COSMIC TELEPHONE

Garrison’s mother had always said he wasted too much time and far too much money on “pointless contraptions.” She said this often, especially during dinner, and especially louder when the bills arrived. So naturally, the moment Garrison completed excavation of what he insisted was a “cosmic telephone” from deep beneath the Skeleton Coast, he did what any self-respecting futurist would do: he tried to make a call and spoke a call destination into the container.

The first successful connection was to the man who had engineered the device 256 years earlier. Garrison just wanted to clarify a few operational anomalies - such as why the thing lacked buttons, and why it bore such an uncanny resemblance to a pewter tankard. The engineer was more than a little confused.

Turns out, the “cosmic telephone” was originally a stage prop, hastily cobbled together for a diabolical reinterpretation of a well-known Bill Shakespeare play. The conversation ended abruptly when Garrison insisted, “No - I really am from the future.” The second call was to God. After several hollow rings, a voice - female, polite, and distant, like from the bottom of a well - intoned:

“The person you are trying to contact is unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone.”

Eighteen months of digging couldn’t end on a busy tone. So Garrison tried one more number. He changed the destination to: “The highest possible authority in the universe, besides God.”

A phone rang. Someone picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

“Garrison, is that you?” the voice asked.

“Mum?” he whimpered.