The Found Phone

My repro­duc­tion 1980s dig­i­tal wrist­watch counts its way towards 5 pm, 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 off 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 me to actu­al­ly stay until 5 pm. 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 phone’s set­tings 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 phone’s 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 theirs?

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 in case 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. Who­ev­er 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 near­by 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, it’s impor­tant, you just go about what­ev­er 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 found 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 I 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 it go to her voice­mail. 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 pri­vate.

I ring him.

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

“Hi Ted, it’s 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. Where­abouts 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 shown 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 in his mid-30s, with hair shaved close and a 5 o’clock shad­ow. He turns as he walks away, from me. Maybe he’s not the guy. His suit and the body under­neath seem to be 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 as 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