Busy Tone

Earnest’s home sat on 10 acres, and his closest neighbor was a half-mile beyond the junipers, piñons, and scrub brush surrounding him. He’d been there three years after deciding he was done with people—he’d spent his life surrounded by people, and all that was behind him. He had his trees, his acreage, a local golf course, and this house. He’d done his best to love the house, but it wasn't as simple as he’d hoped.

On the porch, Earnest lit a cigarette when he heard the unmistakable, now familiar sound of a phone’s busy signal on speaker. It thronged in the stillness of dusk from afar, just loud enough for him to be certain of it. He exhaled, shaking his head, and reached into the front pocket of his plaid shirt, withdrawing a notepad and a pencil as he inhaled again. Earnest blew smoke into the night, the slight wind carrying it in the direction from which he’d heard the tone. He looked at his watch, then flipped pages and recorded the time at the end of a long list of such entries. It was 7:42 pm.

8:52 pm, 5:39 pm, 4:20 pm, 10:11 pm, 11:30 am, 10:20 pm, 12:11 pm, 4:58 pm, 9:13 am, 6:19 pm, 10:57 pm, 11:02 am, 6:48 pm, 8:58 am...

His list had grown through the days, weeks, and months, now spanning three pages. Last year, he’d started the list on a whim. He'd had the golf pencil and pad in his pocket one day, and it struck Earnest as strange to hear the sound at all, let alone repeatedly. So, he wrote down the time.

The list didn’t help. There was no sense to be made from it. It didn’t reveal or prove anything. Only now, he couldn’t stop. He felt compelled to monitor the racket. The disturbance. The tone.

Earnest walked to the railing, laid his hands on the cool wood, and peered at the landscape. Dusk shifted into night, a gradient from blues to blacks, with only a pale hint of the retreating day at the horizon. He threw his spent cigarette into the coffee tin and moved down the porch steps.

Among the juniper trees, Earnest walked toward this most recent signal origin. He imagined its source. He pictured a townie; a transient; a ghost; an alien; even Death; and most of all, he suspected his own imagination.

Soon, and with nothing amis, he stood at the rock wall by the hill near the northern edge of his property. Sitting on the wall, he noted the time. Earnest lit a cigarette, then waited, watching the moon behind silver-edged clouds. By the end of his smoke, night had settled down. Earnest carefully walked his fenceline west under the moonlight.

Down in the dry wash, he heard it again, and he stopped to listen.

Bink, bink, bink, bink, bink…

Was it above him? Up the wash? Earnest stumbled, climbing out of the gulley. Beyond the trees, he saw his porch light and the outline of his house under silver moonlight. Was it coming from near the house, now?

He checked his watch. 8:22 pm. He recorded the time. Then, the distinct alert ceased. It was only night again. He scanned the trees, but it was only him out there and no one else.

Back at the house, Earnest made a drink, which he brought onto the porch. He lit a cigarette. Finished it. He watched the trees, listening. He imagined someone nearby—in the darkness beyond the porch—watching him from among the piñons. But he didn’t see anyone tonight, only a night owl. There never was anyone. Around 9, he finished his drink.

Earnest opened his bedroom window. For three years, he'd tried to love the house. Now, he wished that he could. He slept uneasily, awakening to the dawning certainty that he would soon hear the tone again. Presently, Earnest imagined he did.