The silence of the dial tone

Dec. 13, 1982

 

I stood too long on the telephone with you, the coins jingling down the mechanism like metal mice, locked into this unticking clock, some voice about to whisper that our time was up.

 Yours and mine?

 What a joke. Our time ran out before the mice were born, before home computers or push button telephones.

 I keep thinking that our lives are measured out in predetermined ticks, we paying for the service with some unknown coin, waiting for the voice of God to tell us our time's up.

 I see myself three decades from now, still horny and lonely and preoccupied with sex, clutching some similar receiver such as this, begging some person like you to join me.

 And that someone -- maybe you -- on the far end trying to make sense of my request, asking me to repeat it, asking what I mean, asking how I can ask for such a thing.

 I blush now for that future self, wondering how many times I will need what I need over the time in-between, and how many people I will ask to service me, the way I'm asking you, begging for attention, pleading for mercy from my own hormones.

 And every time every person asking me again how I can ask, promising to hang up if I don't stop, threatening to leave me alone to the silence of the dial tone.