The telephone rang while he was in the shower. He was surprised almost shocked at its ringing. A sound so unfamiliar to his ears. Its shrill repetitive vibration sent little shock waves down his spine. He turned off the water, just to make sure that he wasn't dreaming and it was indeed the telephone in his apartment living room that was sending sound waves into his ears and causing signals to be shot through to his brain. He shivered. Both from the cold and from the strangeness of the event. He had never in the 7 years of residing in this apartment ever received a phone call. He knew no one in this town. And no one knew that he was here. He had long took it for granted that the telephone was a mere decorative part of a living room. It gave the place a certain normality. The fact that it never rang never bothered him. He took it for granted.

Now that it was ringing, he went into a litle shock and stood numb and naked in the shower. He was merely listening to it. To the almost shouting, nagging tone of a ring. To its urgency. To its echo in the quiet house. Its every ring sounded like a lunatic screaming. He hesitantly wrapped a towel around himself, creeped cautiously into the dark living room. He was about the lift up the receiver, when the ringing stopped abruptly.

He was still disturbed the next day at work. He kept asking himself how could anyone know his phone number since he gave it to no one. Nor did he know his own number. He wondered if it could have been a mistake. Someone who had dialled a wrong number. Mistaken an 8 for a 9. Or perhaps pressed a wrong number. These things happened, he assured himself and tried to concentrate on his work. As the day passed, he became calmer. And by the time he knocked off, he was back to his usual self. the calm, composed, orderly him which he had grown so fond off.

As it was his routine everyday for the past 7 years. He dined alone in his empty apartment every night at 7.30 pm sharp. He then read a bit of the evening paper and listened to a bit of radio. Oldies. Nothing loud and stimulating for him, he always preferred the familar and soothing. At 9 he goes to the shower and is in bed by 10. And as usual, he is in shower again at 9. The evening had gotten on fine, nothing unusual. But just when he was about to turn off the shower. He heard it again. The unmistakable scream of the telephone. It once again made the hairs on the back of his hair stand. Shock and disbelieve. The call had to be for him, the chances of the caller making the mistake a second time just seemed improbable. And the fact that the caller called again at exactly the same time was simply too great a coincidence. The nagging discomfort that followed him during the day now turned to a fear that immobilized him. He waited for the ringing to stop and his headache to subside before he left the bathroom shaking. He locked every window and checked that his door was bolted before he went to bed. He spent the night listening to all the little night sounds a house makes. Creaks and thuds when the world was quiet, as if the house had a life on its own during these abandoned hours of the night.

His life had been calm so far. He preferred the tried. The new and the different scared him. He remembered how his father had tried to teach him to cycle when he was very young, but he had fallen and broken his legs and were in bed for 6 months. And the time when he was forced to take up swimming lessons and nearly drowned. Every attempt at anything new had always turned into disasters. He believed in this rule in his life. It made him a timid man. But as he aged, his insecurities turned into fears. Often irrational ones. His once timidness now became a kind of fear which gripped him and made him a very frightened man.

When he heard the telephone the next night, he once again froze in fear. He had thought of a million possible theories on who the caller might be. Or how a rather bizarre twist of fate could have caused the string of calls always at approximately the same time to occur. He had thought that this could in fact be an explainable phenomenon. But his fears always got the better of him, he imagined a crazed stalker or a psychopath marking him as the next target. Or even a supernatural being which is looking for a soul to steal. He even wondered if he was going crazy. He tried rationalizing but his mind kept pushing him towards strange improbable fears.

For nights, the calls kept coming. Always at approximately 9pm. He now expected these strange calls, but he could never summon up the courage to just pick up the call. For fear that his worries might come true. If he picked it up maybe the killer would strike there and then. Maybe if he ignored these calls they would eventually go away. Several times, he sat by the phone until the ringing stopped. But even as his fears kept mounting, his curiousity grew. But always, his fears triumphed.

But as the weeks passed, he grew more and more curious. Even his fear could not suppress this new sensation of wanting just to find out. He felt that he would die if he did not eventually find out the explanation for this strange event every evening at 9. He still shook when the phone ring, but with every call, he was drawn closer to picking up the phone.

Finally, one Wednesday night. He gathered enough curiousity to pick up the bizarre phone call. With a deep, resolute sigh, he took up the receiver in one swipe. Spoke a rather nervous "Hello?" into the phone. He held his breath, and from the other side came the mechanical voice of a programmed advertisement designed such that unless the caller picks it up, it would automatically call the same number until it is eventually answered. He heard the whole of the advertisement. Something about credit cards. He trembled and let the phone slip out of his hand. When it was all over, he felt a weird tingle followed by a slight rumble in his belly. He then felt a new sensation rising in him. One that he had not felt in a long time. He laughed. All those fears from the years came breaking out, like monstrous chains that were being lifted far into the air by brightly coloured balloons. Before he fell asleep that night, he thought of how he would learn to cycle again tomorrow night. And in his dreams he rode on a star bicycle into the night sky.