The Early Morning Phone Call

I had a dream at 1:30 this morning. I can't remember what my dream was, but a phone was ringing in it. Just as in the movies, I awoke with a start when I discovered that the phone was really ringing. Because I initially mistook the ringing phone as part of my dream, about a minute had passed before I got to it. When I lifted the receiver, the mystery caller had decided to hang up.

Obviously, this kind of call is disconcerting because whatever reason the caller had for, well, calling, it could not wait until morning. As such, a call of this--er--temporal nature is almost always, at least in my experience, an emergency of some sort.

I immediately thought of the parents, who are the only ones, I imagine, that would call here if there was an emergency of some sort. Thankfully everything was fine in Manila. So I went back to bed, where I wondered about the mystery caller. Who could he be? Was his call as important as I'd imagined? Had someone gotten hurt? Died? Was it all a prank? It was bothering me. I couldn't sleep. The tick-tick-ticking of the clock had become as loud as the footsteps of an Apatosaurus. I said a prayer and eventually fell asleep. I found out in the morning that it was, of course, nothing.