The Last Telephone Call

A short story about the last telephone call.

   “Hello? Did I do it right?”

   “Yes, I can hear you! Hello,” she said.

   “Oh, good. I wasn’t sure about these buttons. This thing is so strange and primitive. And that weird sound!” I said.

   “Weird sound? What weird sound?”

   “It’s gone now, disappeared the moment I started pressing the numbers.”

   “Dialing the numbers. My grandmother said it was called dialing.” She corrected me.

   “Dialing? I don’t get it. There are no dials on this thing, just a bunch of numbers, a hashtag symbol, and a star. What dial?” I was puzzled by her statement.

   “I don’t know either, that’s just what I was told.”

   “Why does it need a hashtag symbol? You can’t Tweet from this thing, can you?” It was becoming more confusing, how did people use these things?

  “No idea. You wanted to call me and talk before they stopped the service for good. So what do you want to talk about?”

  “Hmm. I hadn’t thought of it, just thought it would be funny if this was the last telephone conversation ever before the technology was obsolete.”

  “Yeah, okay. Speaking of weird sounds, it made such a loud ringing noise when you called. I think I heard that sound before in an old movie. It went,” she imitated the noise of the telephone ringing then laughed until she said, “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. That’s so funny!” then she made the sound again. I was crying I was laughing so hard along with her.

   “This is ridiculous. Don’t you think we should say something intelligent before they cut us off? What if it’s being secretly recorded and they plan to use it for FBI training or something?” I couldn’t help but laugh at my own thoughts.

   “No. They stopped surveillance on landline telephones many years ago. No one has even used one in years according to the internet.” she said then I heard a crackle.

   “What time is it?” I looked at my watch for the time. Ten seconds until the hour. “I think it’s going to cut off here soon!”

   “Fudge buckets!” she yelled as the line went silent. I laughed, put the handset back into the cradle, unplugged the telephone from the wall, and set it into a box to be put in the basement.