Please Hold

The voice comes before the silence has time to settle.

Bright. Pleasant. Carefully recorded.

It thanks me for reaching out,
as though reaching
were the difficult part.

Your call is important to us.

I press one for anxiety.
Two for regret.
Three for conversations
that continue years later.

The menu expands.

For recurring nightmares,
please remain on the line.

For intrusive thoughts,
our representatives are assisting other customers.

For childhood,
the wait time is longer than expected.

A piano melody circles itself,
never making enough progress
to become a song.

Your call is important to us.

A survey interrupts.

How satisfied are you
with your current level of composure?

Press one if you smile automatically.
Press two if your laugher never comes.
Press three if you've become so dependable
that people mistake your silence
for strength.

Your responses help us
improve the customer experience.

The music resumes.

Years pass
between verses.

The voice returns,
unchanged by time.

Your call is important to us.

I begin apologizing
before describing the problem.

The habit earns no reward,
only another transfer.

One department blames another.

The department of Memory
cannot access records
from the department of Feeling.

Healing has moved offices.

Hope is experiencing unusually high call volume.

Please listen carefully,
as our options have recently changed.

Somewhere,
someone answers.

Not my line.

Another voice says,
"We're sorry."

Another voice says,
"We understand."

Another voice says exactly
what it was trained to say.

The script survives
every conversation.

When the battery dies,
the music stops first.

Then the voice.

Then everything else.

The screen goes dark.

In the reflection,
my hand is still holding the phone
against an ear
that stopped expecting an answer
long ago.

The silence waits a moment,

then speaks with perfect politeness.

Your call is important to us.