
I get a phone call at 3a.m.
Who calls at 3a.m?
You think the worst.
I glance across at the screen.
The call’s from Algeria.
I don’t pick up.
I don’t know anyone from Algeria.
I used to get phone calls from ‘my mate’
in Mogadishu asking me how my bank account’s going
but since I told him I’m a pisspot he’s stopped calling.
But Algeria?
I don’t even know where the fuck it is.
Africa somewhere?
But here’s the funny thing.
It rings three times then silence.
What’s the point of that?
Is it a scam?
How can you scam someone unless you speak to them first?
Perhaps he’s inordinately shy.
Perhaps he’s a mute.
Perhaps he only speaks Martian.
I knew a young man once, Simon whose father was the Lord Mayor of Mars but that’s another story.
I look up Algeria on the map.
No clues there.
But he’s there. Somewhere.
On his cell phone.
Now who shall I phone tonight? he wonders.
Whose puffy slumbers can I puncture?
Bizarre.