The Dinner

By Bub

The white-jacketed waiter brought over a silver platter with an iPhone under a crystal cover. 

“Sir, a phone call from Paris.”

A pallor seized the man’s face.  His dinner company quickly excused themselves.  The waiter cleared the man’s plate and uncovered the iPhone on the platter in its place.  Its trilling vibrated against the silver, producing a buzz that cut through to the man’s spine.  He reached his trembling hand toward the iPhone, stopped, and searched the waiter for a look of reprieve.  He received none.  He swallowed his fate and proceeded to pick up the iPhone and press ‘Answer’.  He held it up to his ear without offering a salutation.  He listened.  He nodded his head in acknowledgement, hung up the phone, and returned it to the silver platter. He sat still with a grave look directed at the iPhone.

“Sir?” The waiter asked as if expecting an explanation for the man, himself.

Without changing his gaze the man replied, “It was a… wrong number…” his voice cracking at the end of the sentence as he began to sob.

“My condolences,” the waiter offered, affectless.  He then retreated, leaving the man to his mourning reflection.

The white-jacketed waiter returned a few minutes later with another ringing iPhone under crystal on a silver platter.

“Another phone call, sir…” the waiter said managing to convey both pity and contempt.

“I see…” said the man looking at the phone on the waiter’s platter then to the phone in front of him on the table.  He then took a deep breath, picked up the latter and began gnawing the iPhone in a futile and excruciating attempt at mastication that crushed the man’s teeth leaving him with a mouth full of blood and tooth debris, and a slightly scratched phone which he then put back onto the platter on the table in front of him.  The waiter removed the platter from the table and replaced it with the one with the ringing phone.  The man picked up the iPhone and pressed ‘Answer’ and held it next to his gory maw.

“Ehrroh,” the man moaned.  Agitated, he continued, “Onggh gnungaahh…”

The man ended the call and forced the iPhone down his esophagus as far as he could before succumbing to self-asphyxiation.