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Friday, September 10, 2004

Like Sharpened Knives Through Chicken McNuggets

I’m walking down DP, like I haven’t done in months and may never do again. For some reason, I know it’s just before Halloween. But it’s late, too. Real late. Houses have lights on, but no one’s out. It’s too quiet.

So walking down the deserted party street, I hear a phone ringing. I check the phone in my pocket, but that phone’s off. I check the rest of my backpack, but I realize the ringing is coming from somewhere else. I look around. The ringing, I find, is coming out of a garbage can. Naturally, I reach into a bin of somebody else’s refuse and root around for this mystery phone.

I pull out what would appear to be a house made out of popsicle sticks. Inside the popsicle house, I can hear the phone ringing. I toss the house on the ground. I stomp on it. Sure enough, there’s the phone, which looks just like my phone and glows with the same neon blue light. Even though I’m sure the phone would smell like garbage, I answer it.

“Hello?”

No answer.

“Hello? I found you in the garbage. Who is this?” (I actually said this.)

Silence — then, “Sometimes… it’s too late.”

Then I can feel the phone change from hard plastic to something squidgier — wet and slippery and moving around in my hand like a giant banana slug. I try to let go, but the thing’s stuck to my face. I could feel it inching into my ear canal before I wake up.

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