The deaf and dumb gods.

A quarter past eleven, I’m reaching for the phone. I dial the numbers I can never quite erase from my mind; perhaps nothing ever will. I wait for the call to connect and look out at nothing outside the window. Even in the room it is empty and lightless. It starts to ring across the line; the droning drowns sounds of the marching band called silence. It sounds for a while longer and I start to wonder if anyone is awake. Then I begin to come up with excuses for the absence of life on the other side. It was late, but you always slept late. Maybe you were away, but you never left your phone. Maybe you were still refusing to talk to me, but you always forgave easily. I hear a click and your voice inviting me to leave a message. I don’t think about it before I do it; I speak, for the first time in months, because I want hear from you. I slur and mumble my words, a silent prayer to this god called you.

I don’t remember now, what I said in that message I left you. Too proud to have picked up the phone much earlier, I strangely still remember what you last said, long before, after you kept calling; searching for life across the end of other line but life didn’t want to pick up, your plea to an earless god. So you left a memo for me to return the calls. It’s my turn to do the waiting now; and the gods never answer the prayers, do they? You must be as deaf as I am or mute after all this time.

There is nothing else except my room and the telephone and the line that stretches from me to you. Between the two ends of this line is the stubborn indifference of two immortals and a blinding silence that extends for miles.