- Inspired by Fandango’s Story Starter#118– When she looked at her cellphone, she was shocked to see she had 33 voicemail messages
Photographer Unknown
Carline Broom was all alone in her dark Mother’s living room watching the rain beat against the side window when she heard her phone go off.
It was on the flower table near the front door buzzing like an angry bee and she had left it on vibrate so it was dancing too. It didn’t ring though. She had turned the ringer off because she had driven over here and everyone knows you shouldn’t use your phone when driving.
She didn’t feel like answering it right now anyway. The rain had gone from a mist to a down pour and the streets were filling up with water. At this exact moment in time all Carline wanted to do was watch the rain come down and she wanted to watch the sky fill up relentlessly with dark black clouds.
She wondered if there would be thunder and lightning too.
Her phone sat there behind her, quiet as a mouse and just as she was about to give it faint praise for remaining still it started to buzz and danced again.
Carline drifted over to the table and looked down on her phone- she had 33 messages- more then half of them had come in this morning.
” Well.” Carline said to her phone. ” Well. ‘
” Where is that thing? ” she heard her Mom say, from the kitchen. ” Whose damn
phone is that? ”
Carline told her Mom, ” it’s mine. ”
Fiona brushed by Carline to the flower table, she picked up Carline’s phone and then she dropped it- the phone missed the table and hit the floor and Carline guessed the screen was probably cracked now.
Her Mom walked to the window where Carline was watching the storm rage and Fiona said to her own reflection, ” I’m sorry you aren’t here to see this storm Carline, you’d have loved it. ”
Carline turned and looked at her Mother, then she turned back to the window and watched the rainfall.
” There are 33 messages on your phone Carline- I’m sorry you won’t be here to pick them up. The jackass that hit you when he answered his phone, I’ll bet he’s picking up his messages today. I’ll bet he’s surfing the net and playing wordle too. Bastard. May he rot in Hell. ”
Her phone buzzed from the floor.
Carline did wonder who would be calling her, and where they were calling her from and she hoped they weren’t driving through this storm wondering why she wasn’t answering her phone.
Photographer Unknown
Let that be a lesson to drivers who can’t or won’t put down their phones while driving. Very well done, Anita.
Of all places, the Funeral Home I worked for had super strict rules about phones and pagers(remember them?) You had to turn both off and put them in the glove compartment when operating a company owned vehicle.