One of the interesting things about moving has been acquiring a “new” home phone number only to discover its previous owner haunting the line. The first day my new phone number went live, I received calls from two different collection agencies. No, I assured them, that number was activated for me and no such person by the name you are looking for lives here. Then I was awoken one evening later in the week by an unidentified female leaving a message in sultry Spanish on my anonymous answering machine. Last night the caller ID identified a couple of incoming calls from someone with the unfortunate name of Ron Roach. This morning he decided to leave a message with the mechanical voice that answers my phone. “Dude! You finally get your phone turned back on and then you don’t answer it? Call me back as soon as you get this!”

Mysterious-er and mysterious-er. These random voices start to conjure dark stories. I should probably hasten to send them on their ways as quickly as the collectors, but misguided curiosity has me listening vicariously, like someone in a B horror movie opening the basement door against all common sense and better judgment, looking for the ghost in the wires….