A Call From Beyond

© 2002 Richard Dysinger
All rights reserved.

"My mother called me two days ago."

"Okay."

"There's one problem."

"And what is that, Paul?"

"My mother's dead. Fifteen years this June."

For his part, Dr. Wilson takes the news as well as one could expect, given the outrageousness of my statement. At three hundred dollars an hour he should take the news fairly well even from a new patient such as me.

"Why don't we talk about that, Paul?"

His inner office, where patients enter on the hour every hour to lay down upon his exquisite leather couch, is a shrine to the surreal. Rembrandt prints hang from two of the four walls, a massive misshapen bookshelf dominates the third, and ornate windows redirecting beams of light from the sun make up the final enclosure. The mahogany of his desk shines brilliantly beneath the onslaught of sunrays, making it difficult to read his eyes from my prone position atop his Freudian throwback. Despite my temporary blindness, I envision the three-piece suit, the gold-tinged reading glasses in his right front breast pocket, and the Rolex I could never afford. Three hundred dollars goes a long way.

"What can I say?"

"Why don't we start with your mother?"

A classic Freud disciple, down to the leather whip concealed in his bottom right-hand drawer. I read him like a worn book and I assume the relationship flows reciprocally.

"She's dead."

"You already mentioned that, Paul."

"I thought it might be important, considering she gave me a ring last night."

A long dramatic pause. I can hear the scratching of his pen across what I presume is my new file. An inexpensive timer made of plastic parts molded in a foreign country ticks away our time together with the indifference only a machine can muster.

"When you say she gave you a call, did you mean that literally?"

"Down to the annoying chirp my phone makes every time it rings."

"Are you sure it wasn't a dream?"

"Positive."

"Sometimes a dream may seem real. Sometimes it is difficult to discern the difference between a dream and reality."

"Whatever you say, Doc, but I'm pretty sure I was awake."

"Doctor Wilson, or just plain Doctor, please."

"Sorry."

The flow of his pen across my file tells me that he doesn't believe me. I don't blame him. It's not often a person claims to have received a telephone call from a dead relative. Yet, I can still hear her voice, the Spanish accent heavy and slurred as if she had been drinking; the hard R's and sweet vowels that made up her all too unique speech. My mind conjures up an image of decomposed lips struggling to intone my name, flesh rotten and foul as it disintegrates with each syllable. The shiver crawling up my back releases the captive goosebumps from their imprisonment beneath my skin.

"Are you cold?"

"I'm fine, Doc. Sorry ... I'm fine, Doctor Wilson."

"What did you speak about?"

"With my mom, you mean?"

"Yes."

"I didn't really say much back. I was a little out of it."

"Naturally."

"She scared me, you know."

"No, I don't. Please explain."

The shifting of the sun has advanced the shadows in his office, darkness overtaking the light with each passing second. I envision a giant black maw swallowing the world inch by inch until nothing but darkness remains. It is a sickening black maw from which dead things emerge to crawl and slither about beneath the bliss of an absent sun. Somewhere within its vile crevices resides my mother, my flesh and blood, the womb from which I was born.

"It was seven, seven-thirty or close to that. I finished with dinner and was, uh, washing the dishes in the sink. The game was on, I remember that. The Raiders were up by a touchdown."

"Were you alone?"

"Never married, no kids."

His pen shifts into overdrive, the ballpoint rolling at hyper-speed as he jots notes down, his psychoanalytical mind driving to uncover my weaknesses, my faults. I listen to the sound of his movements, to the ticking of the timer as my mind fights the urge to hear her voice again.

"Go on, Paul."

"I finished up and was getting ready for bed."

"At seven thirty in the evening?"

"I work early. Anyway, I was brushing my teeth when I heard the phone. I screen my calls, so I let it go to the recorder. At first I though the caller had hung up, so I finished up in the bathroom before I checked the message."

I pause here, unable to continue; my mind painting the imagery of the moment with such clarity that the sharp taste of toothpaste infiltrates my mouth. The television is still flashing with the highlights of a defensive touchdown and the celebration that ensues. The announcer's voice rolls outward with heavy R's and sweet vowels that sound frighteningly familiar.

"Please go on, Paul. We don't have much time."

"Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah, I went to check the message and at first I thought the machine was broke."

"Why?"

"Because when I pressed the play button nothing happened. Usually it starts to rewind and then beeps a couple of times, but when I pressed it, nada, nothing."

"Okay."

"Then I realized it was still recording. Usually it stops after maybe a half-minute or so, but it was still recording. So I picked up."

The thirsting shadows drape themselves about Doctor Wilson's shoulders like some bizarre garment, seductive tendrils lengthening about his pulsing neck, coils tightening with each lost second as night begins its ascent. The shadows have yet to reach me, but they sense my presence and grope for me with cold fingertips.

"So I picked up the phone, thinking that it was broken or maybe some kids were playing a prank. Only, when I put the receiver to my ear, I couldn't hear anything. It was a dead silence with just a bit of background static. It sounded familiar, you know. I kept listening for about a minute and was ready to hang up when it hit me. The sound in the background, it was breathing. Light breathing."

"Breathing?"

"Yeah, like a prank, but not."

"Did you ask who was there?"

"About a dozen times at least."

"And?"

"Nothing. I hung up and went to bed."

The doctor looks relieved, his pen busy and his mind likewise. His smile shines cold and dead, the grin of an academic who has seen and heard it all. He likens me to some of the real crazies he treats with Thorazine and other pharmaceutical goodies, but I don't mind. Perhaps I am one.

"And you believe it was your dead mother?"

"I know it was, Doctor."

"How is that, Paul?"

"She called back and told me so."

My words throw him for a loop; those insignificant syllables have shaken this Ivy League therapist. He regains his composure immediately, pen pausing only briefly before resuming its relentless march back and forth across my file. He doesn't even notice the shadows as the darkness envelops his office. He fails to smell the decay of the oncoming specter of death. I pity him almost as much as I do myself.

"Your mother called you again?"

"Two hours later. I was asleep, so I let it go to the recorder again."

"More breathing."

"Bingo, Doc.

"Doctor Wilson, please. How did you know it was your mother?"

"After that second call, there was another and another. Every ten minutes it rang, even when I picked it up and started yelling."

"Was it breathing?"

"At first; then it changed."

"How?"

The chill in my bones explodes as the first shadow reaches the toe of my work boot. I withdraw the limb, terrified that the darkness has tasted my flesh and relishes its flavor as the worms delighted in my mother's.

"After about the third call I began to hear more than the breathing. Crying, but very faint crying, like my mom used to do when she thought I was asleep and after my dad had been drinking."

"Any words?"

"Not at first. Just crying and more breathing."

"Is it possible that you imagined the sounds, that you mistook static for something else?"

"No."

"Have you given your mother much thought as of late? You know, maybe her birthday recently passed or maybe you watched a movie about a mother and son?"

The logical portion of his trained mind attempts to reassert control, the analytical gears in his skull grinding away in search of a classic case of transference or schizophrenia. So busy with his efforts to undermine my tale, he fails to sense the presence behind him. The shadows have taken control of the room, their malevolent posturing increasing as the sun slides downward below the horizon. Their odor is overpowering as it assaults my nostrils with its reek of rot and decay. All the while the timer ticks away my time.

"Is something wrong, Paul?"

"It's nothing."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Oh, sorry. I guess you could say so."

"Be more specific, Paul."

The arrogance I envision within his words, the smug demeanor I chalk up to an educated mind and the polished shine of his desktop, evaporates as we lock gazes. His eyes betray more than intended. I sense a kinship, a linkage of sorts, and it fuels my words.

"Do you love your mother, Doctor?"

"My life is not the topic of discussion, Paul. Let's keep the focus on you."

"She's dead, isn't she?"

"Who?"

"Your mother. I can tell. You have that look."

"Again, Paul, this session is geared toward your life, not mine. Stay on the topic, please."

"Do you miss her?"

"Please, Paul. Stay focused."

"I know you do, Doctor. I can tell by your eyes. They look like mine, I imagine."

"Answer my question, please."

"Okay, you ask me if I've given my mother much thought as of late and I say I haven't cleared my mind of her in the last fifteen years."

"Why does she stay in your thoughts?"

"I did wrong by her. By my own mother, I did wrong."

"Have you always felt this guilt?"

"It's gotten worse recently."

"Any particular reason?"

My return trip to her final resting spot after a self-imposed exile flashes quicksilver through my thoughts. I yearn to talk about the cemetery, the simple plot and plastic flowers paid for by a credit card, but I can't.

"It doesn't matter."

He arches a perfectly tailored eyebrow, his face suddenly asymmetrical, like the bizarre painting on the wall.

"What else happened that night?"

"Well, after about the tenth call or so, I just unplugged the phone and went to sleep. Out of sight, out of mind and all that."

"So it stopped."

I know he doesn't believe me. I can see it in the set of his body. Arms resting on the desk, pen held tight in one hand while the other remains open, and the cock of his head like a quizzical animal encountering a foreign scent. I am that unknown scent, the freakish individual who hears the voices of dead people, although, in all fairness, I have heard only one in my lifetime. My mother speaking to me from the arms of lady death with no one else save her. One is more than enough.

"No, it didn't stop. A few hours later it rang again."

"But you said the telephone was unplugged, Paul."

"It was."

"That's not possible."

"She spoke to me this time. Just a few words."

Her phantom voice ricochets through my mind, sweetness evaporating with each utterance until it has become a macabre roar overwhelming all thought.

"What did she say to you?"

"She told me how cold it was. How cold the earth was."

"Cold."

"She's cold, Doc. It's dark and she's freezing down there."

He fails to correct me. The chill in my body has entered the room with stunning force, frosting the windows with its frigid touch. The mad paintings of a madman known as Rembrandt unleash sick grins of jagged teeth, the blood along the uneven fangs dripping a swirl of red hues. I look away from them and back to my doctor, who is sucking the end of his pen. A nasty habit, one he tries to hide from his patients, afraid they'll think him stuck in the oral stage of Freudian psychosexual development. He is oblivious to the reaper among us; he is blind to the looming maternal presence.

"She's crying for me, Doc. She says she's cold and she blames me. I never should have buried her in the cold ground."

"Did you bury her?"

"I did. The money was right ... at the time, at least."

"Your mother requested something different?"

"Cremation. Ashes spread over the missions."

"You did otherwise?"

"I did."

"Do you feel remorse or shame?"

I nod my head yes, my voice strangled into submission by an unseen force acting within my chest cavity.

"Often, when we feel prolonged guilt we suffer from seemingly real manifestations of that very same guilt. It's absolutely normal."

I shake my head no but he continues. So blinded is he by his presumption of greater intelligence that he ignores my words.

"Do you understand what I'm telling you, Paul?"

"I can still hear her voice, Doctor, and when I can't she calls to remind me. Sometimes it's just breathing and sometimes she recites prayers, but mostly she cries and tells me how cold it is in the ground. I'm afraid, Doctor. The cold terrifies me."

The ticking of the timer on his desk nears its end, the small handle bustling along, ignorant to the world in which it dictates. Time controls us all with its ambivalent passing of seconds, minutes, and hours. Like the desk clock, time ticks away our life until we, too, know the pain of the cold ground.

"I know it's hard to swallow, Doctor."

"That it is, Paul."

"You don't believe me."

The timer sounds off like a gunshot, the beep an electronic wail from the other side. The doctor is already checking his watch, my file shut. I wonder how long it has been closed. I am a lost cause to him, a paycheck infected by a mental malady that screams a new Rolex on his wrist. The hour has passed, our time is over.

"Same time next week sound good, Paul? I look forward to working with you; and don't worry, your problems are natural and we'll uncover the truth in no time."

He reaches a hand across the expanse of his hand-polished desk, his nails manicured and light in my own work-hardened digits. The ringing of his phone is so unexpected that he flinches and draws away from me, the connection of our hands broken. We stare at the black box together, my heart saddened for him. He casts a feeble smile in my direction before reaching out to the plastic receiver. My hand stops him from lifting it free of the cradle. I understand now.

"You buried her too, didn't you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your mother ... you buried her."

"That is none of your business."

"She's cold, Doc. It's the cold that pains them and haunts us. Your mother, she just wants you to know how cold it will be when your timers run out."

"That's enough, Paul. I'll see you next week."

As I move to close the door behind me, I hear his anguished cry and see the shadows wrapping themselves about his form. He has the phone next to his ear, the color draining from his face as the dead call out to him from beyond. So I leave him to his nightmare, and I dare not think of the terror he will find once he extinguishes the light and the impenetrable darkness settles about his body like the cold ground.

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