Rachel Fung graduated from King’s College London where she read law. She is particularly interested in stories of modern life and identity in South East Asia and has lived in three different cities in the region. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of publications, including an anthology of flash fiction – A Girl’s Guide to Fly Fishing.
One Call
I
He slipped his hand into his left pocket and a chill ran from his ring finger along to his heart. He pushed his hand deeper, burrowed, repeated a mirror routine with right hand, right pocket but again – nothing. The chill by now had successfully reached its destination and encased his heart in a thin layer of ice. He sighed.
He had left his handphone behind.
II
The wheels of a pram over his shoes snapped him back to himself and his surroundings rushed to present themselves to him all at once. Lanterns flashed with multi-coloured aggressiveness as “cai shen dao” re-looped for the 7th time that evening. Shopping malls were particularly unbearable during festive periods. He had an important meeting with a key client but could not remember where they were supposed to meet. Everything was in his phone. He thought of calling for a cab but was hit anew by the lack of his phone. He mentally cast about himself. A sea of impassive faces carrying the burdens of festivity weaved about him. Cursing him silently for standing still in a busy thoroughfare. The mall was swallowing him up. He had to get out.
The sky was newly dark with stains of pink by the time he exited the mall and raining lightly. He estimated the time to be around 7pm. The taxi line snaking around the mall cut short any quick plan of redress or escape. Resigned, he sat down on one of the cold metal benches that dotted the periphery of the building and watched the rain fall in thin sheets lit up by the shop windows behind him. He usually loved this time of the night. The new darkness felt hesitant yet promising. He watched as the streetlamps around the mall flickered on. All at once and not consecutively like they do in cartoons.
Only when the lights were on however, did he see that just 10 feet from where he was sitting, there stood an old phone booth. It must have been one of the earliest models from the 60s for it was a proper standalone phone booth with a swing door to enter and exit. A relict from a time when the country looked to Great Britain for guidance on how to structure practically everything in society. The phone booths in the country had evolved since then to be more cost and weather effective. Completely enclosed phone booths like the one before him now turned into mini glasshouses under the unforgiving tropical sun. Still, looking upon this near obsolete dinosaur of a phone booth before him gave his heart a little nostalgic tug. Hide and seek, sticky fingers on 999, screeching laughter and running. He studied its weathered exterior – all metal seams rusting at joints and scratchy glass panes. He had an overwhelming urge to be inside it. He finally had a reason to as well. Perhaps if he even dialled his handphone number, some straggler at the office may pick up and he could coax or bribe them to bring his phone over.
A pre-emptory storm wind passed, blowing his tie over his left shoulder, making him choose very suddenly whether to stay by the safe confines of the mall or venture outwards and risk being marooned in the phonebooth during a thunderstorm. Before he knew it though, his feet were cutting across the manicured lawn ring-fencing the mall. Rain brushed past his face, down his neck and trailed down to the small of his back. And then he was inside. Feeling like he had disturbed a space enshrined in time. He couldn’t describe it then but on later reflection he would explain this feeling as arising from the fact that the air inside distinctly felt, a decade old.
III
Change.
He forgot you needed change to operate these dinosaurs. He started fidgeting on the spot. An old nervous tick. The sky was now black outside and the storm was working itself up to a not too distant crescendo. The phone booth was located by the road turning into the mall. So every time a car made the turn, he would be momentarily bathed in brilliantly bright headlights. It was a disconcerting feeling. Like he was watching death brush by with every car. The sound of jingling coins made him stop fidgeting and he remembered the 50 cents in his right pocket. Perfect. That should be just enough to cover it. He withdrew the 2 twenties and 1 ten from his pocket and in a gesture which showed his age, fed the coins into the machine with one hand. Index and thumb acting as feeder; palm and other fingers acting as hold and release levers. He waited until he heard the last coin tumble down that dark rabbit hole to the bottom of substitute gold and then he reached for the clunky bright red receiver.
The wind outside was now howling, spinning, dancing. A particularly strong gust travelled with the headlights of a car and caused the entire booth to shake, making him grab the receiver a little faster than he meant to. He brought the receiver close to him and angling his neck, cradled it snugly between shoulder and ear. Right hand hovering in front of the number pad, he stared at the pad trying to remember his number, when his ear was suddenly greeted with a
“hello”
Then before he could even respond, the voice – female, light, airy, like a voice standing in a brighter, sunnier place with a taste of ocean wind and sun imbued in it, continued: “Is this Mary’s Cake Shop?”. And the necessity of a question waiting for an answer made his voice sputter back into action. What must it sound like – cold, hard, lonely, like a voice trapped in a tin box with no one to hear it.
“I think you have the wrong number. This is a phonebooth.”
Crackle. The warning of a tenuous line threatening to cut off.
“Can I order your classic cheesecake please”
“I wish you could. But again, this is a phonebooth.”
The crackling stopped.
“A phonebooth?!” the sun exclaimed. And he waited for its light to recede, but it burst forth even brighter with beaming laughter. “That’s really strange.”
To his surprise, he found himself laughing too. Hesitant but genuine laughter. “Yes, I was really shocked too actually.”
But her voice, suddenly serious, like a thin veil of clouds had floated in front of it, asked, “But is Mary’s Cake Shop nearby you?” Then, because he had lived his whole life in this city, he could answer with certainty: “No, they’ve closed down.”
“Oh”, she said. And the disappointment in that “oh” seeped through the line and dripped into his ear.
“I believe they closed over 10 years ago actually.”
“Oh really?”
“Yea.”
“Oh.”
The rain outside showed no sign of letting up. There was a small jam leading into the mall now as cars piled up and inched through the rain. They didn’t swing around the turning anymore. So headlights came and focused on him for extended and alternating periods of time. He felt like he was in a play, readying himself for each time the spotlight would fall on him again.
IV
The next thing she said was, “My mother is dying.”
He said he was sorry to hear that.
“Is it strange me telling you that?” she asked.
“No”, he lied.
“Do you mind me telling you that?” she asked.
“No”, he said.
V
He lost track of how much time passed after that point. Because for the duration of that call, Time couldn’t reach him as he hurtled through Then, Now and To Come with no regard to its linear character and became simultaneously both young and old. Thus with Time eluded, he could laugh, cry and speak freely on the phone. He shared how he coped with the passing of his own mother. Told her that he had never talked about that period until this moment. Which was true. She told him why the cheesecake was crucial. That it was the only cake her mother ever ate. They left the city 10 years ago for a small coastal town when her mother’s health deteriorated whilst living costs kept accelerating. But she wanted to surprise her mother with some cake. She said she didn’t tell anyone else the real reason for her move. That distance and circumstance would tear at friendships till you were only left with shreds of birthday greetings on Facebook walls. Better a clean break than drawn out ends. He asked whether sunsets there were truly better. She said they were. Like God himself had set the skies alight in a slow blaze to wipe out each passing day. She said the sunsets here could bring you to tears. He said he believed her. That he hoped to see it with his own eyes one day.
Thus in this manner, word chased after word and the conversation spooled like a gossamer thread with no end. He felt like he could talk to her forever. Feeding on words, on feelings captured, solidified. This phonebooth felt like it was the entire world and this tenuous call the only thing that mattered.
Then she said, “I have to check on my mother. She’ll be waking up soon.”
Like a man jolted awake, he whipped up his head and saw that it had stopped raining. There were no more cars waiting to turn in. A security guard was doing his rounds in sleepy silence and the sky was cloaked in a muted midnight blue.
Then her voice again, “Is it raining your end anymore?”
“No,” he said
“That’s good.” Pause. “It was really nice talking to you.”
“You too,” he said.
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Then after a beat, “Take care.” But she was already gone.
He looked down at his legs. Gave them a shake to wake the one that was asleep. Then slowly, he reached out to put the receiver back to its holder, which in turn triggered a mini shower of coins in the change receptacle at the bottom. He collected them – 1, 2, 3 coins, making 50 cents in total. He stared at the coins for a while. Then he picked up the receiver again. He fed the coins back into the phone, waited for the clang of the last coin caught and then looped the receiver over the top of the phone. He could give this city one call.