At The Beep.

Prelude in A major: Milo

EXHIBIT A

DAY ONE 

 Dina Manor sat atop a grassy hill: overlooking the city, quiet, with a pool the size of a small ocean and a plethora of antiquities placed sparingly at equal intervals across the never-ending white floors, white corridors, and white walls. 

As a ten bedroom pent house, it was luxurious. 

It was also rather useless. Especially when its inhabitants happened to be exactly one in number. 

Milo Dillston, companion to his seventy-three writing awards and twenty-eight medals of honour and stacks of certificates commending his literary achievements, will have you know that his ego was not inflated by the accumulation of such an abundance of prizes. 

Especially considering the fact that these objects of his affection were tokens from the Merrywynn Poppy County Boys' School. 

Also because this wasn't his house. 

Here's a more apt note about Milo: The voice behind A Tragic Memoir about Memoirs, Milo Dillston has once again managed to deliver a second-rate novel. He reigns supreme at the art of turning average plots into long-winded essays, but it can be said with certainty that the man will not be earning the Qwoitery Writer's Guild Award anytime soon - Accra Bishop, Highbrow Weekly [December 2nd, 2013]

Sometimes Milo wished he'd just taken up engineering like his now-deceased parents had begged him to. Maybe then he'd have had a better shot at some good money. Who knew, perhaps he'd have ended up in a house like this, all white marble and overpriced houseplants, with a Caribbean wife and hyperactive child who would love him the way Mr and Mrs. Dillston never could. 

A pipe-dream, honestly, but it did weigh him down a little that at the age of twenty seven and three-quarters, he was already sure of his failure as an author and as a son. 

Somewhere outside his comfortable guest bedroom that Lars had lent him, a tinny ring echoed. Milo groaned, recognising it as the constant skull-hammering call of the house telephone.  Why on Earth he'd decided not to keep it within his reach despite being accustomed to its never-ending fleet of messages for Lars, he had no idea. Where had he even left it? The manor was too large to scrounge for a single handheld, and he definitely didn't want to spend his few hours of sleep finding it. He shut his eyes and ignored it for the first minute, hoping it would stop. 

It didn't obviously, so he groaned again, this time in annoyance. It was probably in the living room where he'd last left it. 

Forcefully lifting his head off the pillow, he shook himself of the sleepy spell the comfortable mattress had cast on him and flipped the lights on. Barefoot and pyjama-clad, he tiptoed across the freezing floors, down the stairs, right, then left, then left again, then back two steps and to the right. Finally reaching the high-ceilinged living room, he flopped onto the couch and pressed the phone against his ear. 

"Hi. Mr. Vlaskovsky isn't home right now. He'll be ba-"

"-sapphire pendants the size of your feet and draconian obedience charms better than meat all at the ridiculously affordable price of seventeen-ninety eight! Isn't that great?!..."

The scratchy, odd voice was motoring on without (seemingly) pausing to breathe. It was quite rhythmic, really, and had Milo been awake enough to not want to stab this person, he might've appreciated the sick rhymes he/she/it (?) was spitting. 

"...a half-off on elixirs and jinxers that start with the letter 'o' and just to let you know there's an upcoming sale on dwarf-beard coats at the magical price of nine ninety-nine! Isn't that a wonderful offer, well if you thought that was something then here's..."

A telemarketer. At this ungodly hour. For dwarf-bearded coats? Milo could feel the annoyance seep back into him. This was some sort of prank, probably. Some dumb kid with too much free time. He held the phone away from him and let his finger skim over the buttons,  trying to disconnect with only the feeble moonlight through the corner window to guide him, when a new sound took over. 

A shrill, piercing beep worse than a hundred tinny rings of this telephone.  

He winced as it stopped abruptly, still ebbing painfully in his ears. 

The telemarketer was gone. So was about seventy percent of Milo's hearing.  He grumbled loudly, cursing the caller and making his way up to his room, phone in hand, when he heard a dry chuckle from. Jumping in surprise, he realised he'd forgotten to end the call. 

"Looks like they found y-" 

His finger lifted off the red button decisively. 

Good riddance.