ditzy-dolls:The first messages came while Angela was at work. Four missed calls. Most of her friends
ditzy-dolls:The first messages came while Angela was at work. Four missed calls. Most of her friends knew she couldn’t talk while she was waiting tables, so it was unusual to get even one. This was especially weird, though - all four were from a number she didn’t recognize. No voicemail or anything, just missed calls.She assumed they were just spam of some kind, and ignored them.Overnight, she got two more from the same number. Again, she ignored them. Weirdly persistent, though, she thought.She was studying for class while eating breakfast when another call came in. Curious, she decided to answer it. “Hello?”There was no response.“Hello? Anybody there?”There was a faint sound in the background - a kind of low hiss, a soft grinding noise. Nobody replied, though. Angela listened, trying to see if she could hear voices in the background. Maybe somebody was repeatedly butt-dialing her, or something?She listened very carefully.After a minute or two, she hung up. That was weird. She considered blocking the number, but… well, that seemed like too much trouble. She just went back to her reading.An hour later, they called again. She picked up, angrily saying “Hello? Is anybody there?”Again, there was just that faint hiss. Grinding, like something mechanical. It was a little louder this time, but still distant. Angela furrowed her brow, trying to identify what would make a noise like that.“Is anybody there?” she asked again. Then she just listened, quietly.After she hung up, a bit later, she turned her ringer up to full volume.While she was getting ready for work, they called again. She picked up right away. “Hello, this is Angela,” she said. The noise was her only reply. She listened quietly, patiently, for several minutes. Eventually, she said “Thank you for calling,” and hung up. She went back to what she was doing, a few minutes behind schedule now.When she arrived at work, she told her shift manager, Ted, that she might need to step away - she was expecting a very important call. Ted wasn’t thrilled, but understood, and just asked her to keep it quick.They called twice while she was working. She dropped what she was doing both times, abandoning her tables to stand outside of the restaurant and listen. Her tips were bad that night, uncharacteristically, but Angela didn’t really notice. They called before bed. Angela fell asleep with the phone to her ear. She dreamt of sinking slowly into an endless ocean of static, body floating in it, the white noise suspending her and extending infinitely out in all directions.She woke to the phone ringing. When the call was over, she took a selfie of herself lying in bed and sent it to the number. She got up, showered and dressed, and then emailed her professors, letting them know she couldn’t make it to class today. She sat on the sofa in her apartment, patiently waiting for the next call. She no longer spoke at all when they called. She just picked up and listened. The noise filled her head. Even between calls, she could hear it in her mind, like a seashell on the beach held up to her ear at all times. Angela went to the mall. She bought lingerie, lots of it. She put her textbooks on ebay to help pay for the new expense. All of these ideas just came into her head, fully formed and irresistible, dripping with static.She went through the motions at work, stepping out whenever they called. She barely kept her job. She didn’t care. She had a feeling she was going to quit soon. Something bigger was coming.She found herself replying to the static. Words she didn’t think or choose, words that just poured out of her. “Yes, Master,” she’d say as the hiss spoke to her. “I obey,” she’d reply to the wall of noise. “I am compliant,” she’d assure the anonymous caller, never knowing if anyone even heard her.At home, Angela wore nothing but her new lingerie. She listened to the phone calls for hours. Words and language felt strange to her now, clunky, unwieldy. Her thoughts were hisses and static now. She didn’t know what her thoughts said, but that didn’t matter. She understood them, deep inside.She forwarded her contact list to the number after a call. She attached a reference photo for each person on the list. She imagined each of her friends answering calls, their heads filling with noise too.She knelt on the floor and let the static whisper praise and satisfaction into her mind, wrapping her like a soft blanket, filling her head to toe. She was the static now. It was her identity, her truest self. She waited patiently for another call, for a new thought to be given. -- source link