Talk to me. Yes, I have the list, of course
I have the list, it's right here. What? I didn't lose it. (But I
definitely have lost myself while making it.) Oh, nothing, just talking
to myself. Okay, here it is. Yes. No, I have it right here, typed out
and all.
A rubber bullet, a phantom mask, a calling card, a wristwatch, and a
pelt of grey fur.
Yes, that's it, that's the list. Go back over it, one by one? Okay, I
guess I can. Stop asking if I wrote it down. It's right here in front of
me.
A rubber bullet. No one will believe it? Of course they will. Doubled up
on bullets? And every hit to the head? Listen. Sometimes you get lucky.
And it'd be easy to convince everyone that he's just a great shot. No,
no. No one's going to care about the lesion that a rubber bullet leaves.
They'll see the hole in the skull and mark it off right away.
A phantom mask. Yes, white and carved, perhaps showing the lower half of
the face, but not the top half, and obscuring the eye, but surprisingly
not the iris. How can it obscure the eye but not the iris? Just a little
reflective light trick, nothing more, really. It provides an interesting
effect, if you ask me. Yes, the effect is that the wearer looks
horrifying, especially when paired with a large, foreboding cloak. Yes,
of course the wearer will wear opposite of what he has worn. White like
sheep's wool, yes, the clothing will be. Moving on.
A calling card. Of course it wouldn't be signed. Wouldn't that ruin the
point of it? It's meant to be an anonymous call to action. With cut-out
letters glued to the cardstock. Huh? It's like a ransom note? Oh, I
guess it is, isn't it? Like you see in the movies. We have your
wife. We want one million dollars. Like that, right? It, it
happens in real life, too, you say... Well, it all does, but you don't
see me complain about it, do you?
A wristwatch. Yes, just a normal wristwatch, right? With the seven-bar
slash matrix display, like you see on old alarm clocks. Blaring red into
the night on your bedside table, a sort of warning at a hotel of your
impending insomnia. Sorry, I'm sorry. I know what you said about going
off on tangents like that. I won't do it again, I swear. Yes. Yes. I
promise. The wristwatch. You know, it'd be pretty worthless for it to
display only one number. It should be like that? Are you sure? Okay.
Okay, I won't question it.
A pelt of grey fur. Yep, I think this one speaks for itself. Huh? Oh,
that seems really involved, having to do the work myself. Wouldn't it be
okay to just buy it off a fur salesman? No? I have to kill and skin the
thing myself. What do I do with the meat? Leave it there? But if it's a
wolf like you want, I don't know what'll come to consume it, if
anything. The crows. Just the crows, I suppose. Nobody wants to touch a
dead wolf out of fear of retribution. I guess that should include me,
now, but if I'm the one doing the killing in the first place, I suppose
that puts me in more trouble already.
Yes. I can send over the list. I can fax it. Or mail it. Do both? Why?
You appear to want this list really badly, you could have just written
it down yourself. I can't have it? So, I'm not allowed to keep it, am I?
Okay, I understand. (I guess). No, no, no. It's not like that at all, I
just--okay. Okay. I can do that. Yes. Okay. Yes. I'll make it good for
you this time. Okay. Thank you. Is that all for today? Yes? Alright.
Well, it should be over in just about a day or so. Personal
delivery? Who, by me, or someone else? You want to see me? No,
you don't want to see me. I understand now. Yes. Okay. Okay. Goodbye,
then.
I hang up the phone. I try not to let the conversation I just had bother
me, but the truth is that it often does. Whenever I talk to him, he
always seems to drag me through the mud and second guess myself. A lot
of people would say that I should probably stop talking to him, then.
I've tried, trust me, I've tried. But his voice is so familiar, his
cadence of speech is so natural to me, that I just can't.
Before I go to send off this list, I'm adding one last thing to the
bottom. If I can't protest by voice, maybe I can do it by my silent
written word. Okay? It will say haunted. I think that ought to make the
message clear to him, and frankly, to both of us. Haunted is the word,
haunted is how I feel when I collect all of these things, because these
are things which haunt people. Things that I take now to haunt me.
Things that people wish to forget the meaning of.
I wish I'd just never been in the office that day, really. Wish I'd just
let the phone ring. (He never leaves a voicemail.) It would have made my
life a lot easier, you know. But I guess this is how it'll be from now
on. This is more than a grocery list, this is a list of things he's
hungry for, and a list of things that we can get those people to just
forget about, so long as it ends up in his mouth. Like I said,
it's hard to stop talking to him now, even if he makes me spill the ink
all over my papers.
... After all, if you pick up the phone, and the voice says it's God on
the other line, you should probably listen.