One week

Write a story set during your most recent vacation.

by Bryan

The cordless phone crackles a bit and pushes sound through cheesecloth, but it's the intent that matters. Never mind the Fs that sound like S and forget the pop of the Ps. If you can catch the drift of the disembodied voice on the other end, no one comes out the wiser. This is Communication 101 at Mahoney U.

For the better part of the year I was stuck to that black hunk of wires and metal and hard-to-kill plastic (proven through countless dropped calls - the ones that fall 10 feet per second after gliding away from the wedge you create with shoulder and ear). Always I was searching, looking, pining for employment opportunities from the comfort of the wood chair in my then-girlfriend's living room. The process intensified those last six months after moving far enough away from home to obliterate any thoughts of the weekend visits with Mom and Dad, venturing to make my fortunes monetarily and metaphysically in a city ripe for my taking.

It was then, at the end, that the phone granted one call of clarity and I could peacefully lay it back in its cradle. It somehow knew that this call was important - It rang a little louder and a little longer this time, as if to say this was the call I was waiting for. "Put the resume away," it seemed to say, "and settle in."

A brief conversation. Crystal clear. No hisses or pops. And I sat it down once the call ended, and I looked around the living room. Six months I'd been on again, off again. Six months not knowing where my next paycheck was going to be, or from whom. But now I knew. I had a week before I started the job.I had a week of vacation.