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Night Shift

 The phone clangs. Whitman glances at it with the same mixture of astonishment and fear that he images Moses experienced when a singular blazing bush began to speak. It’s 11:30 at night. Whitman shifts uncomfortably in his chair, trying to remember when they last had a call this late and the slowness of his thoughts is reminiscent of ancient monolithic efforts; dragging huge, slow stones across barren expanses. 


The phone rings again. Wipes away the desert sands and confusion from his empty mind. Whitman answers. 


Whitman, what can I do for you?


At first, Whitman can’t hear anything. Not because there is silence, but because the voice is quiet. Almost reverential.  


Twenty five. Fifty eight. Ninety nine. Six. Eight. Fifty four. Fifty six. Fifty eight. Two.


Whitman doesn’t waste time hanging up. In a few moments he’s already forgetting the odd voice and it’s numbers. The only thought lingering is that if it was his damn kiddo making crank calls this late, there’d be hell to pay, that’s for sure, just like when his old man had— 


The phone rings. Whitman stares. It rings once, twice, three times, it’s tinny voice eerily sounding like a mechanical wail. Whitman glances around the police station, spends extra time studying the dark corners that amass a little beyond his singular amber-colored lamp. Whitman answers. 


Seven. Ten. Twelve. Ten. Ten. Ten. Sixty five. Eighty. Seventeen. Nineteen.


The voice is enough to make Whitman shiver. It doesn’t sound like a man or a woman, but between, and it’s pace over the numbers is seemingly too fast for the calculated way it says them. It’s reading is like an unnatural lulling. Whitman feels himself drift, oddly, before shaking his head and gripping the phone before getting ready to slam it back into place, gripping tight— 


Wake up down there!


The call drops in a wash of static. It sounds like what Whitman thinks a seashell would if he’d put one to his ear, calming and tranquil in its reminiscence of the ocean.

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