Night Shift

Chapter 5

The store phone rings. I knew it was going to, I always wait by the phone at this time every night. It's always the same number that calls. Sometimes I pick it up immediately, other times I will let the call go through to voicemail and see if the customer will leave a message. Tonight, I let it ring a couple of times before picking it up.

"Thank you for calling Myriad's, how can I help you?"

Just like every night, the phone is silent. Sometimes I stand there and wait, other times I just hang up. Every so often I'll answer the call with a cheesy joke in the hopes of getting a reaction out of the caller, just so that I can hear something.

There's no response. There never is. There's no breathing, or any background noise whatsoever. It's just complete and deafening silence.

After a minute, the call drops, and my ear is blasted with the horrendous beeping. I'm never supposed to answer the call, that much has been clear, but I can't help it. I slam the phone back in its placeholder and stare at it. My breathing starts to get heavy. I could potentially cry right now.

"Just please talk to me," I whisper. My eyes start to sting with moisture. I wipe them with the back of my hand and I continue with my tasks. There's always tomorrow. And the night after that... and the night after that...

*

The act of spontaneity always baffles me. What is the root cause of it? What makes a person go from one thing to another in the blink of an eye? If there is a plan for everyone, where their lives are already set out in front of them before they even come into the world, is it really spontaneity in the eyes of the entity that is controlling everyone's fate? Or is it meant to be part of the Plan? Was I meant to be hired to work at The Myriad? Stuck here with no other prospects? Was Dad meant to die from the crushing weight of a toppled road train? Was Mum doomed to be lonely and constantly seeking solace in her cigarettes?

I was always a fan of the idea of things happening for a reason. But I learnt very quickly after working here that people seem to be under that delusion when things are going their way. If they were to suddenly go bankrupt, or fall victim to a scandal – their ideology of "Everything is meant to happen" falls through pretty quickly.

They start to think like I think. Like Susan. Like Mum.

Life is just a waste.

*

I remember many years ago, a couple of months into getting the job, the store phone rang. I was a couple of hours into my shift, I had just finished mopping around the shelves for the hundredth time. It was extremely dead that night, and everything else was done to the point that if I were to do it any further I would go crazy from the redundancy.

I remember lunging at the phone like my life depended on it. Finally, I could make proper use of my time here tonight. I pressed it up against my ear and eagerly chimed my usual greeting.

"Busy tonight?" It was Susan.

"Oh... uh, no. I've only served one customer since I clocked on," I replied. I didn't bother trying to hide my disappointment about the fact that I wasn't answering a customer's call. Not that Susan would care anyway.

"Of course it isn't," Susan grumbled. Her voice sounded a little gravelly and slurred. She was either upset or drunk. Or both.

"Is everything OK?" I asked.

She started to laugh. Loud and screeching, extremely sudden. It made me jump. I didn't think Susan was capable of making such a noise.

She eventually simmered down. "Why are you still here?"