About The Phone Call
There is a story behind every story. Here is the story behind this one, though there isn't that much to it. In early November, 2013, I attended my first meeting of a writers group in the hometown I had recently returned to after 30 years living away. The assignment (voluntary) provided for the next meeting as an impetus for getting the creative energies to flow was to write about anything "seasonal" (meaning the general time around the traditional Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday period, which of course on the calendar means something roughly from mid-November to early January, and which in the Twilight Zone of retail stores means approximately July to the next May).
I wondered if I would write anything. I wanted to. I needed to. But that sometimes doesn't mean much, especially if one is distracted by a recent heart-break, caught in the Fun House of Crazy Mirrors that has been my search for employment in my new-old hometown, and wondering how come when Dorothy left Kansas she ended up in OZ and when I left Kansas I ended up here (and where the hell are my ruby slippers anyway, cuz I sure have wanted to go back a few times).
Distractions aside, one night while driving from one side of town to the other, on a lonely ribbon of country road (beautiful Haywood Valley Road in Floyd County, Georgia, to be precise), suddenly this split-second image flashed through my mind of this grizzled older man catching a glimpse of himself in a bathroom mirror. Then he started talking to the man in the mirror (himself? me?) and he basically hasn't shut up since. One result of that beginning is this short scene - not really a story yet, even though I like these characters enough, and know enough of the backstory to easily see them populating other scenes or stories at some point. I'd like to know what you think, of course.
If you end up liking this, and are interested, you are also welcome to read a story I wrote in January, 2013, shortly after my grandmother ("Nanny") passed away, called "The Visit".
I hope you enjoy "The Phone Call". Love and peace to all who may one day read these words.
Allan Mills
Rome, Georgia
December 11, 2013
I wondered if I would write anything. I wanted to. I needed to. But that sometimes doesn't mean much, especially if one is distracted by a recent heart-break, caught in the Fun House of Crazy Mirrors that has been my search for employment in my new-old hometown, and wondering how come when Dorothy left Kansas she ended up in OZ and when I left Kansas I ended up here (and where the hell are my ruby slippers anyway, cuz I sure have wanted to go back a few times).
Distractions aside, one night while driving from one side of town to the other, on a lonely ribbon of country road (beautiful Haywood Valley Road in Floyd County, Georgia, to be precise), suddenly this split-second image flashed through my mind of this grizzled older man catching a glimpse of himself in a bathroom mirror. Then he started talking to the man in the mirror (himself? me?) and he basically hasn't shut up since. One result of that beginning is this short scene - not really a story yet, even though I like these characters enough, and know enough of the backstory to easily see them populating other scenes or stories at some point. I'd like to know what you think, of course.
If you end up liking this, and are interested, you are also welcome to read a story I wrote in January, 2013, shortly after my grandmother ("Nanny") passed away, called "The Visit".
I hope you enjoy "The Phone Call". Love and peace to all who may one day read these words.
Allan Mills
Rome, Georgia
December 11, 2013