He picks up the receiver and tries her number again. He
waits patiently sitting up in his chair.
One ring.
His heart misses a beat - he's anxious to speak to her.
Two rings.
He hopes.
Three rings.
He still hopes.
Four rings.
He starts to fear.
Five rings.
He fears.
Six rings.
He loses hope.
Seven rings.
He hears her voice: "You've reached Joy's phone. Leave a
message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Either
I will or I won't."
He sags back into the armchair thinking. He fears what the
future might bring.
She seems to love him, and he certainly loves her. But for
some reason they always seem to be able to find some way to
get into a fight or into a furious argument.
No one should be wrong in thinking that they are married -
actually they aren't even dating. However, he often gets the
feeling that they are married.
Despite all the arguments they manage to stay in touch -
waiting. Waiting for some moment that might bring them
together. Waiting...
While they wait they talk to each other - they get to know
each other - they interlace their lives one with the other.
They seldom see each other though. Most of their
relationship is, what one might call, "virtual" - over the
phone-lines - one way or the other.
This waiting is the thing that's bothering him. Waiting...
Nevertheless, he doesn't know of another way. Of a better
way. So, he waits.
It isn't hard to understand why they wait - although it at
first seems rather bizarre. They are both unique in that
matter. She had several relationships that didn't work, and
wants to be cautious with this one. She wants it to work
out. He, on the other hand, is cautious because he is new at
this. He was never in any serious relationship, and wants
this one to be perfect. He loves her too much for letting it
go to waste.
One of the problems they encounter from time to time is lack
of communication - reaching her is sometimes a bit of a
problem - so they sometimes spend weeks without speaking to
each other.
That's what's bothering him now. He tries to reach her again
and again and fails to do so. He remembers a poem he once
read, although the author's name eludes him, he still brings
the lines back into his mind:

When you hear the ringing of the phone
On the other side of the line,
You keep wondering whether
The one you're calling has time
To make you stop being alone.

You keep thinking of the best
While you wait for her
To pick up the phone
And ease your pain, and care
That you live and love her most.

Then finally you hear the ringing stop:
"Leave a message," says
Her voice, for the hundredth time today.

He smiles a sad smile.
He gets up and walks toward his CD collection. That is one
of two things that ease his wondering mind in times like
this. He picks up Mezzanine, puts it in, and turns the
volume all the way up. He drowns in the sounds and forgets.
Moving towards the bookcase he picks up an old Sci-Fi novel,
opens it, lies down on the couch, and savors the moment.
His mind runs wild while even wilder stories of pilot Pirx
enter his mind, and the music soothes his nerves.

Some might call him crazy. He actually would agree with
them. He really is crazy. For many reasons.
His eccentric tastes are far from anything anyone would call
normal. His even more eccentric mind would rarely fall into
the category of "ordinary". He is one of those men who never
could find peace. He finds it only in words and in music.
But when these two aren't there, he is sad.
Yes, that is his craziness - his sadness. He was never
happy. He still isn't. It might be his character that never
enabled him to truly enjoy life. Something was always
missing. But unlike many other people, he not only couldn't
ignore these things, he searched for them when they weren't
obvious.
That is exactly how it was like with Joy. Whenever they
moved a bit forward and became closer, he managed to find
something that took them apart all over again. He didn't do
it purposely, but nonetheless, it happened.
He never knew at once what he had done, and the realization
came late - but it did. This time however, he couldn't find
anything wrong.
They still hadn't talked for a month.

He was actually quite an unbearable person.

Joy looked at her Caller ID console next to her phone and
sighed seeing his number disappear. She loved him deeply but
couldn't do a thing. She knew that something would happen to
ruin it. She knew him - she knew that if they were to be
together it would be tough.
She doubted whether she needed such complications in her
life at that moment. Despite her love, she failed to
visualize the difficult life with him. His eccentricity was
so far from her being a mainstream person. They really did
have little in common.
She sighed again.
It was the fifth time that day he called. And it would be at
least five more times until the day would be over. She
continually grew tired of it.
Her laptop beeped. She got up slowly. She knew what that was
and knew that nothing new would await her when she saw it.
On the screen she saw a new E-mail message. It was from him.
He understood that he was wrong, and said he was sorry. He
begged for forgiveness and wanted them to get through it
together. And so on, and so on...
She mused what results the comparison between this E-mail
and the one from yesterday might bring. She smiled a sad
smile.
He made her life exceedingly difficult. She didn't know what
to do. Now she knew that they would never be together.

The screen on his PC lights up and he hurries to it. He
knows that this could only mean an E-mail message. He hopes
it is from her. He had enough false starts today, and as a
matter of fact, for the last month.
He sits down in his chair and reads the message. It is from
her.

She sits down at the kitchen table placing a coffee cup in
front of her. She sips the coffee, opening the morning
paper, still wondering whether she did the right thing
yesterday. The front page is filled, as always, with
political news. She turns the pages over, and suddenly stops
at page 8.

He jumped.