Work Text:
53-year-old Neil Perry had been reading a medical journal for the past two hours now and his eyes were getting heavy with sleep. He closed the journal and put it gently on his bedside table and let out a loud yawn, while taking off his round-rimmed glasses and stretching his tired long legs on his bed on which he had been sleeping all alone for ages now. He threw an oblique glance at the wall clock in his room. It was midnight. He moaned as he wearily thought of the busy day lying just a few hours ahead of him. As the Head of the Department of Oncology at the Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey, Neil was the most sought-after cancer surgeon in the region and all his days were busy but tomorrow (today actually) was going to be busier as he had three high-priority surgeries lined up back to back.
He reached out and switched off his bedside lamp. The room was plunged into complete darkness. He lowered his slender back and pulled the comforter over his head, determined to catch a few hours of sleep before the sun rose. And very soon he was snoring gently, slipping gradually into deep sleep. He had been fast asleep for almost half an hour when he was rudely and abruptly woken up by the sound of his mobile phone buzzing somewhere under his pillow. He woke up with a start, dishevelled and disoriented, and frantically scrambled around for his phone, which seemed to be untraceable.
Neil finally found the device and stared with panic at the screen on which was displayed: "UNKOWN NUMBER CALLING". He was filled with a mixture of emotions - dread, fear, anxiety, concern. Should he receive the call or shouldn't he? What if it was a mischief-monger? But, what if it was a patient's attendant in distress? The phone continued to buzz unabatedly. Neil finally decided to swipe the screen to the right and cleared his throat to answer the call.
"Hello!" Neil said softly and gingerly.
There was no response from the other side.
"Hello! Who's this?" Neil tried again.
Still a stony silence at the other end of the line.
"Look, if this is a prank, I really do not appreciate it," Neil said with a tinge of anger in his tone.
"Hello, Neil!" whispered a voice from inside the phone.
"Who is it?" Neil's slight anger now making way for curiosity, trying his best to recognise the voice.
"Don't you recognise my voice, Neil?" asked the now louder and clearer voice that seemed to belong to a boy of seventeen.
It was now Neil's turn to go silent.
"Don't you recognise your own voice, Neil?" asked the teenager at the other end of the line.
Neil had gone numb in shock. He knew who was at the other end of the line.
"Neil, I am so proud of you. You have made it big. You have really made it big in life. I had given up and had almost left the world but you survived. You survived and lived on to become the doctor that father so desperately wanted me to become. I disappointed him but you made him proud, Neil. Are you listening to me, Neil? Talk to me, Neil. Please talk to me. I just want to hear your voice," said the voice at the other end.
"H-h-hello!" mumbled Neil.
"Ah, it's so nice to hear your voice. I guess you still have the same voice. My voice. Our voice. From where I am I can't see you but I hope you still look the same as I do. Just 36 years older. I'm so curious to see how you look at age 53," said the voice.
"I-I-d-don't know," Neil still mumbled.
"How are you, Neil? I know you are a super-successful surgeon in a big hospital. But are you happy? I was not. But I hope you are. And also, have you found someone? Is there someone in your life? Do you still love Todd as I did? Did you and he end up together as I so desperately wanted?" asked the voice.
"No, there's no one in my life. I'm alone, all alone," Neil replied, with tears beginning to well up in his eyes.
"Oh, dear! Neil, do me a favour. Please do me a favour. Please find Todd. Please find him. For your sake. For my sake. For our sake. I'm sure he's still waiting for you, for me, for us," pleaded the voice.
"I-I-I'll try," said Neil non-committally.
"OK. I'll hang up now. But I'll call again after a few days. Wait for my call," said the voice.
The screen of Neil's phone went blank. He looked at the call log. There was no mention of any call in the past one hour. Sitting on his bed, Neil continued to stare at the blank screen of his phone in the darkness of his room.