Darryl Zimbargo lay in bed with his wife, Jillian. For twenty eight years Darryl had slept in this bed; knees tucked to his chest, back facing toward his spouse. The bedroom had looked much the same for all those years. Same night stand, same television, same rug and even the same bed sheets and pillow cases. The only thing that had ever changed was the addition of a bright red rotary telephone eight years ago.
Jillian often wondered about the phone. After all, during the eight years since Darryl had brought it home, it hadn’t rung once. She knew better than to ask her husband about it, as she knew that he worked for the government on a number of highly classified projects; the nature of which she did not know or dare inquire about. Needless to say, Darryl was sworn to secrecy. Although Jillian sometimes recalled the one time she had asked her husband about the red rotary.
Eight years ago she had won an antique brass plate that was riddled with long, snake-like markings on it at an auction out of town. Upon bringing it home she scrutinized every flat surface of their home in order to find just the right spot for it. Due to her being a bit of a hoarder, literally every place was already inhabited by all of her other antiques, causing Jillian a great deal of discontent. Eventually she resolved to remove the red rotary telephone from their bedroom and place the brass plate in its stead, knowing that there were plenty of other spots for it. Besides, at the time the phone had only been there for two weeks and hadn’t rung once, what use could it be?
That night Darryl came home from an unusually long day at work. Like every other day, he walked in carrying a familiar yet almost alien smell on his clothing, slipped of his Testoni’s, and went to their bedroom to change into his casual wear. As Jillian was setting the pot roast on the table for dinner, Darryl ran into the kitchen with the brass plate in his hand and upon seeing the red rotary on the edge of the sideboard where she had left it, exploded into a fit of rage. He told her to never touch the phone again and threw the plate across the room. He then plugged the phone back into the wall and carried on as if nothing had ever happened. During the twenty years that she had been married to this man, Jillian had never seen her husband blow up like that and hadn’t any time afterward. It scared her. So much in fact, that she hadn’t spoken a single word of the silent rotary nor even acknowledged its existence since.
She knew nothing of that phone other than that it was clearly very important to Darryl, or maybe more specifically to the people he worked for. That was all she knew and she was content not knowing anything more. What Darryl did at work was his business; who was she to pry into government affairs? The way she saw it, the phone was just another mystery about her husband that she had no interest in solving. If Jillian could simply live out the rest of her days tending to her garden, cleaning the house, making breakfast, lunch and dinner and sleeping silently at the end of each day—she’d be content.
Only on this particular night as the two slept soundly, the silence was broken. Jillian opened her eyes in confusion. It was midnight and there was not a noise to be heard all throughout the house. Except for that beeping. What was that beeping?
Beep
Beep
Beep
She wondered but somehow knew, subconsciously she knew exactly what that noise was. Suddenly Darryl sprung out of bed and snatched the red rotary phone’s receiver faster than she would have ever thought possible for her aging spouse. He brought it to his ear, saying nothing as if waiting for something. Then, permeating through the silence of their bedroom, a voice spoke two words that would echo in her ears for the rest of her life. The words frightened Jillian; she didn’t know why but it frightened her more than she had ever been in her life.
“UT-ZAH 1689”
