The phone is ringing. I can't believe that I had mustered the courage to dial the number after so much time had passed, after so much. I don't know what I will say, or what I could say. Everything had been said before. Yet, here I am with a phone pressed to my ear as if my very existence demanded it and slowly loosing my grip as the perspiration slowly gathers on my palms.

There is nothing in the universe to me except the light hammering of rain on the phone booth and the silence that stretches out to infinity between the digitized conformations of a connected call. I cannot see the want ads for labor, the initials drawn within hearts by magic markers or the adult phone numbers that surround me. There is only the sound and the anticipation caused by a life put on hold, topped by an aching hope.

Just when I believe that I can take no more, that my heart will burst and leave me forever bleeding without a source, I hear a click on the other end. It would be a moment now, just a moment, before they would take their phone, which would be in their own tender hand, and place it to their face. At that moment this lifeless utensil in my hand would be a tie I had on them. It is the meaning of a smile.

"Hello?" comes to me though the phone over time and space, happiness and pain. The voice is cautious, as all voices are, as all people are, when they take their first step into the unknown. But it is not unfriendly. It is not uninviting, and it is speaking to me. I had known this voice before I even knew myself.

My dreams pale in comparison to this moment.

"Hello," I returned. "It's me."

I hear a click, it comes to me simply and unangry. There is a distinct lack of emotion that is much worse than anything I had previously felt. If only now my heart would burst. My tie had been cut without so much as spilling a drop of blood. Everything had been said before. I feel as lonely as God, all alone in his heaven surrounded by things He created, and none of them cloaked in mystery.

My palms are no longer sweating as I lose my grip on the receiver. I feel as if I large portion of myself was falling with it, that I have truly lost myself. It's as if a great weight has been lifted and I am floating looking down on the earth and neither it nor I am actually there. The earth, waiting for me to fall, makes me real. And I, floating above it, am the only one able to believe enough to make it exist.

I find myself on the floor of the booth listening to phone beep constantly. It's still raining and, for the first time, I realize that my clothes are damp. I run my hands over my face, just to make sure everything is still in place, and I find, next to my nose, a drop has fallen from my eye. I quickly brush it away only to have it replaced by another and then another.

As I rise to my feet I realize that I have forgotten why I was lost in the first place. I believe I must have a destination before I can be lost, but I cannot remember wanting anything. The phone stops its beeping as I return it to its proper place. I know not what I am to do. As the intensity of the rain increases I realize that I have forgotten the number, vanished with my excitement to be replaced by nothing but soft numbness. After so much time as passed, after so much, I am left only with the knowledge that they are forever lost to me.