Reminiscences15

Decisions

Ben woke up relatively early as his habit was to wake whenever the first sunlight starts to penetrate his window. His first thoughts were about how he was going to spend the day. He was none the wiser, in spite of his meditations before dropping off to sleep. He had two phone numbers, offering two potentially different types of day and he was going to have to jolly well choose one of them. Ben wasn’t good at decision making and he tended to dither until the decision made itself. This situation was a case in point.

Still undecided, he eventually prised himself out of bed and got the two pieces of paper with the numbers written on them out of the pocket of the jeans he had been wearing the day before. He was being tempted by Oana, but deep down inside he thought that maybe this wasn’t the right way. He unfolded the pieces of paper to look at the numbers, thinking that somehow looking at them was going to help him make his decision. Ironically, it did.

He unscrunched both pieces of paper and was struck by the fact that neither Oana or Ovidiu had written down them names. It obviously hadn’t occurred to them that Ben was going to receive more than one piece of paper with a telephone number on it that day. So now Ben was confronted with two telephone numbers, not knowing whose was whose. Maybe this was divine intervention? It offered up an intriguing solution to his dilemma. He could just randomly choose a number, call it and then whoever was on the end must be the person who he was supposed to spend the day with.

Ben liked these sorts of resolutions. It was kind of exciting, but he was also nervous. He went and got himself washed, another cold rinse in the bathtub making him think he must get to the bottom of how to say ‘how do I turn the hot water on, please?’, and then dressed. He fancied some toast but didn’t see anything in the kitchen that looked like a toaster. Doina came upon him as he was contemplating what to eat.

'N-am timp, trebuie să ma duc la piața, dar este ceai.'

Ben knew ‘Ceai’ meant tea. He wasn’t much of a tea person, although he was pleasantly surprised to discover that for Doina tea included a fine selection of pancakes, both with sweet cheese and also some with strawberry jam, not to mention honey and butter to spread on bread. It would have been better if it was toast, but you can’t have everything Ben reflected. In any case, his main preoccupations were elsewhere.

After breakfast, he retired to his room to make the important phone call. He was used to procrastinating, and rather good at it, he thought, but the moment of truth had come. He needed to call one of the numbers. He did manage a bit of a procrastinate nevertheless as he debated how to chose which number to ring. He thought about ip-dip-sky-blue, but it seemed too childish. He needed more of a manly way of going about things. Finally, he came to the manly conclusion that he would scrunch the bits of paper back up and then pick one at random. And this he did.

The number he picked started: 0798. Could this be Oana or Ovidiu? he wondered. Well, there was only one way to find out. He dialled it and then waited with butterflies in his stomach. He heard a ring tone briefly and then suddenly a voice, 'Numarul care ați format este ocupat!' then silence.

Was this once again divine intervention, or was it just a test. He thought about what to do now his plan had been foiled. There were two options, either to move onto the other number or give this one another go. He remembered when he was doing exams at school and sometimes he agonised so much about his original answers that he changed them only to be dismayed to find out after the exam that he had changed an initially right answer to a wrong one. This had taught him a good life lesson that he thought was relevant to his current situation. He would give the first number another go after 10 minutes and only if he didn’t get a response would he then try the other number.

He took the chance for a quick nap as he waited for the time to elapse before retrying the number. It was hard work making decisions and he felt like he had earned a breather even it was hardly nine in the morning. When the time was up, he rose and took up his phone and the piece of paper again. He felt the nerves rising in his stomach once again. He dialled the number and waited. Then, the voice again, 'Numarul care.....'

The decision having been made for him, Ben reached out to get the other piece of paper which was sitting on the table by him in his room. This was a 06 number. Seven seemed like a better bet than six, it being a perfect number and all that whereas six has certain negative associations, 666 and the like, but that was just superstition, speculated Ben.

Without further ado, having summed up new confidence now that the decision had been clearly made, he rang this number with almost no nerves. It rang a few times before Ben heard the receptor at the other end being answered and a voice starting to speak.