The Eighth Call

The phone rang every Thursday at 8:08 p.m.

It did not matter where Daniel was.

It did not matter who he was with.

It did not matter if he was ready.

The call came anyway.

He never set an alarm. He never needed to. His body anticipated it before the sound arrived. A tightness behind his ribs, like something pressing outward. A quiet awareness of the time without looking. The way animals know when the weather is about to turn.

Tonight, he sat at the kitchen table with the lights off. The digital clock on the microwave read 8:07.

He watched it change.

8:08.

The phone rang.

The sound was soft, almost polite. It was an old phone, cream-colored, mounted to the wall. He had bought it from a thrift store three years ago, the same week the calls began.

He let it ring once.

Twice.

He picked it up on the third.

“Hello,” he said.

There was breathing on the other end.

Not mechanical. Not distant. Close. Human.

He waited.

He always waited.

“…Daniel?”

Her voice was exactly as he remembered.

Not younger. Not older. The same.

“Yes,” he said.

A pause. He could hear the faint rustle of fabric, like she had shifted the phone against her cheek.

“I wasn’t sure,” she said. “Sometimes I think maybe you won’t answer.”

“I always answer.”

Another pause.

“I know.”

He did not ask where she was.

He never asked.

“How was your day?” she said.

He looked around the dark kitchen. The dishes in the sink. The unopened mail. The coat draped over the back of a chair.

“It was fine.”

“That’s good.”

Her voice carried something fragile beneath it. Relief, maybe. Or exhaustion.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I went to work.”

“Do you still hate it?”

“Yes.”

She laughed.

The sound passed through him like a memory with weight.

“I always thought you’d leave,” she said.

“I thought so too.”

Silence settled between them.

It was never uncomfortable. It was part of it.

Part of the shape of the call.

“I saw something today,” she said. “A yellow umbrella.”

He closed his eyes.

“You hate yellow,” he said.

“I know.”

“You always said it looked like warning.”

“It does.”

Another pause.

“But it made me think of you.”

He did not know why that hurt.

Or maybe he did.

They spoke like this every Thursday.

About nothing.

About everything.

The conversation always lasted eight minutes.

Never more.

Never less.

At 8:16, the line went dead.

Not abruptly. Not violently. Just absence.

He would hear the small click, and then nothing.

The first time it happened, he thought the call had dropped.

The second time, he thought it was coincidence.

By the fourth, he understood it was part of the ritual.

He never tried to stop it.

He never tried to extend it.

He never called back.

There was no number.

Just the call.

—

It started three years ago.

Eight days after she died.

The funeral had been small. Quiet. The kind of gathering where people avoided his eyes because they did not know what to do with his grief.

Her name was Mara.

She had loved small things. Unimportant things. The shape of leaves. The way condensation formed on glasses. The exact moment the sky shifted from blue to something else.

She had loved him with a kind of certainty that frightened him.

They had been together seven years.

They had plans.

They had arguments.

They had a future.

And then they didn’t.

The accident had been ordinary.

That was the worst part.

No storm. No spectacle. Just a missed red light and the wrong moment.

He remembered the hospital room.

He remembered the stillness of her body.

He remembered the feeling that something had been removed from the world, and nothing had replaced it.

Eight days later, the phone rang.

He almost didn’t answer.

He almost let it ring.

But something in him recognized the sound as belonging to him.

He picked it up.

“Hello?”

Breathing.

“…Daniel?”

He dropped the phone.

He stared at it on the floor, the receiver swinging.

“…Daniel?”

Her voice was unmistakable.

Not imitation.

Not memory.

Her.

He picked it up again, his hands shaking.

“Mara?”

Silence.

Then:

“I don’t have much time.”

He thought he was losing his mind.

He thought grief had broken something inside him.

But she kept talking.

And he kept answering.

And at 8:16, the call ended.

—

He never told anyone.

How could he?

There was no proof.

No record.

The phone company found nothing unusual.

No incoming calls at 8:08.

No unknown numbers.

Nothing.

He stopped checking.

It didn’t matter.

The call came.

That was enough.

—

Over time, he learned its boundaries.

He could not miss it.

Once, he tried.

He left the house at 8:00 and walked for miles, leaving the phone behind.

At 8:08, his cell phone rang.

Unknown number.

He answered.

“…Daniel?”

He never tried again.

The call always found him.

Another time, he spoke too much. He tried to fill the silence. He asked questions.

“Where are you?”

She did not answer.

He asked again.

The line grew quieter.

Her voice became faint.

By 8:14, she was barely audible.

At 8:16, the call ended.

The next week, he said less.

She sounded stronger.

He understood then.

The ritual had rules.

Not spoken.

Not explained.

But real.

He followed them.

—

Three years passed

His life formed itself around the call.

Jobs changed.

Apartments changed.

Friends drifted.

But every Thursday at 8:08, the phone rang.

He answered.

And she was there.

Not fully.

Not completely.

But enough.

He did not ask what it meant.

He did not ask why him.

He accepted it the way people accept weather.

It happened.

That was all.

—

One Thursday, she said something new.

“I don’t remember your face,” she said.

He felt the words before he understood them.

“What?”

“I remember your voice,” she said. “But your face… it’s harder now.”

He did not know what to say.

“That’s okay,” he said finally.

She was quiet.

“I don’t want it to go,” she said.

“It won’t.”

He didn’t know if that was true.

“I try to hold it,” she said. “But it slips.”

He closed his eyes.

“Then I’ll remind you,” he said.

“How?”

“I’ll answer.”

She breathed in.

Slow.

Careful.

“I’m glad,” she said.

—

He began to notice other things.

Small changes.

She asked questions she had asked before.

She forgot answers he had given.

Her laughter came less often.

Sometimes she sounded tired.

Sometimes she sounded far away.

But she was still there.

That was what mattered.

—

On the third anniversary of her death, the call came like always.

8:08.

Ring.

Ring.

He answered.

“…Daniel?”

“Yes.”

She was quiet longer than usual.

“I think something is wrong,” she said.

His hand tightened around the receiver.

“What do you mean?”

“I think…” She paused. “I think I’m losing the path.”

His throat felt dry.

“What path?”

“The one that leads here.”

He did not understand.

“I don’t know how I find you,” she said. “I just do. But now… it’s harder.”

“You’re here,” he said.

“Yes.”

Her voice trembled.

“But I don’t know if I can stay.”

He wanted to say something that would fix it.

Something certain.

But there was nothing.

“You don’t have to stay,” he said.

The words surprised him.

Silence.

“I don’t?” she said.

“No.”

He swallowed.

“I don’t want you to be trapped.”

Another silence.

Longer.

He wondered if he had broken something.

Then she spoke.

“I don’t feel trapped.”

He exhaled.

“I feel… pulled.”

“By what?”

“You.”

The word settled between them.

Heavy.

Real.

“I come back,” she said, “because you answer.”

He closed his eyes.

He had never thought of it that way.

Not as something he was doing.

Not as something he was sustaining.

“I like hearing you,” she said.

“I like hearing you too.”

The clock on the microwave read 8:15.

One minute left.

She breathed in.

“I don’t know how long I can keep finding you.”

He did not say anything.

He did not want to spend the last minute arguing with inevitability.

“I’m glad you answered,” she said.

“I always will.”

A pause.

Then:

“…Goodbye, Daniel.”

The word was different.

Not temporary.

Not ritual.

Final.

He felt it.

“No,” he said.

But the line had already gone quiet.

8:16.

—

The next Thursday, he sat in the dark kitchen.

The clock read 8:07.

He watched it change.

8:08.

He waited.

The phone did not ring.

He waited longer.

8:09.

Nothing.

His chest felt hollow.

He kept waiting.

8:10.

8:11.

The silence grew.

By 8:16, he understood.

He stood there for a long time.

The phone silent on the wall.

He did not move.

—

The next week, he waited again.

8:08.

Nothing.

He waited until 8:16.

Nothing.

Weeks passed.

Then months.

The ritual had ended.

Or so he thought.

—

One Thursday, nearly a year later, the phone rang.

8:08.

He stared at it.

His hands trembled.

He picked it up.

“Hello?”

There was breathing.

Familiar.

Close.

“…Hello?”

A pause.

Then a voice.

Not hers.

Different.

Uncertain.

“…I don’t know why I called you.”

He said nothing.

“I just… I found this phone,” the voice said. “And I felt like I had to.”

Daniel listened.

The voice trembled.

“Do you know me?”

He closed his eyes.

He understood something then.

Not clearly.

Not completely.

But enough.

“No,” he said gently.

A pause.

“I’m sorry,” the voice said. “I must have the wrong number.”

“That’s okay.”

Another silence.

“I hope you’re okay,” the voice said.

He smiled.

“I am.”

The line went dead.

8:16.

The phone was quiet again.

Daniel remained there, holding the receiver, listening to the absence.

He did not know who she was.

He did not know why the call had come.

But he knew this:

The ritual had not ended.

It had only moved on.

And somewhere, in the space between memory and forgetting, the phone would ring again.