Writer’s Challenge
Hello, your past is calling …
Do you accept the call?
It’s Tuesday. You’re inside your home or apartment. Reclining on a couch that has seen better days; remote in hand as you surf through Netflix, trying to decide whether to binge on episodes of Chopped or cast farther afield and watch the limited series on Cosmetic Surgery Gone Horribly Bad.
Then suddenly a knock at the door takes you out of your reverie. Your legs swing off the couch as you pause the reveal of the first basket of food and look toward the door. Then out the curtain — no one’s there. You open. There’s a package next to the mailbox. A bright red box. Not too big, not too small. Definitely not a pizza or the new treadmill you ordered.
What is it?
You bring it inside and drop it on the table and resume your position on the couch. The remote pointed at the TV, you look back at the box.
Shit!
It’s a nice box. Nice paper neatly wrapped. Not in duct tape of anything gauche but Christ, you can’t tear it with your hands and out comes the scissors. Two minutes later, a phone is lying on the coffee table. Not an iPhone. Not a Samsung or anything later than 1998. It’s old. Clunky and gray and looking like someone dropped it out of a bus window. WTF?
You look back inside the box for an explanation. There’s a note, printed on nice parchment paper. It reads briefly:
You have one call to make and only one, to anybody in your past, dead or alive. Dial their number if you know it. Dial their name if you don’t. They will answer. Good luck.
What would you do?
Would you laugh and think, who’s pulling your leg? Would you toss in back in the box and then in the trash and get on with Chopped?
Or would curiosity take hold as old desires and questions starts creeping up your spine, demanding a second chance.
Who would it be?
We all have moments in our lives when we were silent.
When ideas, emotions and words all collided on their way out of us and fell limp onto the sidewalk, never to be heard by the one who most needed to.
Times when we delayed, questioned our choices, made excuses and never made the call. Never ran to the train station before they left. Never had that second chance to say what was in our hearts.
Or the other times, when we did say words we came to regret. Expressed anger when understanding was more appropriate. Said harsh things that no matter how we tried, we couldn’t take back.
We all have people who have left us by choice or circumstances beyond their control. People who made us whole. Who made us laugh or cry or feel wanted in the best possible way. Who filled our lives with joy or sadness and pain and deserved to hear words equally painful, but never did.
How would we use that phone, that opportunity? What would we try to accomplish or remedy with that one call?
Who would it be?
I’ve mentioned him before in other articles. How we never came to a greater understanding of who we were together. Never had the chance to be adults together, or share ideas and beliefs. Stand side by side and watch my daughters play. Sit comfortably over a cup of coffee and listen to each other’s dreams.
I would call my father.
Would he be ready for the call? Would I reach him at home, my home? Would he be sitting in a dinner, next to a pay phone, having a cigarette and thinking about me?
I guess there’s only one way to find out.
What would you do if such a phone was delivered to your door? Would you be ready, able to punch in the number or name? Reach out to someone you loved and miss or someone who needs to hear words that have haunted you in the quiet of the night.
I’d like to hear your stories and what you might say.
Sherry McGuinn Desiree Driesenaar Denise Shelton Paul Myers MBA P.G. Barnett Rasheed Hooda Arthur G. Hernandez Kira Dawn James Knight Caroline de Braganza Helen Cassidy Page Timothy Key Dawn Bevier and any others, please step forward. 😊
Joe Luca is writer and editor for ILLUMINATION and a published author and writer of children’s stories, short fiction, non-fiction articles, screenplays and poetry. Publications include Child’s Life, Children’s Playmate and others. There are some other articles below — have a read. And thank you for stopping by.