Of Life and Love

Theme 9: Telephone

Time: A month after “Bonds of Life”

Pairing: None

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Phones

 

Sha sat in the lunch room at the Gate, a bored look on her face as she held her head on an arm and listened to Botan and one of her other reaper friends chat away. Sha couldn’t remember her name, and by then honestly didn’t care. The way she took her job, and the way she talked, just plain irritated her.

“And then she said that he said, totally serious, that he was told by someone else’s uncle that there was a bus full of football players that was destined to crash! So you know I had to take that job!” the other reaper said in her slight Australian accent.

Sha sighed and ate some more of her salad. While she had always eaten healthy, she was still adapting to her new pregnancy diet.

“So Sha, I bet you have some juicy gossip to share!” the girl said.

“Not exactly.”

The girl frowned. “You’re sounding more and more like your husband every day!”

Sha merely shrugged as an answer. “And you’re sounding more and more like a telephone every day.”

Botan stifled a laugh behind her hand. “Now, now. Why are we throwing such accusations around? This is fun time for us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sha muttered.

The other ferry girl sputtered. “Now wait just a minute, how am I like a telephone?”

“You never heard of the game ‘telephone’?” She took a sip of her juice, longing for her old lunch-time soda. “People stand in a line, doesn’t matter much on the amount of bodies. A person on one end of the line says something, and so that information is passed down the line. The last person says it out loud. It’s amazing how different the outcome will be.”

“So you’re saying my information isn’t accurate?”

“What I’m saying,” Sha said, rising to her feet, though that didn’t give her much more height, “is that some things are better left unsaid if it came from that many people. It gets highly irritating.”

The other girl left in a huff, too flustered to say anything more.

Botan laughed, waving her hand. “Either his mannerisms are rubbing off on you, or it’s your hormones jumbling around.”

Sha sighed and sat down once more. “Both possibly. Being knocked up sucks, don’t ever do it.”

The girl just smiled. “So does she really sound like a solo telephone game?”

“You really need to ask?” She paused. “A solo telephone, chain e-mail, and infomercial that walks. That about sums it up.”

“I try to not take notice. But do you have any gossip?”

Sha grinned. “Of course, but none that anyone outside the office circle gets to hear.”

They both looked up as Silvia, the girl’s office assistant, came in with her cordless pressed to her shoulder. “Sha, you’ve got a phone call from your father. Something about babies.”

Sha growled and put her face in her hands. “No baby talk! My father’s been waiting too long for a grandkid and now won’t butt out.”

“It’s the second time he’s called. The first time I told him you were down the street gathering your lunch, since you really were.”

“Oh give me the damn phone then.”

Silvia did, holding back her laughter.

“Dad?” She went silent for a moment as her father said something in Dracish on the other end. "Papa, TIEN! … An-oiet—“ She growled again. “Papa, xieaz bietona. …Look I’ll call you when I go home! This isn’t office appropriate right now. … No the kid hasn’t started kicking yet! I’ll call you when I go home I said. Wientan.” She hit the end button and let her head fall in frustration on the table. “I hate phones…”