The Voice

Al sat silent.

But had you been present two days earlier, you would have heard him. You would have heard him shouting, crying at the top of his lungs. You would have heard him beating, beating his furious little fists against the side of his aluminum prison. You would have heard his feeble cries, slowly dying down as he came to the grim realization that no one was listening, and if they were, no one cared. You would have heard him fall silent again, until he worked up the will to give the old college try one more time, since maybe this time someone might hear. Right now he was silent.

How long had he been here? There was no way of knowing. He was alone in the dark. No light penetrated into his cell, and as a result Al didn’t even know what his prison looked like. It was tall, though. At least, he couldn’t reach the ceiling. And as far as he could tell, from spending hours and hours pacing his floor, it was round. He didn’t have a watch with him, but even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to see it in this darkness. So Al didn’t know how long he had been here, how long it would be before he got out, or if he even would get out.

The minutes crept by. Minutes turned to hours, hours turned to days, and other clichés describing how excruciatingly long the amount of time Al had been there proceeded to take place in the darkness. And Al slowly went insane, not knowing if he would ever get out. Not knowing how long he had been captive. He was like that guy at the beginning of I.Q., that movie about Albert Einstein’s niece falling in love with that mechanic guy, and Einstein helped the guy out. Anyway, Al was like that guy at the beginning of the movie that agreed to go into a time deprivation experiment, where they kept in a little room and never let him know what time it was, and the slowly went freaking insane. I’m pretty sure that was in I.Q., although admittedly it’s been a while since I’ve seen it.

Perhaps Al was thinking the same thing, because now he was lost in his thoughts. He was thinking about his mother and his sister, and if he would ever see them again. He was thinking about the girl he loved. He was thinking about Walter Matthau and Meg Ryan on that motorcycle, going to save the day, or something like that. He was thinking about anything, except what happened next.

A phone rang.

Al shot up. Had he really heard that? The noise had been faint and distant, but he was sure he’d heard something. He listened fervently.

Another ring.

His heart leapt. What was happening? What did a phone call mean, anyway? Did it have anything to do with him? Perhaps not, but perhaps so.

“Hello?” thundered a voice from the Other Side.

Al pressed his ear right against the wall of his cell, desperately determined to hear what words were about to come out of that telephone. He stood absolutely still, absolutely silent, and waited with baited breath. He heard a voice, this time belonging to the mysterious calling.

“Um...yeah...” The voice paused, and Al thought he heard a few faint stifled giggles.

“Hello?” repeated the thundering voice.

“Yeah, yeah. Um...do you have Prince Albert in a can?”

Yes! thought Al. Yes, yes, yes! He listened excitedly now.

The thunderous voice sighed wearily. “Yes, I do.”
Yes!

“Well...” Al heard almost uncontrollable laughter now, “You better let him out!”

Al jumped with excitement, and waited eagerly for the response from Thundervoice.

“No.”


And then Al heard the unmistakable sound of a phone being placed squarely back on its hook.