RECEIVER

Pick up the phone.

Ring. Ring. Ring.


In the middle of the summer of 1964, in the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, a phone rung.


"Hello?"

"Hello, Sally. This is God.
How are you?"

A short pause. A blustery breath.


"Georgie Thomas, I want you to know that I'm calling your mother this instant to tell her about these prank calls. I'm calling her at work. She won't like to be pulled away from important work to hear a neighbor complain about her son's pranks.
"

"Georgie is at his aunt's house for the summer, Sally. She lives two hundred miles away and doesn't have the long distance feature on her phone. She says that prices are sky high enough with just the regular monthly service.
How could I be Georgie?"

"Sure," said Sally. Eyes on the oven door, she told herself.


"I told you, I'm God. I've decided to give you a call. We need to talk, you see.
"

"What do we need to talk about, Georgie? I'm a grown woman with a cake in the oven that's in danger of falling. You're a ten year old brat who doesn't know when to say when. You still lay skid marks in your underwear, for God's sake.
What could we possibly have to talk about, you little snot?"

"We need to talk about your car, Sally.
"

"My car? What would we need to talk about that for, Georgie? You can't even drive.
What do you know about cars?"

A sigh. The curious sound of a quick sip through a straw and the tinkle of ice cubes sinking as some distant meniscus fell. The bothersome little boy on the other end of the line was having a refreshing drink while he amused himself.


"I know that your car is painted the wrong color. You're a Type-A personality, Sally. People like you shouldn't drive blue cars. People like you should drive red cars. Orange is a good color for you, too.
"

"What? Have you gone crazy, Georgie Thomas? What is this about? What do you get out of this, huh? Tell me, damn it!"

"Sally, calm down. You'll flatten your cake with that tone of voice. Now, about your car..."

"I'm hanging up! You hear me? I'm hanging up this instant!"

"Well, you live in a free country and a free reality, so you can do what you like, but if you do choose to hang up on me, you'll miss out on the advice I've called to give you.
"

"I don't care! What do you know about anything? You still have plastic fitted sheets on your bed!"

Click.


An ear piece cracked, all of a sudden.


Maybe she'd gotten a bit out of hand. Perhaps a bit too angry at such a harmless thing. She had her reasons, though. Today's event was very important, after all. She didn't have time to play silly games with children with too much time on their hands.


Sally opened her oven door and saw that her cake had folded into itself. It looked quite pathetic; it looked like a small mound of fresh s**t deposited by a dying mutt in the middle of a large baking pan.


"S**t," said Sally. "S**t, that's what this is. This'll never do. The blue-haired b*****s at Gladys's TupperWare party will expect nothing less than the best. They've never excepted anything but prize-winning pastries at their little get-togethers. I'll have to start over. Georgie...the little b*****d.
"

Two hours later, (the old s**t-cake disposed of) a new cake, one capable of taking the Pope's wheezy and ever elusive breath away, was fully constructed. Cooled off, iced up, and packed into a rosy pink box with blue swirls on all four sides.


On the way to Gladys's TupperWear party, Sally's little blue Chevrolet violently met a cherry red Corvette at an intersection that had been troublesome and irritating for twenty years.


The driver of the red car was burdened with an A-Type personality. In a sizzling hurry, he had been off to the office ten minutes earlier than what was necessary, but still sure that he would be late, thereby missing the board meeting with the windbags from upstairs, thereby losing his job, his home, and his pretty wife who simply wouldn't do, couldn't do, without a weekly visit to the hair salon.


Needless to say, Sally didn't make it to the TupperWare party. She spent the next two weeks in light traction, and the next two years in painful sessions of physical therapy.


Because her car was blue instead of red.


Two years would pass before the conversation was had, but eventually, Sally and her father, Salvadore, whom she had been named after, would speak of two strange phone calls, which, as it turned out, had been just minutes apart.


"A neighbor's kid tried a phone prank on me not long before my accident," Sally said to her father, who was a reedy looking man in thick spectacles. The spectacles tripled the size of his eyes when Sally said this.


"That's funny," said Salvadore. "Just before I got the call that you'd been in an accident, a man referring to himself as God called me. He sounded like an awful young man. Maybe not that far on the other side of being a boy.
"

"What?" said Sally. Her dark face went slack.


"He said that Type-A personalities usually drive red cars. Something about that makes them obvious to other Type-A's. He said that car color to Type-A's is like a dog's piss on a tree. Type-A's make themselves obvious to others of their kind as a warning, he said to me. He said that your car was the wrong color and that he was sorry for what was about to happen.
"

"What?" said Sally again. Clearly, Ole Sal would be seeing a head doctor as soon as she could wrangle one.


"He said he tried to tell you, but you wouldn't listen. Said you were too worried about your cake and your TupperWare party.
"

The phone at Salvador's elbow, which sat on the living room table, rung.


"Hello?" said Salvadore.


"Toldjer she wouldn't believe you," said the voice on the other end of the line. Salvadore recognized the voice. It was the same voice that had spoken to him about his daughter's car color situation and sudden accident two years prior.


"What are you..." Salvadore asked, but the question wasn't finished. The voice on the other end of the line would be heard, questions be damned.


"Get out, Salvadore. Get out before she drops you off at WhelmShire Retirement Village.
"

The line died.


A year later, WhelmShire Retirement Village had a brand new resident named Salvadore Giazinu.


His daughter, Sally Giazinu, visited him twice a week in a cherry red Honda.

Reviews

[Loosey]

doodle.

2 pnts for me.

yeah!

[TinCup]

confusing

[Vlazuvius]

Great twist. I liked just about everything in the story except Sally herself. Well, when she's on the phone anyway. Maybe it's just that she (like her cake) crumpled in the presence of God, but during their exchange, her dialog seems a bit stilted. Other than that? The concept is great...you think in a whole different realm from anyone else I read on here. I'm not trying to fluff your ego-there are other great writers on here-but you just may be the best thinker I've encountered. It's hard to give constructive criticism, because everything I read is so damn good. Like I said, the only thing I notice is that Sally seems like a character in a story and not a person. And since it was a good story, it's a small sin. Looking forward to whatever comes next.