Perpetual anticipation.
1:37 AM
Yafya stood at the hospital's entrance as he waited for the single payphone to be open.
"Could you hurry up please?" Yafya said, his voice riddled with annoyance.
"One moment man," the man responded.
Yafya used payphones instead of cell phones for two reasons. One is the risk of someone remembering the number, and the other being the dislike for how bulky phones are. The only downside to payphones was the waiting for people when there was the only one available, which there was now.
After around three minutes had passed Yafya spoke again. This time, more bothered.
"Could you take any longer?"
"I'm almost done!" The man said with the same amount of anger as the black horse.
Two minutes later and the man was finished with his call.
"Here you go, sorry about the wait," the man said, stepping away from the payphone. "Prick," he added, under his breath.
Stepping up to the payphone, Yafya reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of paper.
He stared down at the medical sheet. His eyes floated across the words 'Legosi Ōkami-Doragon.' On the corner of the sheet was a small post-it with a phone number on it.
He reached his hand forward to press the buttons. But instead of pressing them, he paused.
Normally, a phone call like this would be an ordinary occurrence. But this one was different.
This one hit close to home.
Yafya hated dwelling on the past. His mantra was 'whatever happens, happens. Why should I care?' It served him very well in the past.
So why was he so hesitant to make the phone call? It wasn't even personal.
He couldn't stop thinking about him.
"Come on, Yafya," Yafya said to himself. "It's just a fucking phone call to a family. You've done this thousands of times."
Slowly he punches in the numbers one by one into the machine. Then puts the receiver up to his ear as the dial tone turns into a ringing sound.
Miles away, a man gets out of bed to pick up his bedside table phone. On the other end, the man could hear a voice say
"Good morning Gosha, I'm calling about Legosi."