打电话(A Telephone Call)

　　please, god, let him telephone me now. dear god, let him call me now. i won't ask anything else of you, truly i won't. it isn't very much to ask. it would be so little to you, god, such a little, little thing. only let him telephone now. please, god. please, please, please.

　　if i didn't think about it, maybe the telephone might ring. sometimes it does that. if i could think of something else. if i could think of something else. maybe if i counted five hundred by fives, it might ring by that time. i'll count slowly. i won't cheat. and if it rings when i get to three hundred, i won't stop; i won't answer it until i get to five hundred. five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty.... oh, please ring. please.

　　this is the last time i'll look at the clock. i will not look at it again. it's ten minutes past seven. he said he would telephone at five o'clock. "i'll call you at five, darling." i think that's where he said "darling." i'm almost sure he said it there. i know he called me "darling" twice, and the other time was when he said good-bye. "good-bye, darling." he was busy, and he can't say much in the office, but he called me "darling" twice. he couldn't have minded my calling him up. i know you shouldn't keep telephoning them ?i know they don't like that. when you do that they know you are thinking about them and wanting them, and that makes them hate you. but i hadn't talked to him in three days ?not in three days. and all i did was ask him how he was; it was just the way anybody might have called him up. he couldn't have minded that. he couldn't have thought i was bothering him. "no, of course you're not," he said. and he said he'd telephone me.he didn't have to say that. i didn't ask him to, truly i didn't. i'm sure i didn't. i don't think he would say he'd telephone me, and then just never do it. please don't let him do that, god. please don't.