Castles in the Sand (Stephen Colbert)

Chapter 9

It was Sunday evening and I had done my best to unsuccessfully distract myself from thoughts of Stephen. It had been the longest weekend ever once he'd left, but not in the least enjoyable. My students would be happy though, well most of them, ignoring my thoughts meant I finished grading every assignment for all of my classes. I had been promising to hand them back for more than a week. My message tone startled me from the bored trance I was in as I browsed websites. I didn't have any friends so it was either Stephen, or I'd been handing my number out to strangers on Friday, a definite possibility.

Is this Lana? Just testing out the thing

on the paper. Last time a woman gave

me her number I discovered I'd

texted many regrettable things to a

gentleman named Brad.

And a few seconds later..

This is Stephen.

I giggled and immediately saved him in my phone. I had my concerns about the whole thing we were doing, but I couldn't deny the excitement I felt when I saw it was him.

This isn't Brad, but I do know him

actually. I am pretty sure his is the

official decoy number for the state. The

amount of dick pics that man must get.

Truly a hero.

After a couple of minutes I received a reply.

One message in and already dick is

being thrown around like confetti.

Shameful. Have you no empathy for

what was a traumatizing experience?

I laughed again, reading the message as I relocated from my desk to the comfort of bed. I could imagine the exact dramatic way he would have delivered that line in person.

It was callous, I apologize. Let's talk

about something else.

How was the rest of your weekend? :)

He took a longer time to respond to that message, I began to worry I'd offended him.

That's hardly a better topic.

My anxiety overwhelmed me and I remembered how much I hated texting. It was bad enough for me interacting with people face to face, when all of their non-verbal language was visible, but this was some kind of torture. I was about to reply when another message came through.

Tell me about yours instead.