The Call (a VERY short short-story)

THE CALL
by Steve Orr

It had been a good call. He looked good. He sounded happy. She liked that.

But then he asked about the kids.

She had thought she might get through the call without having to outright lie. She cut her eyes to the priest. He was carefully looking anywhere else.

"The kids are fine, honey. They're playing outside."

"Missed them, again. This keeps up, they're not gonna know me."

He was smiling. Laughed lightly and easily.

She forced a return smile. Sold it.

Right then, there was a loud THUMP from outside. She looked up. When she returned her gaze to the screen, it was dark. She heard his voice through the speaker.

"Hey! You still there? What happened? The picture is gone!"

Looking left, she saw the priest had his hand on the switch. It was flipped to "Voice-only."

Forcing a laugh, she said, "I'm still here. We have some weather building. I think that may have been a transformer blowing. I guess I'd better go round up the kids."

There was a longish pause. When he spoke, he sounded disappointed.

"I wish you could come here and take me home."

"Me, too, Honey."

"They say I'm doing better. That maybe I can go home soon."

The tears came then, but she managed to keep them out of her voice.

"Oh, Sweetheart! That would be wonderful! I can hardly wait!"

"Well," he finally said. "Guess I'd better wrap this one up. I love you, Honey. Missing you already!"

"I love you more!" She said brightly, letting her voice fill with playfulness.

"Bye."

"Bye."

The priest cut the signal. She stood and walked toward the door. The rustle of the dress seemed to walk beside her as she crossed the pretend Living Room.

"Private?"

"I can't talk right now, Rev. OK?"

A pause.

"OK. But I'm scheduling you for an hour tomorrow, midday. We have to talk about this."

"Oh, Rev. You're gonna get me psyched with all this counseling."

"Nothing to worry about on that count. I counsel everybody. Nobody's going out on a psych."

She stepped up to the door, saw that the red sign was lit: "OUTER DOOR OPEN." She waited until the green "OUTER DOOR CLOSED" sign lit up. But the door opened before she could get her hand to it. Facing her was the Sergeant Major. She pushed past him and headed toward the other door.

He called after her. "How's it going, Private?"

Without turning, she called back, "Same-o, Same-o, Top."

She stopped at the rack and waited, back still turned to the man. She sensed his eyes on her, but busied herself by pretending to check her weapon. She didn't know if he'd seen the tears on her face, but she wasn't going to give him a better look.

Finally, she heard the inner door close.

Alone in the hall, she stripped off the civvies, quickly getting down to her base uniform. She pulled on her gauntlets, settled the cowl and helmet over her head.

She waited on the face mask.

Checking, again, as any good soldier would, she confirmed the panels showed "INNER DOOR CLOSED" before opening the outer door.

The heat hit her like a wall, like always.

She started up the earthen ramp toward the surface. Only then did she begin to seat the mask over her face.

By the time she had it in place, the tears were gone.


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[The challenge was to write a short-story under 600 words. It was to be about someone who found something they had no intention of returning. Sadly, I fail at writing own demand. Nothing for that topic came to mind. The story, above, is what did come.]