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”J-john, are you there?” the voice on the phoneline’s other end asked in a confounded manner.
It took a moment for John to gather himself enough to engage in conversation and before he had time to answer the voice spoke again;
“Have I reached your answering machine?”
John, the protagonist of our collective story, collected himself and answered cordially:
“Well, hello there John! Long time no hear, as they say” and let out a forced laugh.
There was a silence afterwards, as if neither of the phonebearers knew whose turn it was to speak, but after a moments notice, the other John spoke in reply, his tone a bit changed to the more hesitant.
“Yes, well…” clearing his throat, “Time goes us all by, John, whether we like it or not…”.
There was another slight pause and John knew not if it was his or his old friend's turn to speak, but he chose to act and said;
“Yes… that I can agree with..”, then inhaled a bit of stale air that had lingered in his room for God knows how long. Without any knowledge of what he was going to say next, he let improvisation take his tongue:
“How are you, John? Has time treated you well?”
“Fine thanks, and you?” came as a direct answer, as if to divert any further inquiries upon John’s life.
“Cant complain nor cheer” said John, wanting to clear his mind of what he had experienced during the last posts of his life;
“To be honest, you find me in slight disarray, my friend”.
“Oh?”, he heard John say on the other line, “why is that, if I may ask?”
“Well, just before you rang I had this most peculiar daydream… I did not know where dream ended and life began..” said John, regressing aback to the memories of his frightful imagined encounter with the Being of Light that had enamored him so..
Trying to find the nature of his feelings, John found nothing but confusion and said in conclusion that
“I don’t know what is real anymore, John…”
Silence met him on the other end..