The single-story motel was a crumbling ruin that stood in the beige vastness of an endless nothing. A road stretched out before it, hardly driven on but dusty from the debris of the faux dessert. The sky itself was an anemic grey blue without a single cloud or bird in flight to decorate it. A dated hatchback vehicle began to show itself on the horizon of the wasteland, seemingly worlds away from any semblance of civilization or life itself. The car rolled to a stop in front of the dilapidated motel.
I shut the car door, not bothering to lock it. After all, who else would be here? Who else even knew this place existed? How did I even know about this place? All I know is that I decided to drive here. The drive was long, solitary and the place called out to me like a dream I vaguely remember but I can’t quite grasp the contents of it; familiar, but not familiar. I stepped into one of the rooms in an entranced state and unblinking. It was the only room door that was slightly ajar. The room hardly looked touched. Everything was in its place: The 70s floral print comforter on the Californian king-sized bed, the seashell sconces on either side of the bed and the vertical beige and white wallpaper on all four corners of the room. No television, but there was a maroon lacquered rotary phone on the nightstand. I hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights. It didn’t seem as though electricity powered the place, anyway. I sat on the edge of the bed, facing the phone. A hand hovered over the neck of the receiver before I took a deep breath, bringing it to my ear. “Angie?” My voice cracked when I spoke her name. My best friend has been dead for 6 years now, on this day.
There was static feedback for a few moments, until I heard rustling on the other end of the phone as though someone on that side was wiping the receiver against their shirt. Finally, a voice called back, “Hey, what’s up?” She sounded busy. “I hope this isn’t a bad time,” I sighed, finally finding myself exhausted from the long drive to nowhere. “It isn’t.” There were faint chattering sounds in the background, almost as though she were in a crowded waiting room. I envision her with her hair damp from being recently washed, tied up in a loose top knot exposing her high forehead and the phone wedged against her ear and shoulder. An awkward silence for a few moments before Angie breaks it with an earnest inquiry. “How are the kids— I mean, yours and mine, obviously.” She sounded almost guilty when she asked. My brows furrowed and I swallowed before answering, “They’re doing great. Elijah just graduated high school last month, taking a year off before considering college. Evan is thinking of proposing to his girlfriend sometime this fall on their backpacking trip in Sweden.” I heard Angie gasp at the news. One part surprise and the other part pained to not be there for her boys. “And how are yours?” Her voice was shaky now, fighting back bittersweet tears and courteously asking as to not make this annual call all about her.
“They’re well,” I said simply, finding it hard to talk about my own children when Angie was so clearly fixated on her own, and rightfully so. The background sounds on her end began to grow louder. The chattering became clearer, less like waiting room mumbling and more like rousing restlessness of a impatient line attendees. It sounded as though Angie was being pushed off of the phone call. “You have to go so soon?” I asked. “Yeah… there’s, well, a lot of us here.” I can imagine her rolling her blue eyes. “Ah. Okay. Well… Is there anything you need me to pass along? Until next year, that is.” I could tell she was searching in her mind for something, anything, but she wound up with nothing. “No,” Angie sighed in defeat, “Just the usual. Let my boys know I miss them… when I remember them. The fog here is getting worse, but these calls help. It gives me something to look forward to, you know?” This was the third year in a row Angie had spoken of ‘the fog’, which I assumed was something that happened in… where ever she was. She never told me about where she was whenever she asked. Perhaps the dead weren’t allowed to, as a cardinal rule of some sort. I tried to not press too much about the sensitive topic of life and death with her as someone who is wholly on The Other Side, especially not when our precious little time could be better spent catching up as old friends and staying in the know. “I don’t know,” I confessed. “And I don’t think I’m meant to know yet.” Angie guffawed at me. “Right. Just dead people things.”
For the third awkward silence, it came as an unspoken cue to end the call. “Bye Angie,” I whispered sadly. I strained to hover the receiver away from my ear. “Don’t forget to call me next year.”
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