The Weird Insights of a Scobberlotcher

Forty Sounds Hallow Black

We settled mostly on the joys of text. Lots of it. Everything from the mundane to the intimate. Read about an author recently who wrote the first drafts of all her novels on her phone. Thousands and thousands of pages. Made your average teenybopper's output look minuscule. Well, that was the league I was playing in now. Awhile there I thought I'd get callouses and arthritic knuckles. Even considered buying one of those massaging baths you put your feet in. Except it would be for my thumbs.

Text became the foundation upon which we built a mutual cocoon. Weekdays at her place. Weekends at mine. My friendship list had already suffered a severe pruning anyway, based on hearsay. And hers shrank because of me. I simply couldn't speak the majority language. So we came to rely more and more on our own exclusive company. With one glaring exception. The periodic breach in our perfect harmony. Her son by a previous marriage. Harvey. Course, there had to be a 'Harvey.' There's always a fucking 'Harvey.' He'd drop by now and again to check on mom. He was very protective of her. Perfectly understandable, really, even if she didn't need it. Unfortunately, I think he suspected me of being a serial wife killer. That or the kind of guy who preys on the vulnerable, sucks the marrow out of a relationship then heartlessly abandons the bones. Not sure but I think it was the look on my face. I could feel it forming like a mask every time he dropped by. A near rictus that must have made me look comically evil. I couldn't help it. He was just excruciating to listen to. One of those involuted assholes whose chief joy is a recidivist suspicion. Worse, his nasal voice was nails down a blackboard and his words, as cunningly sheathed as cholla, pierced and clung tenaciously inside my brain. If it hadn't been for the strong physical resemblance I would never have believed THIS apple fell from THAT tree. More like a maple copter blown way off course in a high wind. Well, I could live with that. Correction, I had to live with that. She loved him. A mother's love, I presume. So I never said a lot and tried to tolerate him. As best I could. With gritted teeth, copious pots of tea and a feigned weak bladder.

Apart from that all was bliss. Never been happier. So happy my nervous apprehension slowly gave way to an all embracing complacency that fit like a well worn glove. Went on for quite awhile. Eventually even condemned the cards and key to life in a drawer behind Ruth's socks. My one, small, lingering doubt was assuaged by never directly answering the phone. I was all in on text now. Go ahead, just try and give me that 'call.' So when it did come it was a shocker.

I was sitting on my couch one afternoon. Alone, thank you Mr. Christ. My mental state at the time was basically thumb up bum, mind in neutral. Completely adrift. The muffled sound of cars drifting by was creating familiar luminous threads of sky blue mist, punctuated by tiny drops of liquid plastic voices talking and laughing in the street below. So I was totally unprepared when it went off. A blaring orange flashing light flooding my brain. And every time it flashed it was accompanied by the sound of an old fashioned submarine klaxon signaling a dive. It only went on for a few seconds but it scared the shit out of me. My first thought? An unexpected noise from outside somewhere. But there was nothing, absolutely no external source for it. Nothing out there could have created what was just in here. Then I knew it with a dreadful certainty. Nope, this was was my own personal little epiphany. It was, it had to be, 'the call.' Shit, really? Something out of 'Das Boot'? And there's nine more of these to go?