There's nothing like waiting for a call that never comes. You try to keep calm, try to tell yourself that nothing's happened, that maybe the line has tripped or the phone's run out of battery. Maybe the reception's bad. (At the top of a building? Heh, highly likely.) But it's better than, well, the other possibility, but you don't think about it because if you don't think about it, it won't happen, right?
So you wait. And you carry on with what you are meant to do at the present moment. Every movement you make, now, every action is magnified in your head; measured, deliberate and careful. You let your task fill your being, your mind, crowd out your thoughts. Because of that one thing that isn't supposed to happen and that won't happen if you don't think about it. …right?
The trepidation grows, only because you know the person whose call you are awaiting will go to any lengths to finish what he started. Only because you really should have received that call by now, and what the hell is taking him so long?
But you wait. You wait until the crowd's out on the streets and there's a commotion and you ignore it because of that growing pit of dread and the thought you don't want to think about. You walk and you wait and you're not sure if you should run to the place where he last was, or if you should turn around and go home.
But he specifically said, go back. So you go back. You go back and you're half expecting to be greeted at the door by that expressive face and that characteristic sing-song tone of voice. No one's home.
And by then, you can feel it, that impossible possibility and its deadweight of a certainty, and it's almost suffocating. But no, nothing's for sure unless he says so. And so, you wait.
And you wait.
And the certainty grows more and more substantial. You don't need to know, because you already do, and because bloody fucking hell that son-of-a-bitch should have told you.
And you wait to feel something, some rush of emotion, or pain, maybe you hope for tears, because it would feel more real, more identifiable, but all there is a huge, yawning emptiness that pervades your entire being and an unfamiliar feeling of helplessness that might be frustrating if it didn't feel so unreal. But it's unidentifiable and alien and strange and all you can do is sit with your head in your hands and let a strange mix of anger and bitterness settle.
And you wait, although there is nothing to wait for.
And there is nothing like waiting for a call that never comes. Nothing.
