Tuesday, August 2. 2005Tommy Xiang
Tommy stared at the screen blankly, listening as the watch on his alarm rang. After nearly a minute he stood, and walked mechanically toward the door of his apartment, dialing his cell phone as he did so. It rang, and rang, and rang. Finally, the impersonal tone of the voice mail reached his ears.
"Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system." The soft, feminine voice was interrupted by a rather high-pitched, nervous sounding male voice. "Make Craig." After a momentary pause the feminine voice continued. "To send a numeric page, press five. To leave a voice message, please record after the tone." Tommy heard the low beeping tone, and slumped in defeat. He pressed the end button just as the elevator doors opened, depositing him in the well-kept lobby of his apartment building. Outside, rain poured down, just like the weatherman had predicted. Tommy looked down at his umbrella, hanging from the crook of his left arm. He looked at his phone. Its screen dimmed automatically, the call finished. He heaved a deep sigh. Why wasn't Fair_Weather_Friend answering? He had to answer his phone. They had promised each other that they would. It was the only insurance that they had. They had even made it so that people could get calls when they were inside of the environments. Why wasn't he answering? Tommy looked outside. He looked back at the elevator. He looked back outside. For nearly a full minute, he looked back and forth, standing nervously in the middle of the lobby. Finally, he turned back to the elevator. He punched the 6 without thinking, and huddled in the back corner of the elevator. This was not going to be a good day.
He heard the message pop up on his computer just as he entered the apartment. Night_Watcher[7:27]: Where are you? Aren't you going to do anything? Breathing deep to control his rising panic, Tommy tried desperately to think of an appropriate reply. Finally, instilling more calm into the message than he felt, he tapped out his message and sent it off. Brain_Stem[7:31]: I'm a doctor. I'll take care of this. It may take some time, though. If you feel uncomfortable watching your roommate, you may want to leave. He'll be fine soon. Immediately after sending the message, he began pacing. He set his watch to ring once every five and a half minutes. Each time it rang, he called Fair_Weather_Friend. Hours passed, and still, no one answered. Trackbacks
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