Time and Age and Distance

There's never enough time. 

Or maybe there's just too much of it, Cal thought, legs drawn to his chest, bare feet curling in the carpet. He fixed his eyes on the television, but his ears strained to listen in on the conversation behind him, the distant words crackling through the speaker, the low rumble of his father's reply. He picked absently at a rough strand of carpet fluff, twirling it between his fingers. Cal belatedly realized that the man on screen was frozen and had been so for some time.

Guiltily, he whirled around to look up at his father, who held the telephone loosely in one hand, the other setting the television remote down beside him.

Cal had come to appreciate these nightly telephone calls, the only connection he had across fifteen time zones to a dim memory of heritage. The words coming through the speaker were not reassuring, though. There were sad words and quiet words. Regretful words. Hospital words.

Cal tried not to remember hearing his mother screaming.

He turned back to the television and the sleeping dog that lay curled up in front of the subwoofer. The carpet fluff continued to unravel in his hand.

The words finally reached a lull, and Cal turned around again, unconsciously rising into a crouch. He reached out and took the phone from his father, pitching some happiness into his voice as the distance briefly disappeared, and he pretended he was still a child clutching his mother's hand on the subway before time and age and distance had come to take it all away.

He forced himself to laugh, high and breathy. He told stories about school and cooking and accidentally setting things on fire. And when he handed the phone back to his father, he meant it when he said, "I love you."

It had taken nineteen years.

The carpet fibers slipped through his fingers and fell, shapeless, back to the earth.