Writing The Phone Call

[Mitch]

[size=1][color=gray] Not much here. Just..needed to write.

The phone rang like some loud school bell, and I fell onto my knees. I was shocked. I didn't think he'd ever call me. Especially not this late.

But here it was. The phone was ringing. Had woken me from my sleep, made me fall on my knees.

Slowly, I picked up the receiver from Mickey's ear. My Mickey phone. I'd had it since forever.

"Hello," I said. My voice was cold. Dead. I was having trouble just breathing, I was so tense. I swallowed the spit into the back of my throat dryly, felt along my mouth with the rough of my tongue.

"Hello?" I said again. Louder this time. A lot louder.

I was just removing the receiver from my ear, just putting it down?

"Hello Fran." It was his voice. That voice I hadn't heard since I was just a little girl. A little girl that was only four years old Only naive. Only young. Only just beginning to grow up.

I froze in the darkness of my room. Froze stone cold. Finding it even harder to breathe, I slowly brought the receiver back up to my ear.

"What do you want?" I said.

There was a dead and killing silence. I wanted to just hang up the phone, to just end the entire conversation. Just go back to bed and not remember this even ever happening. Be under my warm sheets and just hug myself to sleep. But I was already here.

He laughed, penetrated the silence like some devil chanting from hell.

"What're you doing with your life now, anyways, Fran? Wasting it away?"

"That's none of your business. Now, if that's all you want?"

"?That's not all I want," he said. "I take it you're still wasting your time as a small-time, petty writer. What was it you'd always wanted to do? Write your own novel? Publish your own book of poetry? Hah, things've hit you since then, haven't they?"

I was surprised that he knew this. I hadn't talked to him ever, not since I was with him at the fair so long ago when I was only four. He must've talked to my Mom, or something. I hadn't a clue, so I pushed that aside for the moment. Put it in the back of my brain.

"That doesn't matter. Now please get to the ****ing point, Frank. What the hell do you want?"

I was shaking now Almost being crushed by the ten-ton weight of everything that I'd kept inside of me so long. My head was starting to ache like it always did when things came back to me.

"The ****ing point? You're not my daughter?never were. Your blood isn't in my veins, and my blood isn't in yours."

I didn't. I couldn't believe what he was saying. But it was hitting me. Very slowly.

"Wh..What did you say?"

"You know exactly what I said," he said. His voice's tone was now getting sharper.

I just stood there, staring at my white floor, staring at nothing. My head aching.

"And where'd you figure this out? How the hell am I supposed to believe you, Frank? All you've ever said to me has been ****ing lies. All you've ever given me is nothing but ****ing hell. You've ruined half of my life for me. Half of my ****ing life. And more."

The anger was seething now, and my head was thumping mad, too. I reached into my pocket quickly and pulled out my extra strength tylenol I kept at all times. I held the phone with my shoulder, and popped two tablets into my mouth. Chewed them to their tangy, jolting feeling. Then swallowed them.

"Haven't you ever thought why your Mom divorced me?" he said.

Of course I had.

"What the **** do you think I am, Frank? Dumb? Of course I know. Because of who you are."

"No, not just that," he said, "think deeper for a goddamned minute. It might be in part for who I am, I'm not going to hide that fact, as ****ing stretched as it is. But think about this. Think about it. ****ing think."

I clutched the phone tighter as I popped in another tylenol in my mouth and chewed it into nothing.

"Where in the hell are you getting at?" I said. "Where?"

"Isn't it obvious? Your Mom got married just three months after she divorced me, didn't she?"

She had.

"Yeah, of course. Three months almost exactly. What does that have to do with anything, though? Are you saying she was having an af?"

"?Exactly! That's my ****ing smart girl I always knew. Jesus Christ, did it take that hard to realize?"

"Maybe. But right now Frank, over here it's three a.m. in the ****ing morning. I'm tired. It's been a long ****ing day," I said. "So what's your point with all of this ********? Who cares if I'm not your kid by blood. You don't have any ****ing records of this or anything. And it's pretty pointless to bring this **** up. It's long gone and ****ing over with."

I was near hanging up.

"But that, dear Fran, is where you're all wrong," he said. I heard the rustle of some papers in the background. "I have them right here."

"And even so, what's the ****ing point? You've almost all paid up the child support you've owed me from not paying when you didn't. What's the ****ing point?"

"The ****ing point," he said, "is that I want you to drop your abuse charges."

I was shaking a lot now. My head was aching and aching and aching. I couldn't feel anything anymore but what he'd made me always feel. The feel of what he'd done to me. The feel of his touch. Of everything and anything that he'd done to me. Of the pain, the abuse. The slaps. The bruises. The blood.

It flashed in my mind. Told me who I was, how it'd changed me. How I'd dug it all away so long ago, dug it way under, and found the me I was now. The person I was now.

It hurt. Hurt more than anything that he'd ever said.

It's funny how such a simple sentence can change your life forever. Or a simple moment can change you forever, too. Not just on a physical level, not just on a psychological level. But a spiritual level. An emotional and spiritual level.

He must've had something under his sleeve for if I didn't drop the charges. The charges had been pending for quite a long time. It amazed me how faulty the justice system really was. How unfair. Very unfair.

"There's not a goddamned, ****ing way in hell that I'm ever going to remove those charges," I said. I was almost in tears now. "You deserve to rot and die for what you've done to me. I guess you can't even ****ing see that at all. It's just too bad. Too ****ing bad."

"Fine," he said, "****ing fine, Fran. You just wait. You just ****ing wait. This isn't the last ****ing words you'll ever hear from me."

And that was all. He hung up.

I listened to the dead beep of the phone for a long time. Just sitting there. Just thinking.

I stood there, my head aching. My heart beating. My mind racing.

At five a.m. I finally hung back up my phone. Put it back on Mickey's ear. I was soon back to sleep. But my sleep was unquiet. [/size][/color]

[Epitome]

I LOVE IT. Very suspensfull. Alot of emotion in the writing. NIce work.

[Break]

[size=1][color=crimson]Wowee ^_^ that a good story indeed. There are feelings in there that you described really well, good on yoo. And there are lots of swears lol.[/size][/color]

[GinnyLyn]

As I pointed out, Mitch, my thoughts on this are best captured in the AIM convo we just had:

[quote]
[b][color=blue]Cruxed Chimera:[/color][/b] The Phone Call

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] *shivers*

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] How do you do it, Meh? How do you make the people feel the emotion?

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] my Deity...it reminds me of ...yeah.

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] [i]Damn,[/i] that captures emotion.

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] *hugs Meh* Simply incredible.

[b][color=blue]Cruxed Chimera:[/color][/b] Thank you.

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] Closure. *nods* Closure. People need it, whether they read or write it.

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] the innocence with the Mickey Mouse phone

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] not quite denial, but a grip on innocence to forget what happened,

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] mmmm.

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] the out and out not caring, making Fran to be a faceless identity

[b][color=blue]Cruxed Chimera:[/color][/b] And I wasn't even thinking that at all when I wrote it. None of that. It just happened.

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] wow...

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] *blinks* I always thought that writers did that sort of stuff on purpose. At least, that's what our English teachers led us to believe, indirectly.

[b][color=blue]Cruxed Chimera:[/color][/b] Sometimes. But I was too emotional that night to even know. I just needed to write something, that's all I knew.

[b][color=red]draKehho:[/color][/b] the cruelty of the world.
[/quote]

Meh is the voice of closure when one cannot find closure herself. This story resounds with me more than it might sit with other readers.

[saintseven]

Whoa. Very dark, and very upbeat. I found myself asking if everything would turn out fine. I love this...

[Justin]

You are quite the writer, yourself, Mitch. I think it would be interesting for you to do a full storyline, if that's in your taste.

-Justin

[Corey]

*swears to start buying books of Mitch's if they ever hit the shelves*

Jeze man, you got talent.

[Lady Asphyxia]

[size=1]I know I said I'd post in your Poem Thread, but you know how much I prefer Prose to Poetry.

I like it -- the Mickey Mouse phone, the reactions, and everything else. I know it isn't much, but I'd rather just look at it from a distance, instead of delving, at least today.

[[color=white]Ginny, we love you.[/color]][/size]

[Mei]

[color=green]I don't think I blinked once while reading that...maybe that's while my eyes hurt...Oo

Love it, it's so suspenseful like everyone has said, and so...you just can't stop reading! You've got a wonderful career in writing ahead of you...oh I love it.

I'm with Knight on your books, if they hit the shelves, I'm buying. So much emotion...so well described...you can feel it..again...LOVE IT! *goes off to read more*[/color]

[Sara]

[size=1]I thought I posted here.. I guess I didn't.

I like this, probably more than any of the other pieces I've seen from you.[/size]

[Lady Macaiodh]

[color=darkblue][size=1]I'm wondering what you were so emotional about. What the inspiration was.[/color][/size]

[KittyLynn]

[SIZE=1][COLOR=dodgerblue]This was so emotional. And the "innocent Mickey Mouse phone",like Ginny said, I thought gave it a nice touch. Where did you get the inspiration? This sounds so very..[I]real.[/I][/COLOR][/SIZE]