Prompt: a man jumps from the 40th story of a building. As he’s passing the 28th floor, he hears a phone ring and regrets that he jumped. Why?

Step up. Step down.

Step up. Step down.

Step up. Step down.

Step up. Step down.

Step up. Francois pauses on the ledge of his office building. Overcome by the need to step down again, he does so.

Step up. “I’m just not stepping up the right way, in a way the ledge finds acceptable.” Stepping down he ascends once more and holds his breath. “Finally.” The ledge is satisfied and he can get on with it.

He looks out over the city. Eery silence. The city he had lived in his entire life, the one that had once been full of life and noise and energy, now drowned him in deafening silence. Once housing millions, the city’s occupancy had been reduced to one. Francois wasn’t all that sure what had happened. He remembered the chaos of the initial outbreak and the panic that ensued, but in mere days after the first incident featured on the news Francois was the lone survivor of the entire planet. He tried to figure out what had happened. He read all of the books he could get his hands on and even broke into the university to access its wealth of knowledge. Nothing. Not a thing he read even came close to explaining the phenomena.

His research had taken ten years to complete, mainly due to his condition that necessitated he cut each page of a book out before reading it. Life with OCD was difficult no but was admittedly easier than when there were other people around to stare at him each time he licked the fountain in the lobby of his building. That said, life alone was impossible and had taken a toll on his psyche. Mere embarrassment was a small price to pay to be able to speak to another human being, let alone his wife. His OCD had worsened and become nearly incapacitating in recent months. His research was the only thing that had kept him going this long and since he had exhausted it, he was wearing thin.

So Francois found himself on the ledge of his old office building to close out his life. Taking a deep breath, he jumped into the silence, except it wasn’t. A phone was ringing in an open window. He noticed it as he plummeted past it. “NOOOOO! WAIT!! I FORGOT TO SHUT THE WINDOW TO SUSAN’S OFFIC — “

But it was too late.

ring-ring. ring-ring. “at the tone, please leave your name, phone number, and message. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”

BBRREEEPP

OOOOOOOOOOOOOT (ship horn) “Congratulations! You’ve won an all expense paid cruise to the planet Xerxes V! Press one now to claim your prize!”