return and strange dread disappear, confronted the keypad. “Hmmm... Lets see, D-O-G, right?” The man didn’t wait for a reply, he held out a palm to the dog to wait and with his other he tapped in the number. The receiver was still snug between his ear and shoulder.

“D-O-G would be 3... 6-4.” The man tapped in the numbers, and he looked at the dog with interest, not really expecting anything and felt his goofiness return and wash away the irrational fear he had felt. The dog stared back at him. It still did nothing, of course.



Then it barked,

“I’m hungry.”

Through the earpiece of the receiver.

The man was so utterly shocked that his mind skipped the entire process of fear. He just played along and laughed, “That’s rich! You’ve just answered a phone call! Cool! Your brains a telephone, right?” He nodded stupidly at the dog, and it smiled,

“You don’t believe I am talking?” Its voice came in through the earpiece.

“Ha ha! Believe? I can talk to anything... Look at that old tree over there. Phone number: T-R-E-E. Lets see... 8-7-3-3.” The man tapped in the number, his momentary disorientation fading. Fear and shock rising... He looked at the tree faintly visible in the distance. It moved a bit with a crack and a voice filtered through the receiver...

“To answer your earlier query... I’m holding up good. Thank you.”

“Ah ha ha. AH HAHAHA!” He laughed at the phone, “I can talk to you! Ha ha ha! Ha... huh. “ The man dropped the receiver, and carefully curled up into a foetal position. He was freaked. I have schizophrenia! Please tell me I have schizophrenia... He heard himself think. He looked out of the booth, and was almost relieved when he saw no dog, then he felt a warm earnest breath on his neck and he turned to see the dog had joined him in the booth. In fact in his shock he hadn’t noticed that it had clambered over him and brought him the receiver in its mouth. Its voice filtered through the earpiece, “This isn’t a curse, you know. I thought someone as imaginative and lonely as you would find pleasure in this...”

The man pushed the dog away weakly; he rose to his feet and absently pocketed the calling card. He stepped out of the booth and walked a few steps towards the street lamp. He leaned against it using his right hand, breathing heavily. He looked at the cement of the sidewalk absently and the dog walked into his line of sight. No receiver in its mouth. It nudged his legs, and the man shook his head.

The dog nudged him again and, exasperated, he walked back to the booth, he raised the receiver and spoke in it without looking at the dog, “This is impossible.”

“It isn’t. But if you want, just pretend this is a dream. Your drunk. You were depressed so you drank yourself to sleep, and right now you’re in a comfy blanket back home.”

“I have no home.” The man mumbled. Then he looked at the road. Looked at the receiver.

“R-O-A-D... That’s 7-6-2-3.” He tapped in the numbers and discovered the extent of his madness. A multifaceted voice that spoke volumes rumbled through the earpiece, “Thanks for treading softly, but it does not really matter. I’m stretched evenly across this earth, and I have plenty of strength.”

The man felt tears in his eyes. There were tears of sudden overwhelming joy. He could talk to anything... Anything he wanted... and something occurred to him. Finally, at long last, his prayers were going to be answered. He looked through the glass and the night air at the old tree. He knew that some distance away from the road behind that tree was someone he could talk to after a long time of grief. The dog’s voice filtered through the earpiece,

“Leave the dead be, Doug.”

Doug looked at the receiver, then at the dog. He spoke in the receiver, “You can read my mind?”

“No, I’m just perceptive, as your subconscious feeds to me. Elaine is dead, Doug, and talking to the dead is fruitless. This is not mystical, it’s scientific. Elaine, if she had a soul, won’t answer you. Her dead and decayed cells will manifest themselves to act like her when they connect with you but it’ll all be science. Far beyond what you expect but just plain science. You wont find any love there, Doug.”

The man smiled, “Science, huh? So this sheet of plastic card has given me these powers through science? You expect me to believe that?”

“Just because you don’t understand it, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.” The voice filtered through the earpiece.

The man chuckled, “Yeah, explain me talking to the road... besides, she promised to love me always. And I promised her that too. I can finally explain what really happened. She still thinks I was the one who...”

“Leave it that way, Doug. I’m sure she knows that man only wore your clothes to look like you. In heaven, or somewhere.”

Doug smiled at the dog, “You act as though you saw the murder. In fact, you act human.”

“I was connected to your entire brain when you placed that call, Doug. Some of this is I and some is supplemented by your knowledge. Its complex to explain in one night.”

“I thought this was just a dream?”

“Scratch that, your about to do something stupid so I can’t let you take it lightly, don’t do it, Doug.” The dog’s voice came through the earpiece with earnest.

Doug dropped the receiver on the hook. He stepped out of the booth and the dog suddenly bared its teeth. As soon as he opened the booth’s door to step out, it jumped into his path and barked at him, fierce fire burned in its eyes.

“What the heck are you doing?” Doug asked, “I need Elaine more than ever and you want to block me?” Doug glared at the dog. The dog didn’t retort: It just suddenly lunged and nipped his leg. Doug shouted,

“Your the embodiment of that killer you- Bastard!” Doug kicked the dog viciously and its old weak frame was tossed aside easily. Doug promptly ran towards the tree in the distance. As he crossed the road, it rippled with obvious intentions of tripping him. However Doug had enough momentum to bring him over the road before it tilted his balance. When he passed the fire hydrant he wasn’t surprised when it burst and gushed water in all directions with strong force. Doug shouted defiantly, shielding his face and ploughing on along the street towards the street.

He finally reached the tree, expected it to strike, but it remained silent. The man looked at it, then he looked at the cemetery behind it. He had just come from that place; his fresh wreath of flowers was still lying against her grave. And he could finally talk to her. The man ran to the enclosed cemetery, vaulting over the short wall and dodging through the endless row of graves. He reached the grave and was not surprised to see it almost illuminated in a halo of moonlight. This was right. This was meant to be. The man knelt at the grave, and he thought of how to call to her with the phone booth quite a distance away. Then he remembered his cell phone, and he dug it out of his jacket, praising its usually unappreciated presence. He looked at the tombstone. On it was written: Elaine, Doug’s beautiful beloved wife, 1980-2001, R.I.P, it wrote. He felt his throat constrict as a piece of the pain he had always kept crept up to possess him again.

He was determined more than ever to end his grief; he activated the phone, tapped in the calling card numbers first. He put it to his ear, and was met by the dead silence and numbness in his ear. He then looked at the phone, carefully tapped in Elaine -”3-5-2-4-6-2” and the phone rumbled with a soft sweet voice that was Doug’s only love and only bright star in life.

“Doug.”

“Elaine... before I tell you anything else, I need to tell you...”

“Your so driven, so idiotic, Doug. You don’t understand anything. You only listen to what you learn yourself. You never hear what others tell you.” The voice was sad,

“But, Elaine I need you to hear me.” Doug knelt at the grave, rubbing his hand in the dirt.

“I know you didn’t kill me, and I know much more than that. I know everything there is to know. My death, was enlightenment, and I still love you, but your idea of love is so limited-”

Doug had no idea he was being recited love from all the novels he read. He was talking to his subconscious, and something more.

“Come out of the grave, Elaine. Just... just meet me one last time please.” Doug scratched at the dirt. He was frantic with passion and hope. Ordinarily he would’ve thought twice of summoning someone who was dead for ten years.

“Doug, I’m warning you... You won’t be able to accept me now that I’m dead.”

“Elaine, come out.” Doug almost ordered through the cell phone. There was silence, and the night air blew. And so did the grave: It burst upwards with a loud roar, and there wasn’t any delay in action: Elaine popped out of the grave like a bullet, and landed on the ground in front of Doug. A grotesque puppet jump. Doug shouted in surprise and fell back. Dust landed all around ‘her’ and the tombstone lay cracked on the floor. Doug looked up at her, his lips quivered, and he said in a crack voice, almost with surprise, “But... your dead.”

“Of course I am.” The voice came through the phone, and the half rotting skeleton’s mouth clacked up and down in sync with the soothing voice. There was a little lip tissue remaining there. It wore the same white dress it had been buried in ten years ago and age had made it all the more transparent. There was visibly a little muscle under her ‘thigh’ and some on the anklebones and a disturbing black ball that used to be a brain sat behind her nostril cavity. The skeleton as a whole reeked strongly, and there was nothing beautiful about ‘her’ at all. Doug blinked strongly: refusing this impossibility. It was still standing there. One-step closer, in fact.

“I’m sorry, Doug, but there’s really no body for me to possess but my own. I hope you don’t mind... want a kiss?”

Doug coughed and whimpered. He crawled backwards as the skeleton clacked and stepped forward, “Stay away, Elaine”

“But you wanted me, didn’t you?” The skeleton stepped on his chest, ploughing him into the ground. It knelt as its dress blew around it in the gush of a new sinister wind. It knelt forward, and pressed its rotten lip tissue against his. He dropped the phone, and his other hand released the calling card, which floated away from the scene, past the tree, and past the burst fire hydrant, over the road and directly under the lamplight on the same exact position from earlier. This was remarkably the only mystical event of the night.

When it landed the being that claimed to be Elaine stopped kissing Doug and then thrust its bony sharp hand through Doug’s chest cavity. The connections between Doug, ‘Elaine’, the tree, the dog, the road and the hydrant were severed, and the strange forces that bound them broke. The tree fractured in half, the hydrant crumbled, and the whole road across the entire street erupted into cracks and fissures and the dog keeled over and died. Finally, the animated cells that made up ‘Elaine’ lost their connection, and the skeleton fell on top of Doug, who summed up his surprise and pain with a last, bloody cough.