Suite 2662 again…
“So why would this be up here?” Dabbler indicated the stone that had broken three of his toes. His foot was healed now; always a nice perk for an Avatar. But the pain was still fresh in his memory. He and Gidget had brought the stone into the living room and leaned it against the wall. “It doesn’t make any sense for Zorlond to send his scrying stone up here. Much less bash me in the foot with it.” They had, in fact, recognized it for what it was right off, and after a quick test with Dabbler’s imitation Mirror of Galadriel, verified its identity.
“Certainly doesn’t sound like your typical Author prank, does it?” Gidget said.
“Plus he’s not the type…” Dabbler mulled things over briefly. “I’m going to give him a call, see what I’m supposed to do with this.” Pulling a telephone from thin air, he pressed ‘0’.
A few moments later, he heard “Operator, here.”
“Hey, there,” Dabbler said. “Could you connect me to suite 2282?”
“Will do,” was the reply. After that, Dabbler heard the ringing tone. Strangely, it repeated several times, long enough to wonder if anyone was home at all. Still, even so, the answering machine should have picked up by now… Then the line opened.
“Yeah?” The voice was clearly Zorlond’s, but it sounded rougher and fairly unhappy about something.
“Um, Hi, Zorlond,” Dabbler said. “It’s me, Dabbler. I just received your stone at my…”
“Y’ know how many p’ple I’s screwed since I got here?” Zorlond’s interruption was sudden and slurred.
“… ‘Scuse me?” Really, what else could have been said in response to that?
“Keep tryin’ t’ remember. Whole planehss, hole fam’lys…” There was the sound of hasty gulping, followed by a loud belch. “’m sure they keep track o’ it somewhares, right? Keepn’ track of how many lives I’f fuckin’ RUINED!” The sound of glass shattering, as of a bottle thrown hard against a wall. “Id’s all the shame, ya knows? Line b’gins, line ends… Where’s the line? G’tta be ‘round somewhares… *burp* It’sh easy for yous. Line’s’s there. Dun’t go nowhere. That’sh yours, thish mine. Where’s the line? Where’s the damn line?” It sounded a bit like he was sobbing now. Not having any answers (and not sure of the question), Dabbler just didn’t say anything. Eventually, Zorlond started up again. “Line’s the thing, line’s the thin’, here da line, dere da line, everywhere a line-line… No line. No damn line. He wan’, I wan’, and all screwed. No line, no blame, all FAULT…” There was loud banging now, as of flesh hitting something structural, a door jamb maybe. “Never hurt, never hurt!” Continued banging. “Says ‘blame –him-, blame –him-‘. NO LINE!” The banging stopped. “An’ they say ‘you big man, you good, you get big chair.’ All screwed… SCREWED!” One last bang, this one being cut off mid-way by a brief whine of feedback, and then dead silence.
Dabbler just sat there in quiet, until he heard Operator speak up. “Um… that phone appears to be out of service, now…”
“You heard all that?” Dabbler asked.
“It was kinda hard to ignore…” Operator sounded properly contrite, at least. “You have any idea what that was all about?”
“Not entirely… Thanks, Op.” With that, Dabbler hung up. Looking over to Gidget, he simply said “Zorlond has gone bye-bye...”
Sun Aug 15 18:25:50 2004
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