Word Count 1059

                                                           Bill Tope & Doug Hawley

“Why are all of these people ghosting me?” Steven exclaimed, addressing an empty room.
“People have things to do,” counseled Willy, Steven’s inner self. “They’re busy. They can’t just wait around breathlessly for your emails and then respond accordingly.”
“Why not?” challenged Steven hotly.
“Because, lover, they have lives.”
“I’m sixty-eight years old, an old man,” protested Steven. “Who cares about someone like me experiencing cognitive dissonance? No one.”
“Ginny is the only one who gives a darn,” Willy reminded him. “She may live way the heck over on the other side of the continent, but she cares.”
“But, that’ll turn out to just be a mistake of some kind, probably,” thought Steven dourly.
“Why do you say that?” asked his inner self.
“Because, self,” explained Steven, “Ginny’s never met me in person, only online and on the telephone. She thinks that I’m that character in the pages of my novel, not the flesh and blood person that you see.”
“Well, I can understand your perspective,” remarked self.
“You’re very helpful,” said Steven sarcastically, “and you can’t see anything. You are a non-corporeal side of me, not a separate person.”
“What happens with the passage of time?” asked Willy philosophically.
“You only get older,” snapped Steven crossly. He had decided that no one gave a darn, that indifference, especially with respect to him, was endemic.
Steven hadn’t had a good buzz on for twenty years and was grateful to achieve that state tonight, courtesy some hydrocodone and a beer chaser. He was presently almost incapable of speech and rued the intoxication he had achieved; it made him incapable of expressing his frustration.
Suddenly the land line jangled off the hook.
“Pick up,” urged Willy, hovering like a specter over the phone. “It could be Ginny.”
Moving sluggishly, Steven slapped his hand down on the receiver, jarring it in place. Screwing his features up in concentration, he succeeded in lifting the instrument to his ear. “Hef…hello?” he croaked.
“Ellie?” said a boisterous, up-beat voice on the other end of the line.
Steven scowled. His mother, Ellie, had died nine years before. He wondered, who could this possibly be?
“Ellie? Ellie? Is Ellie there?” the voice badgered him.
Steven took a deep breath and let it out. “Sh…she’s not here,” he managed to utter.
“That’s okay,” the voice replied. “This message is for any resident at this phone number.” Then the voice went on to tell Steven how bright his shirts could be, should he only use Gorilla Wax stain remover in his laundry. And the message went on and on.
Finally Steven found his voice again. “Look, my mother died nearly ten years ago,” he said.
After a measured beat, the salesman continued. “How many boxes of Gorilla Wax can I put you down for?”
Steven and Willie both had had enough. Steven slammed down the phone, had another beer and passed out.
When Steven woke up at 4am, he panicked before realizing it was Saturday and he didn’t have to go to work.
Willy had a suggestion on how to spend the day. “Listen loser, I’ve got a long shot suggestion for you. Call up every girl that you ever dated, wanted to date, or made you horny. If you call up ten and with each one you have a 10% chance of success, you still have some chance of getting a date. I forgot how to calculate it, but you have some chance.”
Steven liked the idea. He made a list of ten. Of the ten calls, three didn’t go through and had no forwarding number, and the next four consisted of:
“You disgusted me then and you still do.”
“I married your best friend.”
“I’m married to a woman.”
“Who the hell are you? Leave me alone!”
Next, Steven phoned Ginny. When she picked up, Steven explained his mental confusion, his loneliness and told Ginny he wanted to meet in person at last.
There was an awkward pause on the line and then Ginny came clean. She explained that she was happily married and only vicariously grooved on Steven, based on the lurid descriptions contained in his novel. She hoped he understood, and abruptly hung up.
The tenth call was a winner, or so he thought. June still lived in the area, was unmarried and happy to hear from him. She invited him over. He showed up on her doorstep in thirteen minutes flat.
“Come in Steven,” said the woman. He could still recognize her as the girl he knew so many years ago, although at the time she was a skinny, pimply-faced girl, whereas now she was a beautiful, full-figured woman. He didn’t even notice she was missing a leg for almost a full minute. He stared.
June was used to the double-take. The next thing she said was “Right, I’m not the leggy beauty you remember.”
After a silent pause, they both burst out laughing, breaking the ice.
Willy started to give Steven advice, but he told Willy to back off, he would try to handle this himself.
Oddly, a puzzled June accepted Steven’s explanation of Willy’s presence.
Steven and June did the standard history conversation: Steven’s 40-year insurance career and his two divorces; June’s car accident that cost her a leg, 20 years ago. But, she got a fat insurance settlement which meant she could live out the rest of her life without working. She had become something of a recluse after the accident.
When they got into specifics, they discovered that Steven’s insurance company gave June her payout.
June asked “Want to see my other leg?” A puzzled Steven said okay.
June went to the closet and brought out her prosthesis. “Want to feel it?” She asked.
“Sure.”
Willy whispered something only Steven could hear. Steven said, “How does that compare to your good leg.”
June pulled up her dress and said, “you tell me.”
Steven had no discrimination against the disabled, and June was not put off by a two-time loser. Steven stayed the night, and the spectral pervert Willy was a happy onlooker.
Steven and June were wed in a civil ceremony, with Willy standing up for the groom. There are no happily ever afters, but the two of them–three, if you count Willy–did a respectable impression of one.

                                                                      The End

Appears in Synchronized Chaos