and i see

Whenever she gets nervous and scared she goes to the phone.  She stands with the receiver to her ear and stares at her own eyes in the mirror.  She waits listening to the dial tone and thinks wobbling science fiction thoughts.  The dial tone buzzes and drones in her mind while she ponders the brandishing of laser swords and how spaceships always seem to meet nose to nose as though outer space is actually a two-dimensional plane.  The light shines in through the window like a little Hawaii beach lamp and she holds the phone and waits.  She’s feeling a bit less nervous already, a bit more confident, a bit more assured that life will continue with the steady pace and calm of a Japanese movement wristwatch.  She sees herself sigh in the mirror and waits.

After some time the voice comes through the receiver, politely giving her instructions about what to do with a phone displaced from the receiver for such an extended period of time.  She listens, feeling the world fall back into place.  Feeling herself settle like a coin on the ground. She waits until the voice is finished speaking.  She hangs up the phone.

She will confirm to anyone that there’s no sound in the world, in the expanse of space-time, or in the vastness of the universe, quite like your own mother’s voice.