Faust

Coresponding concludsions

        The rotating barrel synchronized with the ringtone from the other side of the line.
        A beep, a turn, and another beep.
        "........."
        A group of bikers drove by the far side of the street with their deafening engines roaring like it was the election year. The whirling drum stuck at the end of every turn, while the ringtone goes off between that period, two beeps a turn. The timer by the function wheel of the washer shines
four eight repeatedly as if a bomb's fuse was too rusted to do its job.
          ".........."
          The noise of the exhaust pipes lowering Kirov's housing price fades slowly into the back of my head and integrates with faint TV statics from the grocery store on across the front of my apartment.
          "............"
          My left thumb pressed itself against temple.
         Little past 8.......
Just when I'm about to give up and settle for the speculations that she's drunk, at work, dropped her phone in the tub again, at the bathroom somewhere with someone.

The sound of a peddle into the creak came, she then picked up.

"....Hey....I'll give you a minute to kick the shit out of me on the line for ghosting everyone in the past three months. Alright?"
Silence.
Then came a strange racket of.... the best description I can muster is an eight ball falling into a pool of sand..... and drums?

"Fly me to the moon......" I sighed deeply and it turned into laughter halfway.

"Frank Sinatra at 8. Really Vera?" Barefoot on the wooden floor, and the sound of jazz drums were drawn distant.
"Really. And how come I don't have the chance to kick you?" Window screen and door hinges, 'Fly me to the moon' became the background music with all the little noises around her.

"You'd do it already if you wanted to." Her cackle was toned with an ambiguous agenda by the phone line. Or maybe it's just Vera.

"It's the thought that counts." The smell of detergent is escaping the washer, I moved a couple of inches away to avoid the whiff of chemically integrated potpourri.
"You just wanted to be the first to hear me apologize eh?" A click came through the line, then a longer one and a hiss.

"No. Apologies don't work well with you. Besides...." I can almost see her face adorned by inexorable smoke as she puffs out, the pure white, king-size menthol between her fingertips burns while holding Viv's phone. "Viviane's enough for you to worry about." She purrs coyly.

           Surely she can see me rolling my eyes as well.
"Speaking of which, is she nearby?"
           "Out for the night actually."
           "And you don't know where the hell is she either eh?" A stuffed exhale from her end.
           "You know how it is. Though, I'm sure she'll find you herself. I told her you were back last night, her reactions were......drastic." I let out a dry laugh which may sounds like a cough on the other side.
          "I'll be sure to remember that."
           Again, I had it coming.

The sound of the city under the balcony of her apartment and the water splashes on my end seemed quieter as both of us stopped for a second.

          "And how was....." Her tone carried a certain amount of uncertainty before it stopped.
I laughter rings in my head, the second time she's out of words in two days, the stars are aligned, aren't they?

           Silence again, I hear someone's horning under her place or by Central Park. Not sure. But I can tell the jazz drums in the back are replaced by drawn-out choirs.

           "No use leading with our chains...."
           The old bastard in the back wastes no time and gets on the beat accompanied by the statics of the city from both ends. It kept on for a little, and it was the calmest I've ever been for a long while.