When she woke up, there were 17 voicemails from a stranger. Curious. People didn’t tend to call her. Especially not repeatedly. She wasn’t exactly a social butterfly. More like a reclusive moth. 17. 17… what an oddly specific amount of calls. One would assume if their information was crucial enough to warrant 17 calls with no success, surely it was worth 18. Or even 20. What could possibly be exactly 17 voicemails urgent… no more, no less? 


The calls didn’t seem to follow any logical time sequence. The first 2 being mere minutes apart, followed by an hour break, a collection of 7 each 2 minutes apart… and it goes on with even less logic. Perhaps it was her crazy neighbour calling to inform her the rapture is coming and then following up with various explanations as to why it didn’t… or why she wasn’t chosen? Must’ve gotten the dates mixed up. 25 and 26 look really similar you see… next year for sure. 


Perhaps they’re messages from her long lost best friend who managed to convince everyone she had killed herself, finally calling to admit she simply ran away to start fresh. There really aren’t many more options as to whom could be calling. 


To her knowledge there couldn’t be more than 1,000 or so people left on this side of the world. Maybe less. She hadn’t left her bunker in a while. Probably not since the raw-milkers re-invented pasteurization. An interesting hill to die on but it was, alas, her final straw. 


Perhaps it was that Mormon missionary that used to be after her… though she was certain she’d scared him off for good when she claimed to worship to devil during his last attempt to get her in the water. 17 calls. she’s not even sure why she kept that damn phone. It lives only to wake her up and piss her off. But alas, she plays the first voicemail. 


“Hi, this is capitalism calling. We’ve noticed a drastic decrease in your spending and labouring lately and we were just wondering what the fuck is wrong with you?”