I had a phone call from Outer Mongolia the other evening. It was so faint it certainly sounded as though it was from the furthest corner of the planet but I did decipher someone closer to home. Did I want to meet for coffee, asked the distant voice from another world? By now I’d figured it was one of my occasional running friends. I’m sure we all have friends who we meet in one context but rarely in others, so this invite was slightly unusual but very welcome. I work at home, you see, so I’m always up for being disturbed by not-to-be-missed social events. Call in for coffee any time you’re passing, I say to people, but they rarely do. “I wouldn’t want to disturb you if you’re working”.
Anyhow, we arranged to meet for lunch today, midday, in a local bookshop cum cafe. But I work at home, and the phone rang just before I left with a call I had to take. So I was late, about 7 minutes in my estimation. I looked round the cafe: noone I recognised. I browsed in the bookshop. Still noone I recognised. I ordered coffee and sat with the newspaper. The place was still full of strangers. Had she been and gone, I wondered, because I was late? But I wasn’t really that late. So eventually I phoned her. “I’m in the kitchen” she said. “But we arranged to meet for lunch!” I said. “Didn’t we? 12 at the cafe?”. “Nooo…” came the puzzled reply.
So I ordered lunch. I spent some money on books. I went to the kitchen shop to replace the wonderful potato peeler that must have gone out with the peelings – its destiny, surely. And I puzzled over the phone call and the lunch arrangements denied.
Had I imagined it? Did I invent the phone call? Was it someone else on that very faint phone line? But noone I recognised had appeared so I couldn’t put it down to mistaken identity. Am I going slowly mad? Maybe. But when I recounted my lost lunch date to the boys, GP2 assured me that he’d heard me make the arrangements on the phone. Perhaps I was just speaking to myself. After all, that is something I do all the time.
Photo credit: Day 147/366 – Mysterious Jungle by Great Beyond
It’s too late to 1471 isn’t it. Very frustrating for you. I enjoyed our swim and coffee last Monday.
Ray
Ooh, spooky.
I think GP2’s evidence shows you’re not going mad. Have you any way of tracing the call?
Maybe your friend who denied making the arrangement is the one going mad.
I think Iota’s right – it’s your friend, not you (isn’t it always!). I haven’t checked in here for ages (I lost a whole load of addresses off my blog roll when a friend offered to ‘update’ my blog – don’t go there), so I’m delighted to hear the holiday went well and did I recognise a photo of the beach near Port Douglas on one of your posts about your trip?
It was weird, just plain weird. Port Douglas was fab, PM – that phots was about 100m from our apartment. In fact the whole holiday was fab and I want to go back. When I eventaully manage to get some of the photos sorted into a rather smaller format, I’ll post some stuff.