10100: Ringing
By: anonymous"Why does the ringing not stop? Somebody stop that ringing!" My mind was screaming those thoughts, yelling with every ounce of its membrane. "Please make it stop... Wait, why is everything so black? Is this normal?"
I suddenly stopped thinking. The ringing had stopped. Feeling nothing, thinking nothing, existing was all I could do. Blackness was everywhere. The blackness did not surround me, I was not a part of it, but I was not separate from it either. Perhaps I was the blackness. No thoughts entered my mind. It was not that I couldn't think, not that I was impaired somehow, rather that I simply did not think. It was not in my power to think. Thinking is just something I do not do, how could I?
The insistent ringing started again.
"No! No more ringing!" Thoughts streamed through my brain again. I felt cold, and lonely. Cold like u do when the wind blows right through your sweater and makes your skin tingle. I was not lonely for lack of company; the loneliness was something more. I was lonely for a part of me. "Which part?" I asked myself. "Is there something missing?" Suddenly fear ran through me like a cold drop of water when it falls under your collar.
"Something *is* wrong! I can feel it..." quickly my fear turned to anger. "STOP RINGING! STOP THAT RINGING!" I couldn't take that ringing anymore. I tried to turn my head and open my eyes.
"Ugh!" I couldn't open my eyes, but I saw! What I saw was incredible. I was in space, in deep space. Huge galaxies in front and behind me, rotating slowly, spinning round in total silence. To my side, two galaxies inverted in each other, amazing. Total silence. My thoughts stopped. The galaxies spin silently in the depths of the universe. Colors streaked inside each galaxy in view, reds being left behind in the wake of stars, blue diamonds seemed to sparkle in the middle of each red. All the red began to slowly fade into an emerald purple with dark green spots every so often.
Every light I could see began to pulse. The pulsing, slow at first, a deep rhythmic pulsing, almost as if the universe itself was breathing. Quicker the pulsing became, now like a heart beat, now like the flashing lights on a police cruiser. Faster still the pulsing was. Like the frames of a movie. Like the propeller of a plane.
Darkness. Nothing. My mind sprang back to life yet again. "I'm dead. I am dead. This is what death is." But I was not sure of my thoughts, I had never been dead before you see. "Are my eyes closed?" I attempted to send the command from my brain, through my forehead, to my eyes. Open. Nothing. I couldn't be sure I even had eyes. Nothing had changed, nothing had moved. From somewhere deep back in my mind a ringing became clearer, more persistent. "Maybe this is hell. Perhaps this is what a bad fone phreak gets as punishment, eternal ringing." The ringing increased in volume somewhat. I tried to recall how I came to this. "Why am I here? What happened.. I know! I was holding those 3 lines when ringing current was applied to them. That's it. That's why I am hearing this horrible ringing now. It must have gotten stuck in me... Wait, what am I saying? What does that have to do with this ringing I'm hearing.." I was having trouble thinking clearly, and the ringing wasn't helping any.
I felt sick to my stomach, but seeing, apparently, that I didn't have a stomach, I wasn't sure what I was sick to. But I did feel sick, the kind of sick you get in the car when you're not watching the road. I couldn't move, couldn't see, couldn't feel a body, couldn't stand that eternal ringing!
Light! Cool air rushed over my body and through my hair as this light blinded me. Heaven? The car passed me quickly with the sound of its motor changing pitches as it receded into the distance taking the light with it. I could see again. I was on the side of a small two-lane road, in what appeared to be the middle of the desert. An open bridging box was next to me, its 2 record tables lying on the ground, half covered with dirt. A lineman's handset, laid in the dirt, both of its clips attached to binding posts in the box.
"The ringing, it's coming from the handset." And sure enough it was. The handset shook every time it rang. It did not strike me as odd; it was the way it should be.
I stared at the handset. It rang. And rang. 10, 20, 30 times it rang. I stood in the dark, the slight breeze sending a chill though me, watching the handset. Everything went black. The ringing continued. The handset was still there, its alligator clips floating in the black. Total silence pierced at except intervals by the horrible ringing. The handset shook every time it rang. It did not strike me as odd, why should it? It was as it should be.
I reached out for the handset, not with my hand, not with my mind, I simply reached. The ringing stooped with the line going off hook.
I waited. I listened. Nobody spoke.
"Hello?" I asked.
No response. I questioned again into the handset.
"Hello? Who is there?"
A long pause, then, the most soft, and quiet, female voice I had ever heard came on the line.
"Mr. Quince? I have a collect call for you from a friend. Do you want to accept?"
"Yes I will accept." I replied without giving it a thought. It was getting hard to think again, and I didn't want to force myself to.
A few clicks on the line, a short pause, and then he spoke. He spoke softly, like the operator did, but with a tinge of slowness
"Hello Keith."
I paused before responding, thinking to myself. "Why can't I focus my thoughts? What is wrong?" I considered the darkness around me, the dead silence. I couldn't think. I began to not care.
"Who is this?" I asked with a bit of despair.
"This is your mind Keith."
My thoughts were so groggy; I could barely keep track of what was going on. The darkness seemed to grow more intense if that was possible. The handset started to loose its color and depth until it was nothing more then a black and white picture.
"What do youu want?" I managed to get out. The darkness was consuming me. I couldn't tell where I ended and it began. My thoughts were soon to stop forever. Before that however, I heard the voice's sweet and gentle reply.
"I just called to tell you. To tell you that I am leaving. Forever." his voice echoed softly down to a mummer.
I became blackness, ceasing to exist. All that was left, All that remained, was the black and white picture of the handset.
I suddenly stopped thinking. The ringing had stopped. Feeling nothing, thinking nothing, existing was all I could do. Blackness was everywhere. The blackness did not surround me, I was not a part of it, but I was not separate from it either. Perhaps I was the blackness. No thoughts entered my mind. It was not that I couldn't think, not that I was impaired somehow, rather that I simply did not think. It was not in my power to think. Thinking is just something I do not do, how could I?
The insistent ringing started again.
"No! No more ringing!" Thoughts streamed through my brain again. I felt cold, and lonely. Cold like u do when the wind blows right through your sweater and makes your skin tingle. I was not lonely for lack of company; the loneliness was something more. I was lonely for a part of me. "Which part?" I asked myself. "Is there something missing?" Suddenly fear ran through me like a cold drop of water when it falls under your collar.
"Something *is* wrong! I can feel it..." quickly my fear turned to anger. "STOP RINGING! STOP THAT RINGING!" I couldn't take that ringing anymore. I tried to turn my head and open my eyes.
"Ugh!" I couldn't open my eyes, but I saw! What I saw was incredible. I was in space, in deep space. Huge galaxies in front and behind me, rotating slowly, spinning round in total silence. To my side, two galaxies inverted in each other, amazing. Total silence. My thoughts stopped. The galaxies spin silently in the depths of the universe. Colors streaked inside each galaxy in view, reds being left behind in the wake of stars, blue diamonds seemed to sparkle in the middle of each red. All the red began to slowly fade into an emerald purple with dark green spots every so often.
Every light I could see began to pulse. The pulsing, slow at first, a deep rhythmic pulsing, almost as if the universe itself was breathing. Quicker the pulsing became, now like a heart beat, now like the flashing lights on a police cruiser. Faster still the pulsing was. Like the frames of a movie. Like the propeller of a plane.
Darkness. Nothing. My mind sprang back to life yet again. "I'm dead. I am dead. This is what death is." But I was not sure of my thoughts, I had never been dead before you see. "Are my eyes closed?" I attempted to send the command from my brain, through my forehead, to my eyes. Open. Nothing. I couldn't be sure I even had eyes. Nothing had changed, nothing had moved. From somewhere deep back in my mind a ringing became clearer, more persistent. "Maybe this is hell. Perhaps this is what a bad fone phreak gets as punishment, eternal ringing." The ringing increased in volume somewhat. I tried to recall how I came to this. "Why am I here? What happened.. I know! I was holding those 3 lines when ringing current was applied to them. That's it. That's why I am hearing this horrible ringing now. It must have gotten stuck in me... Wait, what am I saying? What does that have to do with this ringing I'm hearing.." I was having trouble thinking clearly, and the ringing wasn't helping any.
I felt sick to my stomach, but seeing, apparently, that I didn't have a stomach, I wasn't sure what I was sick to. But I did feel sick, the kind of sick you get in the car when you're not watching the road. I couldn't move, couldn't see, couldn't feel a body, couldn't stand that eternal ringing!
Light! Cool air rushed over my body and through my hair as this light blinded me. Heaven? The car passed me quickly with the sound of its motor changing pitches as it receded into the distance taking the light with it. I could see again. I was on the side of a small two-lane road, in what appeared to be the middle of the desert. An open bridging box was next to me, its 2 record tables lying on the ground, half covered with dirt. A lineman's handset, laid in the dirt, both of its clips attached to binding posts in the box.
"The ringing, it's coming from the handset." And sure enough it was. The handset shook every time it rang. It did not strike me as odd; it was the way it should be.
I stared at the handset. It rang. And rang. 10, 20, 30 times it rang. I stood in the dark, the slight breeze sending a chill though me, watching the handset. Everything went black. The ringing continued. The handset was still there, its alligator clips floating in the black. Total silence pierced at except intervals by the horrible ringing. The handset shook every time it rang. It did not strike me as odd, why should it? It was as it should be.
I reached out for the handset, not with my hand, not with my mind, I simply reached. The ringing stooped with the line going off hook.
I waited. I listened. Nobody spoke.
"Hello?" I asked.
No response. I questioned again into the handset.
"Hello? Who is there?"
A long pause, then, the most soft, and quiet, female voice I had ever heard came on the line.
"Mr. Quince? I have a collect call for you from a friend. Do you want to accept?"
"Yes I will accept." I replied without giving it a thought. It was getting hard to think again, and I didn't want to force myself to.
A few clicks on the line, a short pause, and then he spoke. He spoke softly, like the operator did, but with a tinge of slowness
"Hello Keith."
I paused before responding, thinking to myself. "Why can't I focus my thoughts? What is wrong?" I considered the darkness around me, the dead silence. I couldn't think. I began to not care.
"Who is this?" I asked with a bit of despair.
"This is your mind Keith."
My thoughts were so groggy; I could barely keep track of what was going on. The darkness seemed to grow more intense if that was possible. The handset started to loose its color and depth until it was nothing more then a black and white picture.
"What do youu want?" I managed to get out. The darkness was consuming me. I couldn't tell where I ended and it began. My thoughts were soon to stop forever. Before that however, I heard the voice's sweet and gentle reply.
"I just called to tell you. To tell you that I am leaving. Forever." his voice echoed softly down to a mummer.
I became blackness, ceasing to exist. All that was left, All that remained, was the black and white picture of the handset.
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