archives in Flash Friday

She walked by a cell phone on the sidewalk. It was lit and a man’s voice was coming from the small speaker. She hurried past so the sound of her heels would be indistinguishable. She thought as she passed it that her idea was paranoid; nobody could recognize her heels by the sound, and even if they could, so what. She stopped, and turned around. Groceries shifted in her bag and a bottle of orange juice slid. She righted her arm and the orange juice settled.

She stood over the phone. She couldn’t quite make out the words. She became self-conscious of the camera eye aimed up her skirt. Like the sound of the heels she knew this anxiety was unwarranted, but was self-conscious just the same, keeping her knees together she bent down.

The voice was a man’s voice, choked with some kind of emotion; not sorrow, but more akin to sorrow than joy. After a few minutes she learned from the narrative that the voice was a pious and devout man, confessing that he had sewn castanets into his whip so that when he flagellated himself they made a happy rhythm. He was confessing shame that his humiliation before god wasn’t entertaining enough. Though, she thought, shame isn’t what’s catching in his voice. She picked the phone up.

“Hello?” she said into the receiver. There was silence.

She looked at the battery icon; 72 percent.

“Hello?” she said again, louder. A man walking three small dogs grunted at her as he had to navigate around, and one of the small dogs leash was straining against the woman’s bag, throwing the man’s balance off and he had to lift the leash while maintaining the leads of the other too. He grunted again putting as much complaint into the sound as a man walking three small dogs dared.

“Who is this?” the voice on the phone said at length.

“I’m … I was walking by … this phone was just lying on the sidewalk. I’m sorry. Would you like …?” she didn’t know how to finish that sentence so she didn’t.

“Where’s John?”

“John?”

“Yes, John. I was talking to John. This is his phone,” there was a pause, “Is he Ok?”

“Oh my, is there something wrong with him?”

“I’m asking you. There wasn’t anything wrong with him when, a few minutes … I called him and he answered, where is he?”

“Sir, I don’t know. The phone was just lying on the sidewalk, talking.”

“He’s about five eleven, forty, though he looks older, especially around the eyes, brown hair, receding and bleached, no, just fading, bleach like driftwood, lightening from age. He limps slightly on the left, a cycling accident tore something in his knee. Oh and he might be wearing a collar.”

“A collar?”

“Yes, a priest collar. He’s a Jesuit, but you can’t tell by looking. He teaches physics at the seminary. He answers to John.”

She had been scanning the immediate area, with each new detail she started her scan over from the place she had begun, nearest the phone, spiraling out clockwise. Fuck, it’s like OCD, she thought. She knew something was wrong with her and so she examined things like paranoia and heels, skirt cams, repetitive and compulsive behavior, becoming more anxious as she ruled each out.

“No, sorry, I still don’t know him. The phone was just lying on the sidewalk.”

The voice went silent again, she looked at the screen. The call was still connected.

“How much did you hear?”

“Oh. Nothing. A bit, I was just … you made your punishment more entertaining.”

“No. Yes. What do you think?”

“I think perhaps someone needed a hand and he set the phone down and whatever the person needed a hand with became more complicated,” which was, in fact, what she was thinking.

“No, about the castanets. Is it offensive?”

“I’m not offended.”

“No, of course not, do you think it offends god?”

She paused, “Do you think it’s weird? Too strong a word, unusual, do you think it’s unusual?”

“I suppose I must, I called John. Thank you.”

“No, that I picked up this phone and started talking to you. Just so you know, I haven’t been to a church since I was a kid. We didn’t beat ourselves, at least not in Sunday school, but I don’t think in that religion the adults beat themselves either. We were some kind of protestant. Yankee Baptist or unorthodox Lutheran or something.”

The voice paused for a long time. She checked, still connected. “I think you should give john his phone back.”

“I don’t know how to do that. Should I just put it back on the sidewalk?”

The man with the dogs was coming back, he had two small plastic bags with dog shit. He grunted and crossed the street. Other people were walking around her without making eye contact.

“Bring it to me,” the voice said.

“Is John there?”
“Yes, I do think it’s odd. If you bring it to me … I’m more likely to see him again than you are. You might see him sooner but you wouldn’t know it was him, so I think you should bring the phone to me.”

“I’m uncomfortable with that. I don’t know you, I don’t think being alone with you would be safe for me.”

“I live in a public place.”

“Like a park?” She felt sad.

“No. I’m in county lock up at the Sherriff’s department. They are holding me for arraignment.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. I’m innocent.”

“Ok,” she said. Hung up the phone and set it at the base of a tree near where she found it. A block of concrete had been removed and a tree was planted there. Perhaps to beautify the neighborhood, perhaps for shade. She thought the phone would be safer next to the tree. She identified with the tree. It sat on the sidewalk all day and night and nobody noticed it either. She wondered if that were true. It seemed true.