Short short story #1: Cypher Dream

Reginald Frum sat motionless in his dining room staring out his apartment window onto the city below.  He was dressed in his overcoat and rain boots, as if he was ready to leave at a moments notice.

Reginald's phone kept ringing, and although a small part of him wanted to hear the tones on the other end of the line, he had to remember what "the voices" told him.  So, he waited.

To be honest, he wanted things to go back to a simpler time.  His life for the last ten years was streamlined by the commands hidden in the tones.

"Get up, brush your teeth, comb your hair, work, work, work, eat, go to bed. Get up, brush your teeth, comb your hair, work, work, work, go to bed."

"Don't act up.  Stay in line."

These were the lies that the tones told.  All he had to do to un-complicate his life, would be to pick up the phone and meld into the sound and let it take him back to compliance, but he couldn't. 

Not after what he heard last night.

It was abrupt.  It was violent.

Last night, after work, he picked up his phone, as he was supposed to every night, and as the tone was flowing through him he suddenly experienced the feeling of a glass cracking in his skull. 

There was a sharp whisper that slowly turned into speech.

"You are needed.  You are wanted.  You are unique."

"You are someone."

The whispers continued, "We are Cyphers.  Join us and be free,"  they repeated again and again as tears streamed down his face.

These were the truths that he heard.  He knew them to be true the minute he heard them, and it was like he had never heard or felt anything like it before.  Not since he was a small child, before the Campbell Act went into effect, had he felt like he had his own path.

Reginald was scared. 

He was scared of his new life and all the possibilities, now that he wasn't part of the tone.  He was also scared that if he didn't pick up the phone, the authorities would come after him.  They would find him and they would make him meld back into compliance.

He had to put his faith in the last thing that the Cyphers said to him before the call ended.

"Tomorrow night."

"Be ready."