Moving Parts

A few hours of comfort in the abandoned apartment was all the narrator could have counted on now had he been left in peace. A few hours of blessed sleep in the broad double bed before the air raid began. But now the telephone is ringing. It rings insistently and does not seem likely to give up. The narrator finds some scissors and cuts the cord. For a short time he basks in the silence, in which can be heard the soporific buzzing of flies, one, two, three of them, describing hopeless circles beneath the chandelier. But the cut cord is not enough to silence the stubborn ringing of the phone. After a moment it resumes. The narrator finally begins to realize that the call is for him. He ought to pick up if he doesn’t wish to burn every bridge behind him. He who calls the shots, he who summoned the narrator and who neglected for so long to respond to letters and faxes, from time to time remembers unfinished business, from a dripping faucet to banking arrangements. At such moments he digs his cell phone out of his crumpled bedding to deal with these matters one by one.