Sketches

sketch 2: P

My other roommate, P, has a Mother who calls at least five times a day: once in the morning – to check if she’s awake, twice at in the afternoon – before and during lunch; once more after she finishes her classes, and a final time before bed – to bid her a goodnight and make sure she hasn’t died.

The special ringtone she has reserved just for her mom features a weird uppity dance number with a female and a male wailing some indefinable lyrics back and forth at each other; the two verses (and the only two verses) in the song are identical, just with an octave’s difference to distinguish between the genders. And like all ringtones, if the phone wasn’t picked up before the song’s complete run-through it would loop back to repeat itself, which is often the case, and long after she’d pick up the phone the song would waltze through my brain for hours, mocking my sanity.

After she answered the phone she would converse with her mother in the same enthused manner as she was talked to in return, and even with her bedroom door and mine closed I could clearly hear her gradual rising in pitch, so that toward the end everything that comes out of her mouth resembled a string of rapid firing bullets supplied by endless amount of ammunition, which lead me to believe that if she had put the phone on speaker the reply would echo back in a similar volume and tone, perhaps with even more grandeur results.

I usually end up eavesdropping on her one-sided conversation, willing or unwilling, and got as much information out of it as if I hadn’t listened – she's not speaking English. This, however, had never kept me from my trials: I would make up stories, guide her through conflicts, help her leap over hurdles, ceaselessly cheering her on. And when all’s done and manages to mesh back into peace and organization (when she ends her call), I would imagine sitting back and giving her a firm hand shake with a sincere congratulation “well done, mate.”, and fall back into contemplation.

“Was I too loud?” She asked once after a particularity heated call.

“Was what too loud?” I played dumb. In the call she had told her Mother that she spend eight hours meticulously modeling a rose sculpture out of clay (she always considered herself an artiste) under the warm, September sunshine, and then all of a sudden an usually enormous Yellow-bellied Sapsucker had to swoop over and dump a load on it. 

“Well, I mean, sometimes I don’t really notice, but my voice must have been loud – it’s just that whenever I talk to my mom my anxiety level just goes WHAM!” she made a face.

“Nah, that’s fine, I barely heard it.” I smiled back in reassurance.

In her call she had to complain how the bird has contributed a touch to her masterpiece, and how I had laughed cheerfully and hysterically under the warm, September sun.