[Encounter] Feel like I have to tell someone

Not sure how many of you stalk my profile much, but I kind of have this certain audacity about how much I contribute to a relationship. And, by extension, I sort of see myself being appropriate to the most exotic and delightful partners.

Anyway, today was the warmest day since last summer, into the sixties farenheit!, and I have been feeling increasingly "restless" since Friday after I got over the initial misery of a problematic class exam. Between overall fulfillment and acute sadness is a slack middle ground of pathological vulnerability.

So earlier I went to a gas station that I've only visited maybe three times before, even though I drive past it probably every day. It's in the middle of a long strip of wooded field, with no other busineses nearby. I got gas and pizza, stepped back outside, and decided to just pace around and enjoy the weather. It was a lovely time, and I got a phone call with good news from my friend who's finding success quitting drinking.

That's when I saw it….

As rare as it was thrilling: a rusty, weather-beaten pay phone. This one was disconnected from fixtures and laying on its side at the bottom of a leaf-covered hill strewn with empty bottles and other trash.

Could this be? I stared for moments, then minutes on end. It's rigid, angular surfaced on one face met with smooth rounded corners on another, its sun-bleached aluminum worn down to white over about half the chassis. The handset was still connected by a solid weather braid neither fraying nor even showing wire. The little plastic window showing its "address" phone number was still visible.

I stepped closer. If I stood it up, the case probably would have been over waist height. How peculiar, that this edifice once existed as the means to the very phone call I had just had. Its galvanized support frame was covered with rust but hadn't even begun to compromise its structural integrity — an enduring monument to the many calls it had conveyed.

I felt like I had found a kindred soul. Accounting school had certainly turned me into a stalwart piece of rugged equipment. This one, completely outmoded, had not so much as wavered in its dignity. With no shame in what it was made for, this device stood unperturbed by the world swirling about with no need for it. It had done its part, and nothing cold deter its pride in being wholeheartedly purposed. "Obsolete?", it seemed to say, "What an irrelevant trifle. I did what I was meant to do for as long as it was needed. My own cup I drained to the very dregs, until even time itself was exhausted by my capacity to fulfill my objective. You made all the calls you needed from me until you needed no more. I am complete with satisfaction."

The wind shifted overhead in the trees, as it must have thousands of times before. The pay phone remained utterly aloof to this change. Its heroism was more than I could take.

There was no one around. It was still early, and the busy customers had better things to do than look behind some hill into the trees and trash. I could…. yes, I shall. I knelt in the dim beside that sublime machine and rewarded its courage with my own grateful, sweating uttermost.

We laid there together under the leafy canopy many moments afterward, the pay phone still entirely undisturbed. Oh, you magnificent bastard. I was already planning my next trip.

All day I've been deliberately missing turns and forgetting where I was going, trying to run down my gas tank. I can't wait.

Source: reddit.com/r/gonewildstories/comments/31gomd/encounter_feel_like_i_have_to_tell_someone