The Phone Number (installment 1)

My imagination carried me away with this one, and I think I will post it in installments.


Invent a character that sees a phone number on a restroom wall. Describe what happens when he or she dials it.

I didn’t think it was possible to be lower than I was when I started drinking this afternoon. I laid my soul bare for him; I offered my heart, soul and pride to him. I begged and pleaded with him to please just love me. I shed countless tears and fell to the floor sobbing unabashedly. No, lower than I had brought myself today really didn’t exist for me until now. Now I am lying in a heap covered with my own bile on the floor of a public restroom. Who knows when the last time this floor had seen disinfectant? What other forms of life lie on this floor with me? At any moment someone is going to walk in and see me on this floor barely able to lift my head. As I fight the spinning world that is my vision and struggle to get off the floor, I notice a number on the bathroom wall. It is behind the toilet, blocked from the view of normal eyes. It is in pencil and not very big, just large enough that someone with good eyesight could make it out from lying on the floor. The pencil lead was not meant to last the trials of time. This is number was meant for someone specific and not meant to share. There is no other commentary with the number standard to bathroom walls “For a good time call 555-1515.”

The number fills me with curiosity, and my head starts to clear and thankfully the spinning slows. Why would someone put a number in this bathroom? Who is the number meant for? Is it really some secret number or a number written on the tile by the installer, a work contact that was never wiped off? But it is in pencil and just to check I reach out and touch it. My sweat-wet hands are enough to smear the penciled number. I pull out my cell phone and put the number it in, I am not sure why. Maybe it is because the number has given me a moments grace and I am able to get up off the floor. While I sit there in the stall contemplating the number I am able to wipe the worst off my drinking binge off of my face and shirt. I am still looking at the number as I leave the stall and approach the sink. I clean myself off and leave the bathroom and the bar.