“You’ve reached the office of-”
“Yeah, David, hey listen. It’s Ronnie, I -”
“Mr. Douglass. Six O’clock on Monday. Six O’clock on Wednesday. Must I remind you that we are attempting to overcome phonecalls, and this is indeed a -”
“Yeah, I know, I know. Overcoming phonecalls. But this one’s a real doozy, doc, I promise it’s not like that time when my grandma’s cat did the thing, I got a real thing happening here and I -”
“Ronald. Remember. What must we do in these types of circumstances?”
“Breathe.”
“That’s right, breathe.”
“Ok.”
“Are you breathing?”
“Yeah. One, two, three”
“One. Two. Three.”
“Ok?”
“Ok.”
“Now, Ronald, what is your situation?”
“Ok well so I’m driving my truck around and it’s playing goddam wheels on the bus go round and round and round again and you know how much I hate that motherf-”
“Mr. Douglass. Breathe.”
“Oh. Ok.”
“Are you breathing?”
“One, two, three.”
“Good.”
“Ok. So I’m driving the truck. Through this tiny little town, right. And there’s this kid. I see him in my rearview mirror. Get this, he starts running after me, and you know how much that would freak me out, cause what’s he gonna do, you know, so I speed up a little faster but he’s still chasing me -”
“Ronald, let’s remember what we do in these situations.”
“Breathe?”
“Yes, breathe, and remember that we control our own actions.”
“Right, so I was remembering we control our own actions and I’m thinking, well I can’t control this kid’s actions so the only thing I can do is keep on driving and this kid keeps on running after me and he runs out into the middle of the street.”
“He ran out into the middle of the street. Ronald, are you still in your truck? You must pull over to the side of the street.”
“Yeah yeah I pulled over to the side of the street. But the point is - it doesn’t matter. Because right behind me those two cars smashed all up into each other just trying to avoid the kid in the middle of the street who was after my truck and now there’s cars all stopped up right behind them and I don’t even know what I’m supposed to -”
“Ronald, breathe.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Ronald?”
“I’ll take the green limesicle?”
The voice of a little boy on the other end, but Ronald never responded.
Lily Anne, I admire the humour in this piece. The characters are well represented by the dialogue and the reader follows along well. Keep writing this story out if these characters compel you. Whose story is it? It seems to be
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