Chapter Six

Chapter Six

The man next to the mirror had evolved. He used to slouch due to the many hours he had carried loads and loads of cement bags at the construction site of the new mall in oaks suburbs. But that is in the past now, he had made a lot of money doing odd jobs, he had visited the gym with it, bought some revitalizing pills for his malnourished lifestyle and above all, stayed celibate… at least for most nights.

The interesting addition to his body artifice was unnoticeable to the normal eye; you have to really look down and, attentively like an artist, to realize the unnatural art created on a living body. A little below his ankle was a dead lotus flower, sewn skillfully to mend his skin. It had a message. Relating to his life. He often mused that his past life of hard work coupled with an off-the-standard body figure, referred to the dead lotus flower… it could therefore not be replaced, even though, he had changed physically, the past led him to this very point. An irony, in its own right.

A gist on how he started his new found hobby, the odd jobs. He found some old couture magazines in a neighbour's bin. He searched through John's discarded stuff, to find something of interest. He paid his bills with most of his hard earned money, leaving nothing for those kind of fancy stuff. So John's quick dissatisfaction of his lifestyle magazines, thus, a "bin-worthy" bounty, was a win win for him. Luckily, it was a Saturday night for him and he had the luxury of time. He flipped through the pages…one by one, seeping in the enticing messages the colourful pictures and carefully crafted adjoining words were designed to create.

He took his time to mentally photograph and catalogue his prized possessions; the still pictures that will come to life, moving in phantasmal motion, with a God-effect control on the beginnings and endings of each episode of a series of an unending fable. He skimmed thoroughly, even taking note of the standard book number, with a down turn luck of detecting a hidden message…he thought like those geeks who believed there was a UFO base, somewhere around the Nevada. Then an idea came to his head,

"Why don't I dial the numbers on the standard book number catalogues…..? I might hit a jackpot!"

He received blank beep beep sounds from the other end, with some automated responsive monologues…. Then he hit gold!!!

It was a peculiar number, with too many zeroes than usual….anyways, it was expected in most standard catalogue numbers… the receiver had a shrill voice, like he was speaking from the north pole or from a walk-in refrigerator at -100* Celsius.

"Hello, Sheldon's eatery, how can I help you?"

He hung up, as soon as the receiver finished that sentence.

He tried to compose himself after the startling encounter. Ten minutes had passed, and he still couldn't bring himself to stand or move away from the telephone. The phone rang two minutes later, with the ding ding sound piercing through his ears. He took some time to consider the rambling questions swimming in his head…."is this some kind of expensive joke? Or is the government recruiting again…?" he allowed the phone to ring till it stopped. It rang again for the second time and like forever he allowed it to wallow in the piercing void.

It never rang again….