HERE'S THE STATE OF THINGS...

by Cormac Foster Morrison

It began when his cell phone died on the way to work just as he received a text message from his wife; she was going into labor.

"I thnk water broke. Where are u?" read the text.

I'm in the tunnel he thought. There were 4 missed calls before she must have gotten exasperated. Then, mid-dial, his cell died.

At the pay phone, he crouched to review the credit card call procedure and then punched "0" in frustration.

"Operator how can I help you?"

"I need to make a credit card call, um, a call on my credit card." He tried to get himself together. The operator took his information and put the call through.

He had missed the birth. It had lasted all of a half-hour. She was on the subway at 86th street when she felt the sudden dampening. One stop to Lennox Hill, one elevator to the 5th floor, gurney, stirrups, push, daughter.

Now, every time he passed that pay phone he got into the habit of placing whatever change he had in his pocket on top of it; an offering. Sometimes the change would be there the next day, but this was rare, and sometimes not. One day he noticed there was a dollar that he hadn't left and so he placed his change on top of it. Quickly after that it started to take on a life of its own. People started leaving notes like at the wailing wall, left on top with the money or jammed into corners. Then there were flowers, and a crucifix with a photo of a small girl attached to it with a ribbon. People left key chains and small packages of candy. Sometimes there would be other people there when he passed and depending on how they looked and his mood he would leave his change or not. It went on like that for several months.

Then, one Monday morning, the phone was gone. All the phones on that wall, all seven of them, were gone. And no sign of any of the totems or tributes that had accumulated there. All of it gone.

He called his wife. She wasn't there either.