He slowly picked up the phone, and even before he heard the voice, he knew exactly who it was. He’d gotten too used to the familiar breathing of the person on the other end of the phone. Sweat seeped through his skin, and his hands felt clammy and cold. His heart had begun beating paradiddles; the thumps felt so loudly erratic, he thought his neighbours could hear them from next door.
“Hello?” he croaked, his throat feeling like sandpaper.
“You’ve missed me, eh?” came the haunting voice Mark knew all too well.
“What more do you want from me?” Mark said.
“Well, I’ve missed you too much, you are my favourite, I simply had to call you,” the voice replied with an alacrity Mark hated. Why does he always have to sound so excited and cheery?
“It’s been months!” the voice went on. “Months of no contact. And you played your part so well last time, eh? Do you remember?” the voice cooed.
Mark remembered it like it was yesterday. The rank odour of the Bagmati River when he went to dispose of the body, the chill of the gushing waters, and the quietness of the night—he remembered it all.
The first night he’d taken a life, Mark had lucubrated until dawn, scribbling his fierce thoughts down into his diary about the adrenaline rush, the guilt, the pity, and the satisfaction. It was a middle-aged man, portly looking, who didn’t keep up a fight. In his daze, Mark had limned the face of the man in his diary, sketching every wrinkle and crevice of his face as he remembered it when he took his life. It was the start of an obsession. But Mark had felt that this was his awakening, his purpose in life.
The voice would guide him throughout the journey, each time in a tone that was so compulsive yet so confident that Mark would have no time to ratiocinate and separate the caller’s wants from his own. He did not have to reason, he did not have to think, only follow the demands.
So, he did. Every month for one entire year.
The voice was never too finical about the target to kill anyway, it was easy to please. Just any passerby would do. It was going fine until the caller started making atrocious demands.
He demanded one day that Mark take the life of someone he loved. Hesitance had shrouded his mind. ‘Someone he loved’ was too close to his heart. Disturbed at the absurdity of the demand, Mark denied. But the voice called on him again.
“You have already dug a hole that’s too deep. I will tell on you. You don’t think the law will forgive your crimes, do you now? Your case won’t be tenable, no lawyer will be able to defend what you did. Imagine the indemnities you’ll have to pay all the families as compensation for your crimes— you’ll drown in debt and imprisonment! You want to do that, eh?” The voice said.
Mark pulled the telephone cord and silently swore to never pick up the receiver ever again. Harrowingly, the voice’s persistence didn’t die out.
A chill would pierce Mark’s chest when the shrill telephone rang loudly in the night, demanding that he kill. The ring was engraved in Mark’s mind, and it would haunt him during his morning coffee and his dreams when he slept at night.
Mark’s restlessness grew every day. He feared he was going insane.
Then, one night, he found himself standing at the edge of the Bagmati, cradling his dear brother’s limp body. He watched him float away as sour guilt and regret filled his mouth and came pouring out.
Then the caller stopped calling altogether, until today.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” Mark spat out into the phone again.
Silence.
“It’s time you die, Mark,” the voice whispered.
But Mark noticed now that the caller’s voice sounded eerily like his. How hadn’t he noticed that? Was this his own insanity? Was the caller even real, or was he made up? Mark couldn’t be so sure.
The police found Mark hanging from his ceiling fan the next morning.
In his final note, scrawled in a frenzied hand, were just 3 brief sentences:
“I have done as you commanded. Leave me alone. Please.”
– Smaranika Shakya//18th Apr, 2025
