Sunday, May 01, 2016

1. The Phone

When Terry began scrolling through her phone, none of the photos she found were hers.

She hit the home button and looked at the familiar wallpaper and icon layout which was the same as it ever was, but then again she had left it much the same as it was when she had taken it out of the box on the first day. She turned the phone over to look at the case - it was the standard leather one, but on closer inspection it was a little more scuffed than hers.

She looked up as she realised what must have happened. The man had been coming out of the bar as she was going in, both of them engrossed in their phones - the curse of the modern age, she supposed. They had bumped shoulders and her phone had fallen to the floor - thankfully carpeted. She had picked it up and shoved it safely into her purse as she scanned the crowd for her friend Julie.

Terry had been a few minutes early for their lunch date, so she had ordered a martini and settled at the bar to kill time while she waited. Of course, that had been when she had realised how the old phone switch-a-roo had happened.

It would be easily sorted. All she had to do was dial her own number and call the man back to arrange a swap. He couldn't have gone far.

She heard the familiar ringtone and saw the man outside the bar take the phone out of his pocket and cancel the call without looking at the screen, hailing a cab with his other hand. The automatic response came back 'Busy - will call you back later'.

Terry realised that there was no way she could push through the crowd in time to catch him and cursed her carelessness again. She opened the photo app again and scrolled through the pictures again, morbidly curious for a glimpse into this stranger's life. Perhaps a picture of the subway sandwich he'd had for lunch or an idle selfie?

What she saw chilled her and the next number she dialled was the police, to report a homicide ...

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1 comment:

Rachel Green said...

what a great start!