News from the Home Front

Somewhere in America, a phone rings. It’s a little after five PM on a Wednesday afternoon, and the young man, diligently working, stops to answer it. After a brief silence, he hears his father’s voice. “Hey…you’re still there. How come?” asks the old man. “Working,” comes the terse response, “Gotta get stuff done.” It’s been a few days since he’s seen his parents, finding himself staying with an epileptically challenged friend once more. Ultimately, his inability to multitask leaves him with a choice: continue working and ignore a family member, or slide away from the keyboard and give a loved one full attention. In making the right choice, the important choice, he learns what’s happened in the last few days. It seems his father has booked some musical gigs for them in May, July and even October, though one of those events will conflict with that of another band leader. Unable to deal with such a thing so far in advance, he allows his father to continue bringing him up to speed. It seems this band leader, having undergone thyroid surgery himself, also had bad news about their friend Bill, the trumpet player. When last the father and son saw Bill, back in November, Bill’s son, dying of pancreatic cancer, was told he had little time left. Shortly after their last job together, it seems Bill had lost his son.

The conversation shifts at this point to news from home. How are the cats? Has anyone telephoned? What movies came in the mail? The father, finished with what he had to say, suddenly says, “Hang on; I’ll put your mother on the phone.” The son is still speaking, but the father is already at the end of the hall, out of earshot of the phone he’s set down upon the kitchen table, and calling in for his wife to pick up. The mother hesitates, and then asks “Who’s this?” He replies in the same way, and the same expression is repeated back and forth a few times before they tire of the game. “Do you remember us? How are things going at work? Are you taking your vitamins? The cat misses you. Your father kept saying, ‘Why don’t you call your son?’ but I figured you’d call if you needed to.” The son has meanwhile started working again, and has found that taking a break cleared his mind enough to find a particular block of copy he’d been searching for before his parents called. When she begins talking about having the flu however, his attention returns to the phone call once more. After a senior citizen exercise class early in the week, she felt achy, and eventually developed a fever over 100 degrees. Her temperature was back down and she sounded fine, and was fortunately recovering.

Eventually, the conversation ends, with a promise that he’ll see them in a few days. Soon reality will be restored to the familiar, and this mysterious stranger will be himself again. But who is he now? Why does one world become two? And someday, will there be a way to embrace both worlds, independence and family, equally? Most importantly, WHAT IS THIS?! Time will tell…