She tried to respond, desperate and teary, but the only sound to surface through the viscous morass of her confused, gum-throated, choking emotive system was the single word, cracking and barely audible, shaking with all the power it had behind it, pushing it toward the surface, the only word her entire self could agree upon at that moment when something, absolutely something had to be said: "No."

And as her tears welled and surged and began anew, as the already full bucket was filled again twice over with terror and sadness and futility, he hung up the phone.

She wept for a long time. She wept through the silence, and then the dial tone. She continued to weep when the silence returned, and barely noticed the recorded announcement telling her to hang up. When the gratingly repetitive bop-bop-bop-bop shrieked out of the receiver she gripped loosely in her saline wet hand, it was lost in the swirl and flurry she was already hearing internally. She wept and wept, and at last, the phone went silent again.

Even when her tears had stopped, she sat there for some time holding onto the quiet telephone, afraid to hang it up, afraid of what that would mean. When she regained herself enough to replace the receiver in its cradle, she made a vain attempt to compose. She carefully patted down her hair, tried to wipe her face dry with soggy fingers, and cleared her throat loudy, punctuation of the finality of her resolve: she would cry no more.

Calmly now, she rose and went into her bedroom. Sitting on the edge of her great bed where so much had happened, she rested her face in her palms for a moment, exhausted. Then, again, she straightened, sure of herself for the moment, resolved.

Slowly she pulled open the drawer of her bedside table. And there, under the clutter of bedside things, she found the gun he had insisted she accept. "You never know when somebody's gonna fuck with you," he had told her, "you need to be able to take care of yourself in case sombody fucks with you." Holding the grip loosely, feeling the weight of the gun, feeling the even greater weight of her loss, she began again to cry. Desperate tears flowed down her shaking, contorted face. And she lifted the gun to her head. And she fired it.

And then, for a while, there was silence.

It remained unbroken as the blood slowly soaked into her down conforter. It continued in its stillness as the light drained out of the sky and the darkness of an overcast night seeped in. The silence was the master of the house until, like a fire engine, the phone rang, one and a half times.

Then the machine picked up. It was Jane, in a cheery voice, reading directly from the owner's manual: "Hi, this is Jane. I'm not here to take your call right now..."

The beep was followed by his voice. He was calling to apologize, to say he had been harsh. He was hoping that maybe he could come over and they could talk. And he asked her to please call him when she returned. Then he hung up.

And again the house fell silent.

"Hello?"

"Hello Mrs. Schneider, my name's inspector Dunbar and I work for the communications crimes division of the county police department. I'm calling you because we've had a number of complaints about obscene telephone calls from the owners of several telephone numbers very close to your own, almost in order, in fact, and I am calling to determine if you also have received such a telephone call in the past few days?"

"Uh -- no, inspector, I haven't."

"Have you received any anonymous telephone calls, possibly describing crimes involving sexual or homosexual assault to you or a member of your family?"

"No."

"Have you been propositioned by an anonymous caller to help or accompany him commit a felony which could include kidnapping, torture, or sexual assault?"

"Certainly not, inspector."

"Have you received any anonymous calls threatening to inflict bodily harm upon you or any members of your family, or inviting you to participate in felonious activities of that nature?"

"No, inspector, not at all."

"I'm sorry to have to ask you this question, ma'am, but we need to be absolutely clear on this, have you received any calls from an unnamed caller describing in detail his fantasies about following you home from work, kidnapping you, putting you in the trunk of his car, and taking you to a cabin in the country where he would proceed to torture , dismember and kill you, rape you, and then eat your remains?"

"Absolutely not, inspector. That's horrible."

"It is, ma'am. It sure is. Well, thank you for your time, and if you do receive such a telephone call anytime in the future, we ask that you please notify us as soon as possible, so we can try and put this guy behind bars. He has not carried out any of his threats so far, but he remains a serious menace and at large. All-right, Mrs. Schneider?"

"Why, yes, inspector, thank you very much."

"Good day, ma'am."

"Good bye."

...

"Hello?"

"Hello Mrs. Schneider, my name's inspector Laughton and I work for the communications crimes division of the county police department. I'm calling you because we've had a number of complaints about obscene telephone calls from the owners several other telephone numbers very close to your own, almost in order, in fact, and I am calling to determine if you also have received such a telephone call in the past few days?"

The phone was ringing. Leonard raced toward the house through the chilly Autumn evening air. He had lost the grace of his initial sprint, and now the reality of his poor physical condition was winning out. His heart pounded, he was laboring to breathe. The cold air stung the insides of his lungs and thick, white, cohesive saliva occasionally gummed up his throat as he staggered forward, rasping, panting. Arriving at last at the house, Leonard collapsed sideways against the wooden door frame, leaning his right shoulder against it while he dug, his chest heaving and his head reeling from the oxygen, into his left Levi's 501 pocket in search of his keys. He transferred the keys to his right hand and shaking, slid the key into the lock. The door swung open instantly, and Leonard fell through the doorway into a heap onto the floor. The phone was still ringing. Looking upward over his left arm, he could see in perfect focus the telephone on the table across the room. Laboriously, painfully, he dragged himself toward it. His eyes, burning with will, didn't stray from the phone. Leonard crept forward with the intermittent ringing providing rhythm and guidance. Crawling, slowly scrambling toward it. Heart thudding, lungs aching, legs throbbing, phone ringing. Closer. Closer. At last Leonard reached the table. The ringing of the phone was now so loud that he could feel its sound waves in the air. He rested his head against the table leg...and with a sudden spasm of vigor and passion, Leonard rose to his feet, grabbed the edge of the table with one hand to steady himself and with the other picked up the receiver and put it to his head.

"Hello?"

-click-

Prank call.

Leonard returned the receiver to its cradle, swayed backward and collapsed on the floor.

Chris was just about to pour himself a nice, cool glass of Guiness when the phone rang. Loudly. In fact, it literally rang off the hook, sending the receiver over the edge of the table and onto the head of the cat who was lurking below. Chris crossed the room and, dislodging the handset from the skull of the now deceased animal, greeted the caller cheerfully.
"Hi there," he declared with an air of mechanical gladness, "I'm not home right now, but if you'll please leave your name and number at the tone, I'll get back to you as soon as I get home. Thanks!" He then pressed simultaneously the buttons 1 and 3 on his phone, and waited for a response. Chris was not at all fond of people and even regretted consenting to the installment of a telephone in his apartment, and so he tried to avoid conversation repeatedly with this ploy. It rarely worked.
"Chris, hi this is Karen, and I'm calling at, well, it's about 6:30, and, well, sorry to leave such a long and stilted message, but, well, I KNOW YOU DON'T HAVE AN ANSWERING MACHINE AND I CAN HEAR YOU BREATHING ANYWAY SO FESS UP!"
He was caught.
"Oh, Karen! Is that you?, I was just trying to filter out the telephone sales people, drive me crazy, selling newspapers and cars and whatnot, you know, well hey how've you been, I was out of the country for a while, I'm back now of course, but how are the kids, are they in school yet, wait it's December of course they are they're like twelve or so right?, hey so how are you?, how's life treating you?"
"You know the answers to all those questions, you worm. They're your children too and you know things can't be going too well with you not paying me ANYTHING to help cover their expenses. I'm this close, and my fingers are almost touching, to suing you for everything you stole from me when we were married, because I know you haven't earned anything since then. You shiftless lech."
"Hey, now." Chris excelled at sounding confident and calm. "Why all the hostility? We used to be so in love, and to think that now all that is reduced to this. Stole from you? Legal threats? Boy am I glad my mother's not around anymore to tell me that she told me so -- you're confirming every misgiving she had about you, you know." Gosh, Karen, how utterly disappointing. I just hope the kids are okay, I mean, we're definitely over, you and I, so I won't say anything about your lifestyle, but the kids, golly they're just so important. How are they doing lately? Do they have everything they need? Is there some way I can help? You know, I'd love to do something for them, maybe I could take them out to a movie or a ballgame or something, gee it's really good to hear from you, Karen, so how's your life been going?"
A pause. "You make me sick, you know that?"
"Well, I think that the least you can do is be civil, I mean, at least for the sake of the"
-click-
children." Chris paused, attentively. Then he heard a dial tone. Suppressing a smirk of triumph, he hung up the phone and returned to his nice, cool glass of Guiness.