The Telephone Rings.

The telephone rings.

You pick it up. "Hello!" No answer. "Hello?" No answer. You shrug and hang up.

The telephone rings.

You pause. It rings again. You pause, shrug, then pick it up. "Hello." No answer. "Hello." No answer. You look at the telephone, making sure you are talking and listening at the right ends.

The telephone rings.

You jump back. You had not hung the phone back up, and yet it is still ringing. You press up and down on the two little white things that make the telephone hang up. You hang up the phone.

The telephone rings.

God damn telephone company can't do anything right, you think. The rings are starting to get annoying, and you have work to do, so you unplug the telephone from the wall. You'll call the telephone company from work tomorrow and have them send out a repairman.

The telephone rings.

This really startles you. Then you realize it's coming from the upstairs phone, so you walk upstairs and unplug that one as well. There. No more phones, no more rings.

The telephone rings.

Now you are getting really annoyed. Where the hell can that be coming from? You have never been really good at identifying the direction a sound is coming from; must have gone to too many heavy metal concerts back when you were a teenager.

The telephone rings.

The neighbors. It must be coming from the neighbors. Old Mr. Sugarman must have his phone turned way up -- and his hearing aid turned way down, you think with a smirk.

The telephone rings.

You wonder if you should go over there and see if he's ok. You haven't talked to him in quite a while; it would be right neighborly to go and give the lonely old man a visit. Besides, you could ask him to turn that god damn telephone down.

The telephone rings.

You walk outside. There are hundreds, hundreds of people, your neighbors and friends, running about as if mad, with their hands over their ears, yelling for the telephone to stop ringing. But you can't hear them. All you can hear is the telephone.

The telephone never stops ringing.