I answer the phone, but no one is there – just the regular beep of a fax tranmission, every five seconds. This happens several times a week, perhaps because I inherited the number of a defunct department store. I’ve learned that by hanging up, I get repeated calls – as though the fax machine keeps trying till it succeeds. So now I lay the phone on my tabletop – the beeps project, reflect on the the hardwood surface. After about a minute, as though satisfied that its message got through, this automated caller disconnects.
Strangely though, I feel a twinge of guilt – what important message have I thwarted? The plaintive bleat recalls a mating call of some near-extinct bird, echoing through the forest, to be heard by no mate’s ear. A signal unanswered, like the teenage kid who only needs to be bullied once more before he brings his father’s gun to school. Or all those space probes, radio telescopes, aimed beyond the solar system, spewing bleeps and convoluted tones into the universe, hoping for intelligent answers.
What would be worse, I wonder:
not to be heard and understood, or only to be ignored?

10/02/2001

Posted on 10/02/2001
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