Industrial Evolution

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To make matters worse, the phone kept ringing. The man with the craggy face and the salt-and-pepper hair ignored it, but the ringing became unendurable. With a curse he tried to lift himself, felt his arm muscles turn to wet noodles, and his cheekbone smacked hard on the iron floor. As he lay helpless, the throbbing pain and the chirping of the phone melded into a song of agony.

He was dying, no doubt about that, but couldn’t he at least die in peace? He just had to find a way to get to that telephone and yank it out of the wall—only then could he settle down to suffocate in peace and quiet.

It took all his strength, but somehow he made his cold, trembling arms drag him to the control console and grab at the telephone.

“Who is it?”

“Thank God I found you!”

“How did you reach me? Zee phone has not worked from zee beginning.”

“How? Calling a hundred times a day for a week, that’s how! Five times I actually got a ring, and then the signal went out. Anyway, how’s it going?”

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