Prank Phone Calls
Based on the Twilight Zone episode "Night Call"
Alma Withers is a solitary, heartbroken woman in her late forties. She has no friends, and lives alone in her Manhattan apartment, except for her cat Fergie. She has lived alone since her fiancé George O'Connell died in a car crash fifteen years earlier. George was devoted to her, and did everything she told him to. That's why he died.
The phone rang, and Alma ignored it. No one except salesmen called her anymore. Except for once, two months ago, when her boss at the hair salon had called to ask if she could work a double shift on Thursday.
The phone rang again, persistently. Alma sniffed, and turned the volume up on her small TV. Fergie cried in the kitchen, as annoyed as Alma by the phone, which was still ringing.
Alma muted the TV and picked up the phone, practically yelling as she answered it.
"Hello?" she screamed. Fergie whined in the background.
"This is George O'Connell. Is Miss Withers there?" a cool, soft voice said, reminding Alma of wind in the trees.
"Yes, and if you're George, I'm a purple llama!" Alma yelled, then hung up. She would regret that later; her neighbor hated it when she made too much noise.
Thoroughly unconcerned, Alma turned the volume on her TV back on. But when the commercials came on, she was silently cursing stupid kids and their prank phone calls. It wasn't the first time she had received one such call, most of them from teenagers putting on strange foreign accents and asking about car services and airplane times.
She got up and walked into her kitchen, opening her refrigerator and pulling out an old carrot cake, cutting herself a slice.
Something felt wrong. It wasn't the voice- any person could have put on a voice like that. And it wasn't that they knew her name- she was listed in the White Pages and on her company's website.
How had they known about George?
No one except her parents knew about him, and they were long since dead. She hadn't seen or heard from any of her friends in ages, and she had never met his parents.
What if it had been George on the phone, though?
Preposterous. He was dead, and there was no such thing as ghosts.
Shaking these thoughts from her mind, she went back to the TV.
Work the next morning was as dull as always. She worked on people's hair, cutting some here, dyeing some there, curling some in places. From time to time she answered the phone on the table where she put down her equipment, writing down appointments made by middle-aged women seeking to look younger.
The phone rang, and Alma put down the scissors for a minute to answer it.
"Hair on Fourth, Alma speaking," she said, trying to sound as happy as possible.
"It's George, Alma. How are you doing?" the same voice from the night before said.
She froze. Were the punk kids stalking her? How did they know she was at work now? Had they followed her around for two weeks, writing down everything she did, just like in cop movies?
Unable to move, she blinked, hearing someone breathe heavily into the phone on the other end of the line. She took several deep breaths, fighting for calm. Stupid punk kids! Stalking her, can you imagine?
"Why do you stupid prank called want to talk to me so badly?" Alma finally said in an anguished voice.
"Because I love you, Alma, and I need to talk to you. Just hearing your voice makes all my problems go away," the caller told her, completely unfazed by her tone of voice.
"No you don't! You're not George! Leave me alone!" Alma yelled into the phone and hung up.
She paused for a minute, then turned around, an incredibly large, fake smile on her face.
"Let's finish up, shall we, Mrs. Higgins?" she told the customer in a bright, cheerful voice, picking up the scissors again.
After work Alma quickly made her way to the Church of St. John near her house. She sat down in a pew and prayed, her head bent, ignoring the handful of other people present.
The priest walked over, smiling slightly, the picture of serene calmness. He had white hair with very few grays, an aged, weathered face with many wrinkles, and a small, thin mouth that was always smiling.
"Good evening," he said, sitting down next to Alma in the pew. She looked up and smiled shakily at him. "What brings you to our humble church?" the priest asked. His voice was soft and soothing, calming Alma's nerves.
"Father, I am worried," Alma told him, her forehead wrinkled with worry. "Twice someone has called me, saying he is my fiancé, who is dead. The first time I thought it was a prank caller, but then he called at work… Now I'm not sure what to think." Alma whimpered a little, slumping down in her seat. The priest put a hand on her back.
"Perhaps it really was your fiancé. Sometimes ghosts appear and haunt because their desires weren't fulfilled. How did he die?"
"It was during the winter, and I was very sick," Alma started, staring ahead blankly, as if she wasn't really seeing. "We had run out of medicine, so I asked him to run to the store for more. For some reason he took his car. The roads hadn't been salted yet, and they were so icy… He never managed to swerve before the truck hit him."
The priest looked thoughtful for several minutes, his glittering eyes seeming to sink deeper into his skin as he thought.
"I do think it was your fiancé," he said at last. Alma's eyes widened. "I think he loves you too much to live in Heaven without you, so he's come back to this world to be with you."
Alma grinned broadly. George was the only person who had actually managed to have a decent conversation with her. She hadn't spoken to anyone for days after he'd died, knowing that they wouldn't have anything to say that was of interest, not compared to the things George used to say. He knew about everything- science, politics, literature, philosophy… And he always listened to Alma, always did what she asked.
Alma smiled at the priest and pushed her way out of the pew, running the two blocks to her house in less than a minute. At the door she fumbled with her keys, but finally managed to get inside. She threw her purse and keys on the floor, not bothering to take her coat off before picking up the phone and dialing.
The number was still there- no one else had called. Fergie rubbed against her legs, purring, but she paid no attention, waiting in an anxious silence as the phone rang.
"Hello?" the soft, whispery voice said. Alma could feel her heart hammering in her chest, recognizing at last the voice whose owner had brought her so much happiness.
"George?" she said tentatively, her voice hesitant. "It's me, Alma."
"I'm sorry, Alma, but I can't talk to you," George answered, his voice betraying no emotion.
Alma felt anger rising in her. Why could he only talk to her when she didn't want to? Why couldn't he see that she was the best thing that would ever happen to him, and talk to her?
"Why can't you talk to me?" she demanded angrily, all her anger showing in her voice.
"Because you told me to leave you alone, and I always do what you tell me to."