Answering a Pay Phone

     Should I take off my sweater or leave it on? Should I try to use the restroom one last time, or wait a little?  Will I try to tackle the housework that surely awaits me when I arrive home or will I take a nap after sleeping on couches for three nights?  Will my flight really leave today or will I be stuck in airport purgatory once again?

These are the questions that are chasing each other around my tired head as realize I hear a phone ringing.  A real phone.  As in, not a cell phone.  I look around and am slightly surprised to see a small bank of old phone booths beside the row of chairs I am sitting in.  I glance around the gate area, but only a few of us have congregated thus far, and the other one or two travelers seem too involved in whatever is happening on their laptops or, in one case, sound asleep, to even notice.  

The phone continues to ring.  I wonder if I will be whisked away by TSA agents if I answer.  I am not interested in jeopardizing my chance at a ride home, finally, after the hassles and cancellations of yesterday. 

What force inside me propels me toward that phone? I don’t know.  I pick up the receiver almost as if an imaginary hand guided it there and tentatively venture “Hello?”

“Hello?” a hollow, far-away voice responds.  It surprises me that this is a familiar voice, though I can’t figure out whose it belongs to.  “I am calling for Maya Weber.” The voice is one of an older woman.  And the name of the person asked for is mine.

“Um, I’m Maya.” My eyes scan for an airline agent, other ear pricked for an announcement.  If the airline wants to contact me, why in the world would they be calling a pay phone? I didn’t even know those things were still in operation anymore.

“Maya, do you have a minute? I would like to talk to you.” I still can’t place the voice but decide that it has to be someone I know.

“Who is this?”

There is silence for a moment.  Then a sigh.  “Maya, you will not believe me if I tell you.  Can you just listen to what I have to say?”

I am feeling alarmed now.  “NO. No, I will hang up this phone right now if you do not tell me who you are and why you are calling.” I try to say this firmly, but quietly.  I am not interested in drawing attention to myself.  

Another sigh.  “You might hang up anyway if I tell you. I might as well. Are you sitting?”

“Yes.” My stomach lurches.

“Will you promise not to hang up right away?”

“Maybe.”

A sigh again. 

“Maya Weber.”

        "Yes?"

         "No - that's who I am."

 “So your name is Maya Weber too and you are just tracking down everyone with your name and chatting with them?”  I’m feeling irritated now. But the woman on the other end of the line might have dementia - I should be nice to her.

“No, I am not another Maya Weber.  I am YOU.”

“What?” Dementia for sure.  Then I remember that this is a pay phone in an airport - how could this woman know who I am, why I would be sitting here....

“Maya, I am the older you.  Later in your life.”

This is ridiculous and frightening and I should probably hang up and report this phone call. Though I am not sure how exactly I can explain that I answered a pay phone and someone claiming to be me was on the other line. And I really just want to go home.  

“Where are you calling from?”

“Oh, I am in a hospital.  I went out of my room and down to the entrance and saw these phones.  I asked God if I could call you before I left.”

I rub my eyes, feeling the vague edges of a headache beginning to sharpen.  “Left for where? What are you talking about?” 

“Well, I believe I just died and I am about to go somewhere. But I am not sure what’s going to happen next.”

Craziness.  This is absolute craziness. “Why do you think you’re dead?”

Why am I entertaining this?!

“I am not in pain.  And I was able to get up without help.  And I saw myself lying on the bed.  And all the monitors were ringing off like crazy. Lots of medical staff ran in and I just walked out. So...” there was a pause. “I came to the conclusion that I must have died.  I saw the phones and I just had an overwhelming urge to speak to you before whatever is going to happen, happens.”

I was in this deep now, I might as well keep going. “Why now? Why at age 37, on this day and this time?”

“I don't know.”  It’s dawning on me that this person does indeed have my voice, my inflections, my way of saying things. “Don't you think there are just things we aren't supposed to know? I believe that. So please don't ask me what will happen in life.  I can’t change what will happen, but I wonder if I could....help you get through with more peace.”

I don’t know what to say.  What does one say to something like this?

“If something will be really bad I want to know.” 

“I can’t tell you.  But it’s not what happens that's important.”  She  - or I - sigh again.  Do I really sigh this much?  “I want to tell you that you worry too much about things that don’t matter.  You are too hard on yourself.  That’s what you need to know.  Let go.  Be easier on yourself.”

My mind is whirling.  What is she - am I - talking about?  

“You will do just fine.  Everything will be fine.  And it will be even without you causing yourself a lot of unnecessary stress. You are strong.  Beautiful.  Capable.  Young. Take time to enjoy life. Things change, Maya.”

Inexplicably, I want to cry.  Then it occurs to me to ask about my children. “The kids -”

“They’re wonderful.  Don’t ask.  I told you.  Just love them.  Enjoy them.”

“My husband-”

“Him too.  I think I have to go now...”

“Wait!”

“I am glad we could talk. Enjoy your life while you can, Maya.”

And then a click.  

Slowly I hang up the phone, and look around the gate area.  The people on laptops seem as if they haven’t looked up the entire time.  The sleeper is still sleeping.  Nothing seems out of the ordinary, and no one seems to have noticed that I was talking on the pay phone to my future dead self.