The Found Phone

My repro­duc­tion 1980’s dig­i­tal wrist-watch counts its way towards 5pm, and clos­ing time.

I watch the watch.

‘16:34:46‘

‘16:34:47‘

‘16:34:48‘

The soon­er it gets there the soon­er I can leave. The soon­er I can leave the soon­er I can for­get all about my work and all my oblig­a­tions to oth­er peo­ple.

I already have a list in mind of what to do with my time this evening. Noth­ing excit­ing, go to the gym (maybe), do the super­mar­ket shop­ping (def­i­nite­ly), have din­ner, play some com­put­er games, watch some TV. The life of a mid­dle-aged bach­e­lor.

‘16:35:11‘

Time to start clos­ing up the office. I make my way around the office, clos­ing the blinds and turn­ing of the equip­ment. At the front counter the only oth­er staff still on duty are pack­ing up their bags.

I wish them both a good night and lock the door behind them as they leave. With every­one else gone and the office locked up there was no real rea­son for my to actu­al­ly stay until 5pm. Ear­ly mark for a change.

‘16:38:00‘

Some­thing out of the cor­ner of my eye does­n’t look right, I glance from the wrist­watch to the ugly blue chair in the office vestibule.

The chair was always ugly, and always blue, nei­ther detail had caught my atten­tion, but only high­light­ed the thing that should not have been there. Sit­ting on the seat cush­ion of the ugly blue chair was a small grey rec­tan­gle that was just the right size and shape to be an iPhone.

Despite my own iPhone not look­ing like that I pat my trousers pock­et to dou­ble check my phone is still there. It is.

I reach down and pick up the lost phone and turn it over in my hand slow­ly. Cur­rent mod­el. In a grey leather Pra­da case. Expen­sive and showy.

It does­n’t belong to any of the staff, I know what their phones are, and this isn’t it. That could only mean that a cus­tomer must have left it behind. And now, because I found it, it was my prob­lem.

I walk back to my desk and set the phone down next to my key­board. A quick flick through the phones set­ting and address book sug­gests that the phone’s own­er is some­one called ‘Pam’. But she has no oth­er list­ed con­tact num­ber.

Not yet ready to start call­ing ran­dom peo­ple in the phones address book, the only course of action is to wait and hope the own­er re-traces her steps, or calls.

Great. That means if it rings I’ll have to answer it. How does one answer a phone that isn’t there’s?

So much for leav­ing ear­ly today.

‘16:40:01‘

I recheck my emails and the local news web­sites, killing time in the hope that the own­er of the phone will call.

The phone rings, play­ing a pop song I do not know.

I press the green ‘answer call’ but­ton as I lift the phone to my ear.

“Hel­lo?”

“Hi, can I talk to Pam?” asks a female voice.

“She’s not here, I found her phone, but don’t know how to get in touch with her and tell her.” I reply.

There is a pause.

“Okay, I’ll try call­ing one of her friends and let­ting her know.”

She asks me where I work and I realise I’m going to have to stay around until clos­ing time now, just incase the mys­te­ri­ous Pam shows up to col­lect her phone.

‘16:44:47‘

That did not help. More wait­ing. More killing time.

‘16:51:11‘

The phone rings again. I answer it, again.

“Hel­lo?”

“Who’s this? Can I talk to Pam?” asks a male voice.

“I’m Simon, I found this phone, I think Pam must have left it behind in my office.”

“Simon? Where do you work? What was Pam doing there?”

Use­less ques­tions. How­ev­er this guy is, I don’t like him already. Why would he ask that sort of stuff? Know­ing how and why the phone end­ed up in my office won’t help me get it back to its own­er.

“Er, I don’t know. I just found it.”

He paus­es again.

“I’m her boyfriend, Ted. Pam does­n’t have a land­line.” He tells me. At least this is par­tial­ly rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion. “Can you hold onto the phone so I can get it off you? When do you close?”

“In 10 min­utes, I’m in New­town, where are you?”

“Can­ber­ra.” He replies. Not close, not even in the same city. “I’ll be in Syd­ney in about 45 min­utes. Can I come get it off you then?”

Oh crap. Now what do I do. Stay at work an extra hour just to hand some blonde bim­bo’s phone back to her boo?

He picks up on my hes­i­ta­tion. “It’s real­ly impor­tant. Where will you be in 45 min­utes?”

Shop­ping for din­ner at the local super­mar­ket? Images of try­ing to arrange a clan­des­tine meet­ing with a strange guy in the mid­dle of an under­ground super­mar­ket flash through my mind.

“Home I guess, Kings Cross.”

“Can call you when I’m near by and come by and get it?” He made it sound like it was­n’t a ques­tion.

It occurs to me that I have no idea who this guy real­ly is. Is he Pam’s boyfriend? Should I trust him and give him the phone? I don’t even know what he looks like. I don’t know what Pam looks like either. His name did come up on the screen with caller ID when the phone rang. He at least is some­one she knows.

I must have tak­en too long to answer again. “Come on mate, its impor­tant, you just go about what ever you were going to do and I’ll come to you.”

“Sure I guess.” I find myself say­ing.

“Okay, see you soon.”

“Okay, um, bye.”

The line goes dead and I look at the phone won­der­ing what the hell I’ve got­ten myself into now.

With a fool­hardy plan in place there is no more point in my hang­ing around the office. I grab my shoul­der bag, put the fond phone in and leave, lock­ing the office door behind me.

‘16:57:54‘

As I walk to the train sta­tion I reach into my bag and set Pam’s phone to silent. Plans have been made. I don’t need to answer any more calls and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that ring tone go off again while I’m on the train.

‘17:09:19‘

The train ride home is a lit­tle behind sched­ule and I hear the phone buzz a few times in my bag, but ignore it, what could I say any­way? “Hi, I’m on a train with Pam’s phone, I found it and thought it would be good to take it home with me.” No, just let the go to her voice mail, she can sort all that shit out lat­er.

‘17:36:50‘

As I walk down my street I look at the phone screen and see that there is a missed call from the boyfriend, Ted. I should call him back. I wait until I get inside my front door so I can at least have the con­ver­sa­tion in priv­et.

I ring him.

“Hi Ted here.” Guess he does­n’t use caller ID.

“Hi Ted, its Simon, with Pam’s phone. I just got home.”

“Oh, right, I was just in your area, I’m at Edge Cliff now, can be back your way in a few min­utes. Where abouts are you?”

I give him my address and try not to think about the sce­nario where Ted turns out to be a ser­i­al killer and this is all an elab­o­rate trap.

“Okay, see you in 5 min­utes.”

The line goes dead.

Again I look at the phone and then look around my small apart­ment. Who­ev­er this guy is I don’t want to have to deal with him in my house, I don’t want to have to offer him a drink and make small talk for the min­i­mum social­ly allowed 6.54 min­utes.

But if I’m wait­ing out­side? I don’t know what he looks like. Does­n’t mat­ter, it’s a small build­ing and he will be the one that does­n’t know where he is going.

I actu­al­ly nod to myself, feel­ing like the plan is under my con­trol since first pick­ing up the phone and I go back down the stairs and into the street to wait for a guy I don’t know.

‘17:39:00‘

The lit­tle street I live on is qui­et, the sun set­ting slow­ly as peo­ple arrive home from work. I stand around try­ing to look casu­al while try­ing to check on every­one that approach­es my build­ing.

‘17:41:01‘

I’m bored and he has­n’t show up yet.

‘17:41:11‘

A large expen­sive look­ing car pulls up and parks near­by. A large expen­sive look­ing man gets out and looks around. He seems to be look­ing at the address­es, which catch­es my atten­tion. He is mid 30’s, hair shaved close, 5 o’clock shad­ow. He turns as walks away, from me. Maybe he’s not the guy. His suit and the body under­neath seem a con­trast, I’d bet he played foot­ball at col­lege and is not a real-estate agent or some oth­er pro­fes­sion that requires peo­ple to look bet­ter than they are.

He walks back up the street towards me, look­ing at house num­bers and his phone.

I take Pam’s phone out of my pock­et as he looks over towards me.

“Ted?” I ask.

He nods. “Yeah.”

I hold out the phone and he takes it. “This is yours then.”

“Thanks for this mate, you’re a life saver.”

I smile and shrug.

“I’m just glad to get this off my hands.”

He frowns and if I’d said the dumb­est thing pos­si­ble. Maybe I had.

“Any­way, see you around.” I say to him, hop­ing he takes the hint to leave.

“Yeah see you.” And with that he turns and goes back to his car.

As I’m walk­ing up the stairs to my flat it occurs to me that I don’t even know if that was the same guy I was talk­ing to on the phone.

‘17:55:34‘