Telephone-Call

L., having walked across the city to visit his new lady-friend of whom he is as yet unsure, receives no answer to his tap on her window. He opens the door unasked and leans in, taking care to keep his feet outside though on tiptoe. He calls rather quietly, her name. She is giggling, upstairs. He can hear her. He knows right away what it sounds like. Fearing the worst, he walks, hesitates, clasps his hands between his legs, and rushes to the bottom of the stairs where he stays flattening his back against the wall. She is having a telephone conversation. She speaks to one of her friends. L. listens like a spy. He hears her tell her friend about her fondness for him, and murmurs to himself "her fondness for me." He has no time to feel remorse: he is crying silently. He has been shown something which he may never stumble upon again - a piece of knowledge which is possibly truer than knowledge told face to face, so a higher level of knowledge perhaps and therefore one which half clears the fog of doubt we live in. If he waves his arms about, he can easily clear away the wisps that remain. L. does not tiptoe away to the door and re-approach her, rattling the door-handle loudly and calling out her name more forcefully this time. Instead, he returns home via a wide and circular route in order to prolong his relish of the clear air of certainty, before the cares of the day cloud it up.