The Last Voicemail
It was a pleasant, calm day; the gentle breath of a world that turned unnoticed, the sky the colour of a bruised plum; heavy and wet.
In a terraced house, the air had become stale; a taste of old taste lingering, mixing with a cloying sweetness of rot that a small, drafty window could now quite exhale.
Peter’s home…, it stood as a monument to the slow-motion collapse of a human spirit, it was a place were time had come to a stop, but had not yet curdled; in the kitchen, a single chipped mug sat unattended on the wooden table, within it contained a forest of green mould which had claimed the dregs of a final earl grey, beside it, a digestive biscuit lay; soft and bent like cardboard, with a crossword book open to a page where just three words had been filled; Loneliness, Heavy and Stillness
The British winter had been unkind, yet the coldness inside the house felt different from the frost on the glass; this was a subterranean cold, the kind that radiated from the bone of a person who’d spent months losing a war within their own mind; Depression is often depicted as a storm and chaos, but here, it was silent, just…., the rising of dust, the unwashed laundry piled like a messy, crumbling mountain, it was the unopened mail scattered across the ground; the Final Notice in red ink, a thick layer of muck that had accumulated on the television screen that hadn’t been flicked in a month.
Peter had become a ghost before he had actually passed; He had retreated from the world in increments; skipping the pub, then the quick run for the nearby shop, then the eventual walk to the front door to pick up the mail; the overwhelm had become a physical weight, a gravity that pinned him to the armchair until things…, simply stopped.
The house would hold its breath; a spider had woven a web between the gap of the tabletop to its lower-shelf; the radiator clicked with a hollow, metallic sound that emphasised the emptiness.
There was no one, or rather; there shouldn’t have been anyone to hear the rattle of the loose slate on the rooftop, no one to notice the condensation.
But, there was someone who’d ventured inside, disturbing nothing, making no sound, the hooded figure simply walked, his steps silent, a hood drawn up; settling beside the bed, no words were said, the figure simply stood there, in the silence.
Then, the figure lifted his gaze as the silence was punctured; starting first as an insistent demand of a phone that rang; its shrill sound echoing before ceasing back into silence; but it wouldn’t remain silent, it would repeat a second, then a third; finally stopping completely by the tenth time, then came a flash red light, a notice of a recorded message.
With a slow movement, the hooded figure drifted silently, with a gesture of the hand, leaving no mark, the message played;
“Hi Dad” The voice came through bright despite the trace of a thin, sharp edge of anxiety that was clearly an attempt to keep hidden “It’s me; Sarah, sorry I ‘aven’t been able to reach ye; things ‘ave been reet mad wi’ the kids an’ our move”
There was a momentary pause “I…, I ‘ad a dream of ye last night; we were at tha’ park in Scarborough, the one with them freezin’ cold chips, ye were laughin’ so ‘ard ye went purple” a soft, shaky laugh came through, it vibrated into the stagnant air “Anyway, I’m checkin’ in; I sent ye some photo’s of the baby’s first steps, did ye get ‘em; I know yer’ve been feelin a bit under the weather as of late”
There was another pause before she continued “Could ye…, could ye please pick up the phone…., or call me back…., even if it’s jus’ to complain about tha’ weather or tha’ price of milk…, something…., I miss yer voice dad, I really do; I love you, bye for now”
The hooded figure listened, when the message fell silent with a definitive clack; the hooded head turned slow, attention drifting; the red, blink of the light, the last pulse of life in a room that had none…, a blink…, a hand that was reaching across a void too late to catch a falling weight.
With a slow, silent movement, the hooded figure departed; leaving no sign of his presence, the home would not remain still much longer after that, the home would be visited by an officer for a welfare check.
The hooded figure would appear one more time, across the street, still as a statue, watching.
Written By: Westley H.
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