A Darker Shade of Words

Raised voices, angered expressions and bitter complaints. There were too many words spoken to make any sense. I, who always agreed, disagreed. He, who always understood, misunderstood.

It was a rotten phone call.

In utter confusion and helplessness of unexplained gestures; I asked him, “don’t you trust me?” And that’s when silence struck like a thunderbolt; the line dropped and all I could hear was a melancholic tone ___ just like the one you hear in an ICU when someone dies. Something died between us.

It was a forgotten phone call.

I sailed through empty days in sheer absence of time. Days started wearing months. That melancholy was still there each time I picked up the phone to dial his number. That constant tone and saddening fear stopped my fingers from pressing the buttons.

Then one day, the phone rang, he called me up after all those years and said,

“I don’t know.”
~ Amir Saleem