The Phone Call

Hi all!

Truth to tell, life has been a little more than hectic. I’m very sure that work is now under control, but in the meantime I’m studying after office hours. Actually, I’m sure that’s under control too. So I guess it must be the 7 games of scrabbles I’ve been playing on Facebook, which is not allowing me to blog as much. I’m still heady from earning 77pts for the word ‘moorier’ which I didn’t even knew existed


But hey, not to worry! While I was away on hiatus, I’ve been collecting pieces of short stories to revile you with.


Story 1: The phone call.



A typical day in the office, camera sweeps the room on a Monday morning, which is starting to bustle for the day’s activity and lands on an empty cubicle filled with unwashed cups and coffee dregs. The telephone rings, but no one is there to pick up AKK’s call. The other colleagues have their own lines. After a while, the telephone goes silent and in a sudden burst of flurry, AKK rushes into the office cubicle to dump her bag and hastily picked up her office phone, after dropping it once.

‘Hello hello?’ the other end is silent. And then there was a buzz emanating from the bag AKK has just dumped onto the floor.


‘Jidan!’ and the next flurry of movement saw her smashing the office phone back and rammaging through…



‘Hi!’ the handphone was unclamped and jammed to her head.



A familiar voice came through tentatively



‘May I speak with AKK? Ed here.’



AKK heaved a huge sigh of relief. It wasn’t a customer, Fren Ed had been chatting with her on msn yesterday.


‘Ohhhh hi…it’s you! Been looking for you!’


‘You have?’ an curious uplift in the voice. ‘good, been looking for you too, you have time to spare?’


‘Sure sure! I’m going to the toilet, so no prob.’


‘Er….i dun need to know that.’


‘That’s what I usually say if I need a break lah, no worries.’


‘Really?’


‘All the time, man. So what’s up?’


‘I need a favour.’


‘Sure. What do you need?’



A sense of foreboding crept through while AKK’s mouth rambles on, she is vaguely aware that her peanut cranium, usually sluggish pre-kopi, is starting to warm up and run. Something’s happening here, but she isn’t registering yet.


‘I need you to write a memo.’


‘Memo? What memo?’ the brain decides to revved up suddenly. And a flood of ESP subconscion decides to finger itself out through her head.


The voice paused, as if realizing something is wrong also, then responded slowly, as if testing out an idea.


‘Erm, I need you to write a memo…for your project….’


An extra large finger flicked AKK’s grey matter with a huge TONK!


A nail falls and a bulb lit up. The sense of foreboding casts its net and envelopes AKK like spidey’s web with unadultered anxiety.


‘Memo....’ I quavered. ‘A memo, for my project? As in, work project?’


There was a smile underneath that tone. It had figured out and was enjoying the moment.


‘Of cos. Was there another project? I don’t remember giving you more than one.’


And then,

'Big Boss? Is that you?'


A sigh. "Yes, AKK, it's your BIG boss calling you.'


‘DIRECTOR! Oh, I’m so sorry! I thought you were my fren! I’ve got a lot of Ed names called frens, ‘ I cringed. ‘I mean, fren names called Ed……oh I’m so sorry!!!!! Oh my God, no wonder you were directed from the office phone ’ I wailed, the past 3 minutes running through and snippets of conversation screaming behind AKK's sockets. ‘I knew there was something wrong about this call!’


A chuckle. ‘That’s ok. So can you finish the memo by 5 pm today?’


Another wave of embarrassment threaten to sink her.


‘Sorry sorry. Oh my God…I really didn’t think….I mean …..You sound just like my fren……. ‘ AKK sputters, then paused and finally got a grip on herself.


She cleared her throat.


‘Yessir. You’ll have it on your table by 4pm today.’ The tone was cool, calm and collected, exactly opposite to her gushing, bleeding, humiliated heart.


‘Wow, what a big change! OK, thanks. I hope you enjoyed this toilet break! Bye!’ And the line went as dead as AKK’s professional reputation.


The camera finishes its round of the office atmosphere, then refocuses on one worker as she unglued her handphone from her ears. If this were a silent show, she would have won grammys for her facial depiction under the category of ‘hearing bad news’. Life can be cruelly funny sometimes.


Light dims out.


OUT!

Next up is Keisha’s (PPQ series) crush!