Wild Fiction

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A kitchen clock hung precariously from a hook; its face locked in by a cherry red frame. Directly below the clock, in matching red, was a wall-mounted phone. It clung to the decorative tiles that ran around the kitchen like a telephonic limpet mine, ready to ring at any second. The cord hung down over the bread bin and twirled away out of sight behind the counter. A ladybird crawled along the cord. Perfectly camouflaged except for its black spots. Rebecca picked the phone off its cradle and pulled the cord towards herself until she could pick up the ladybird and play with it in her hands. The ladybird, not being as impressed with its new find as Rebecca was, spread its wings and left for the big outdoors only to come rudely into contact with a pane of glass.
Rebecca’s attention was torn from the plight of the ladybird by the sound of a female computer voice coming from the upturned telephone receiver. ‘Please replace the handset and try again.’ The computer voice, never tiring, repeated this over and over. She pressed down the receiver and released it again to get a dialling tone and called the operator. ‘I’ve just called somebody and need to call them again. However, I’ve lost their number. Could you please tell me the number I’ve just called.’
The operator transferred her to another operator who then transferred her again before she was finally given the number. She scribbled it down on a piece of paper but now that she had it her confidence deserted her and she could not bring herself to ring it. She decided to head back to the basement and see what had happened to Conrad.
There was no Conrad in the basement. She shook James as hard as she could but he would not wake up. He continued to breathe deeply and remain asleep. A shadow blocked the sunlight coming into the room and she looked up to see Conrad’s face at the little window. She let him in and discovered that he had had to shimmy down the drainpipe after climbing out of one of the bedroom windows. ‘I saw you make a clean escape – that’s why I didn’t create the distraction,’ he said.
Rebecca felt pleased to see him and put her arms around him and gave him a hug, squeezing him as tightly as she could. She held the embrace for a few seconds before relaxing her hold and pulling her head off his chest. She looked up into his eyes. She felt an urge to kiss him and moved her lips up to his. They touched briefly when a noise behind them signalled that James was waking and they quickly moved apart as lovers caught in the act. She felt her face burning red, half with excitement and half with fear and looked at James who fortunately had still not opened his eyes.
‘What’s happening?’ James mumbled rubbing his eyes.
‘I have the phone number that Genevieve was calling,’ Rebecca said. ‘It’s 774 2245,’ she rattled off the number before she had pulled the piece of paper out of her pocket. ‘I knew the number,’ she said looking at Conrad with wide eyes. ‘Look,’ she said showing him the piece of paper. ‘Look at the number on it. I knew it without looking at it.’
‘It’s called a photographic memory. You only have to look at or hear something once for it to be indelibly etched in your memory. You’re very lucky,’ Conrad said.

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