Dialing up nostalgia for my old phone number

(854 words)



I hid in the basement and punched in the 10 numbers. I didn’t want my wife to know what I was doing. It felt like something illicit.

She might not understand.

My jealous smart phone might not either.

I wasn’t surreptitiously checking up on an old girlfriend. It felt more intimate.

I was dialing the phone number I grew up with.

I wanted to see who the number belonged to now