Revision.

Revision. (Chapter Four)

Chapter Four:

i

Motionless, no molecules stirred in my apartment. A draft blew through the window in my kitchen, disturbing the stillness. The unsettling breeze felt glacial and bitter; unforgiving. The draft began at my heels, and as the temperature increased, it elevated up my shirt and onto my flesh underneath. I shivered despite the then warmness of the perverted molestation of the wind, like a malfunctioning air-conditioner.

I glanced downward. The black sheen of my phone seemed to have a cartoon-ish effect to it, as if it were lines of fragrance morphing into a gigantic hand to lure me in its direction. But I knew the superstition laid only in my mind, and tried to force me against my will to do something I would regret. Coercively, my phone flicked on, displaying a notification shaped like an old-timey telephone with three lines protruding from the handle: a missed call. I wanted to claim fallacy, saying the call had been an illusion, some sort of magical sorcery, a witchcraft that would have been burned at the stake centuries ago, but if there is one thing I know for certain, if you cannot trust your own eyes, who can you trust?

Reluctantly, I reached out for my phone, leaning towards its maleficent face. Then it flashed a bright white, and rang loudly. I recoiled back into myself, smacking my left heel off of my floor, and stumbling. By the time I rediscovered my balance, the incoming call had retired. This felt as if a prerequisite, that missing the call was essential to some master plan laid out by the universe, and I became obligated to return the phone call.

Valor was a desideratum.

Inevitably, I picked up my phone. It jumped and jittered in my trembling hands, as my knees buckled inwards, and my head turned light as if it was filled with pure oxygen. I clicked my phone to turn it on, and the ultimate whiteness of the screen enthralled my eyes, and executing hesitation, I called Zander.

It rang once–I could feel sweat collecting on my oily forehead. Then twice–the droplets fell victim to gravity and lucklessly stung my eyes. While awaiting the tertiary, the sickening ringing concluded and after the cessation, Zander's voice broke out of the speaker.

"I got another one for you," he said.

I could hear out-of-breath gasps, like he ran to receive the call.

"Jay? You there?"

"No–"

"No?" he asked, "You're not there?"

"No I won't do the story."

"What do you mean you won't do the story? It's perfect for you!"

"I am not doing the story," I argued, feeling a spontaneous roar in my chest.

"I thought we were getting back on track, what happened to actually doing your job?"

"I'm not doing the story, Zander, I'm sorry."

"Jay!"

I said nothing, and looked down at my hands, then my feet. I sat down at the edge of my coffee table, with an audible thump.

"Jay?" Zander asked. Then once more, pressing: "Jay?!"

And with a tap of my phone screen, the call ended. I felt the decompression of tension, like the untying of a knot, in my chest. I let my body fall limp, and forward my head plunged like a stone into water, and slammed my skull onto my coffee table. The slamming sensation rang in my ears.

Silence swarmed me like a cloud of bats, in my hair and through my eardrums. The brief sensation died when my phone began to ring again. I gave up on looking at the contact name, because I knew if I looked it would be as if turning the pages of a burning book–futile. Nonetheless, I felt plussed. So, I gripped my phone, wrapping my fingers around it completely, feeling the warm and surging electronics underneath the metallic body have a unified, clockwork spasm. I then lifted it above and behind my head, tossing my phone across my apartment, hitting something made of glass; at least the following sharp explosion indicated so.