11:30 p.m. (Completed)

1: Wrong Number?

“Hello”, the voice on the other end greeted cheerfully

“Who’s this?” 

“A stranger” the voice replied failing to suppress a little chuckle

“Listen mister, whoever you are, you might be a jobless fool but I have work to tend to. So, go find some other loner like yourself to irritate” Alessandra blasted into the phone. Generally, she was never rude to people but this stranger had been calling her for the past two days constantly. His number was marked as private and hence she couldn’t block it. she had cut the call a thousand times before but he kept calling again and again. 

“I’m so sorry I didn’t know my calling was bothering you so much” he replied. There was a sudden fall in his voice, it was softer and sadder. “you’re right I am a very lonely person. Sometimes when the voices in my head get too much to bear, I call up numbers randomly. Just to hear somebody speak to me. Just to feel…human again” he finished, the last words covered by a little choke. 

Alessandra felt a little uneasy. She had been unnecessarily rude to the person. And to be honest, it was not all his fault. It had all begun with the evil alarm clock not going off, she was already late for class when the stubborn ketchup bottle refused to let go of a drop of ketchup to soak  her dry unbuttered toast and when she slammed it, the whole thing spluttered on the plate and on her white shirt. She had to change into a crumpled shirt, messing up her hair in the process and by the time she reached college, she was so late for class that the professor’s face was as red as the ketchup stains still splattered all across her living room wall. She got a earful from the professor not only for being late but also for performing poorly on her last assignment. On her way back home, a car splattered mud stains on her white shirt and As she put down the assignment with the big red ‘B’ blotched across the front page on the dressing table, she saw her mother’s letter. She read it only to find out that her grandmother’s condition had gotten worse, the tumour was spreading and there was no way to stop it.  Just as she was about to break down and cry, the phone rang. 

“Sorry again for being a bother. Bye” The voice replied rather softly bringing Alessandra’s attention back to the conversation. 

“Wait”

“Yes?”

“Umm.. I’m sorry. I just had a rough day today. I didn’t mean to talk to you the way I did before”

“It’s okay. I understand the feeling of a rough day. I’ve had plenty of those myself the problem is, it’s like a domino effect. It begins with one little thing going wrong and then all of a sudden everything that can go wrong goes wrong.”

“I know right! I mean just today, my alarm didn’t go off and then everything just fell apart after that.” Alessandra interjected a little too enthusiastically

“I know” the voice chuckled. Alessandra felt relaxed as the voice returned to its former state of cheerfulness. 

“did you really mean what you said before” 

“about what?”

“About being lonely. Are you really that alone?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m alone, I’m always surrounded by people but yes I am lonely. It’s strange how I feel the loneliest when I’m in a crowd” 

“But how does talking to a stranger like me help?”

“because I’m not wearing any masks while talking to you. I don’t have to be your idea of me” there was a soothing sense of frankness in the stranger’s voice that did not allow Alessandra to cut the call. It had been a long time since she had had someone speak so honestly with her. It was rare. He was opening up to her and strangely, it felt good. 

“hello, are you there? Yoo-hoo”

“I’m here, I’m here. It just took a while for your last statement to sink in. that was deep”

“oh, okay, I’m Michael by the way”

“Well Michael, it was nice speaking to you”

“hey, not fair. Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

“I will, once we get to know each other better”

“that means you’re agreeing to more of these phone calls?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t say that”

“yes, you did”

“goodbye Michael”

“Goodbye, I’ll call you tomorrow. Same time?”

“hmm”

“goodnight” 

“goodnight Michael”. And with that the line went dead. 

Despite a bad day, after the call Alessandra felt strangely okay. Michael’s voice had a kind of calm excitedness that made her feel valued. He was talking to her because he wanted to and not because he had to like most people in Alessandra’s life. She thought of Michael as she squeezed out the excess cleaning liquid from the sponge into the bucket and scrubbed the red stained walls. she moved her hand back and forth against the stain thinking of how Michael would look like. She drew a mental picture of him. The childlike giggles would mean that he was quite young maybe someone in his early twenties. That would be good since Alessandra herself would turn twenty-two five months from now, in June. His voice was quite deep so maybe he’s tall, lean not very bulky and judging by his accent he was definitely American...

As Alessandra placed the bottle of water on the bed stand, switched off the dim lamp, snuggled into the fuzzy blanket, made herself cosy and shut her eyes, the mental image of Michael came back to her mind. Her tall, dark and handsome stranger.