Dial - Season 1 - Episode 44

4 years ago

Dial - Season 1 - Episode 44

I read some of the books and magazines in the reading area. They covered mostly religion, but there were other reads too, autobiographies, geographical wonders and other books on astrology, history, wild life and a myriad of subjects.

I loved reading, and so I wasn’t bored.
The television had some cable stations, and so I watched programmes in-between.
The food was good and regular, and so I was pretty much entertained. It also gave me some good moments to reflect on my life, especially on the Dial List. The question was, what was the way forward? Was I going to continue with updating that Dial List once this horror was over?

I needed to accept responsibility for being a major part in Akos’ death. She had been innocent, in a way, and had not developed the peculiar hard stance of some of the girls on the Dial List who had just seen me as a fake after I slept with them, and decided to move on with their lives.

Akos had been principled, and had set values. The fact that I had used her – much against her will, I admitted, even with aphrodisiacs – had really shattered her. And then I had abandoned her, and cut her off completely.

Her fragile mind had not been able to deal with that, and eventually it had led to her death.

And for that I accepted the fact that I was guilty.

So what was going to happen to the Dial List?
What was going to happen with my resolve to fill up that list?

It had become a sort of an integral part of me, something I loved doing. Now I couldn’t even make the distinction between filling up the Dial List, and the joys of making love to fill it up. Did I get joy in sitting down to type a new name on the list? Or making love to a new girl gave me more joy?

Frankly, it seemed to me that having sex with someone new was not as exciting as sitting down and adding their name to my list…and that was very scary indeed! Suddenly, the act of typing a girl’s name and giving her a number on my Dial List was beginning to supersede the joy of making love to that girl.

In a nutshell, the girls had become almost invisible. I didn’t see them. They were just names to be added to my list.

It struck me on the third day inside that upstairs room in BLIC that I was beginning to turn into a beast.

The question was: would I stop?

No, I didn’t want to.

I just wanted the threat of Nana b0s0mba to be eliminated, and then life would go on. My only resolve was that I would no longer prey on innocent girls like Akos of Wowo, no. I would shy away from them, yes.

But the Dial List would continue. I wanted to find out how many I could get on it, eventually.
With that decision made, I found a little peace.
And then, on the fifth day, a Friday, it happened.

I had just taken a great dinner, taken a shower, and was feeling just a wee bit bored and so I stretched out on the settee and looked around for the remote to turn on the television and watch something to while away the time.

The next day would be the Saturday Akos would be buried, the Saturday that Nana b0s0mba was expecting me to arrive and marry his dead daughter. I was a little bit keyed up about that, but since the strange white pot and its strange envelope had not appeared again, I was beginning to feel a little better about myself, and the life ahead of me.

I didn’t know where I had put the television remote the last time I had used it, and so I looked around for it, and eventually located it under the settee.

With a little curse, I took it out, pointed it at the television, and then pressed the power button.

Nothing happened, and then I realized I had switched off the power outlet in the afternoon because the electricity feed had spiked alarmingly, and I had been scared it would affect the television. I had simply switched off the wall socket.

With the remote in my hand, I stood up, ready to walk to the wall and switch on the power…and that was when the television screen lit up.
I stopped dead and stared at the blue screen of the television, and then at the wall socket.
And that was when the sickening blow hit me hard in the guts!