"The Phone Call"
by Kris Saintsing

     Larry was on the way to Sports Authority when his mom called. "BRRRRING!!!" went the cell since he had one of those lame "fake rotary phone" rings that are so popular these days. "BEEP" went the modern twentieth-century phone as he mashed the button.

"Yep?"
"Hey Larry."
"Hey mom."
"Can you just do something for me real quick on your way back?"
"What, mom?" He was already getting annoyed and she hadn't been talking for more than five seconds.
"Can you go to the store and pick up a video tape for me?"
"Don't you mean a DVD?"
"Okay. But will you get me Chicken Run? Your cousins are spending the night."
"Sure but which video store do you want me to go to?"
"Blockbuster's is fine."

     Larry almost spit out his Diet Coke that he was sipping between words. He couldn't count how many times he had told her that it wasn't "Blockbuster'S" It was "BlockbusteR," no "apostrophe-'S'" for God's sake. "How ridiculous," he thought but said nothing to this effect.

"Okay, mom. I'll do it."
"Thanks. You're a good kid, you know that?"
"I know."
"Bye, sweety."
"BYE."

     He hung up one split-second before she did. He always tried to hang up a split-second before she did. In this small way, she never abandoned him. He was the one that did all of the abandoning.

     So Larry went to the Sports Authority and picked up the replacement batting glove that he had been promising his boss for the last several weeks. They had gone to the "Batting Arena" off Fairfax three weeks prior and had actually had a decent time, all things considered. Larry didn't exactly like his boss-- that's why it was such a minor miracle that they had had a good time. Nevertheless, the day still didn't end well. Larry's boss had lent him a batting glove and Larry had indavertantly left it behind on the bench. By the time he had gone back to get it, it was M.I.A.-- nowhere to be seen.

    A weird custodian guy of questionable ethnicity was sweeping up the area but there was no way to prove anything. So Larry would have to buy his boss a new glove-- end of story.

     On his way back from getting the glove, he completely forgot to pick up the copy of Chicken Run for his mom. When he walked in the front door, sure enough, there were his cousins, Brittany and Jeremiah, sitting on the couch, kicking their legs, looking B-O-R-E-D. Jeremiah raised his hand at Larry, boringly. Larry returned the wave, did a "three-sixty," and marched back out the door. "LARRY!?!" his mom called out, "Is that you?" But his truck was already out of the driveway.

     When he pulled up to the all-too-familiar yellow-and-blue building, something looked odd, not quite right, "off" even-- but he couldn't quite place it. He slid into a parking space and cut the engine, looking sternly, unabashedly confused. Why does this place look so different to me than usual? he thought. 

     He shook it off, climbed out of the cab, and marched into the building. He promptly found the kids' aisle and snatched up the copy of Chicken Run. But, again, something was wrong. He paused, raised the copy of the box up into his line of vision, and held it out a little, just to make sure that he was focusing properly.

    "No," he whispered.

     The DVD case clattered to the floor as Larry made a mad dash for the parking lot. He staggered out into the fluorescent night air, practically stumbling backwards. He looked up and there, he saw what he couldn't believe he saw-- there, on the sign above the store, plain-as-day, it read: "BLOCKBUSTER'S"-- not "BLOCKBUSTER," but, "BLOCKBUSTER'SSSSS"

    Larry collapsed in a heap in the middle of the parking lot. His cousins never were able to see Chicken Run that night but some say that, if you had been there, during that moment in which Larry realized that he had slipped into an alternate dimension in which the name of the video store chain, "BLOCKBUSTER," has been replaced by the possessive form, "BLOCKBUSTER'S," you would have been able to hear Larry whispering his last words: "That's not what it's called." And then he died of shock.