The number rings and your phone buzzes. You can't tell who it is, but you can tell what they want.
"Hello, Brother ———," the voice says with exuberantly false enthusiasm.
"Hello," you reply back tiredly, wishing they would go to hell.
Instantly questions barbed with hooks of shaming, pry into your business and your life. Like surrounded by land mines, you can't wiggle left that way or another and live, unless you grab the hooked trap.
If you don't answer his questions about what you're doing or where you've been, he'll know you've been dodging church.
If you say yes to his invitation, you've fed the wolves. Who knows how many Sundays there will be knocks at your door, which if you answer, you will meet a face as false as the voice that sounded in your ear.
If you slam the phone down or the door shut, if you drape your curtains, or worse, if you tell them to their faces how unpleasant their advances are, no means yes, a slammed phone means I'm hurting please come save me, and a slammed door an open invitation for next year.
When you up the stakes, when the vein in your head is showing and the spittle launching through the air like fireworks that you can never tell which way the next spark will fly, they will go away alright, and say amongst themselves how there is darkness in your eyes. You will collapse upon the chouch fuming, help the anger ebb away with something strong, or just shed a tear silently wishing they would just leave you alone.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2015 07:09PM by Cold-Dodger.

why do you keep giving them your phone number ?

perceptive question, but this is just my attempt at some fictitious prose.

I had a phone call while I was reading poetry asking me to give the opening prayer next sunday. It was awkward.

Get phone with caller ID. Screen the calls. Why is your life any of their business?