When the phone rang, I suddenly thought of an ex-girlfriend sitting in a smoky bar somewhere on the other side of town with hair in her eyes and a cell phone in her hand. Either that or my mother rolling over in bed to pick up her own receiver.

The receiver—still a-ring, I realized—lay at the side of my bed, far away from its base and the caller ID box. I answered it anyway.

"Hello?"

"I didn’t think you were going to pick up."

"It’s late."

I sat halfway up in bed and patted some still-damp patches of hair into place. An ambulance cried in the distance.

"They’re coming for you."

"Where were you today?"

"I won’t be around tomorrow either. I thought you should know..."