dreaming when i wrote this.

2:37 am.

I'd had a rough night of it. I couldn't remember if I'd been awake for three hours or if I'd just been having very realistic dreams of being awake. Either way, I was feeling unsatisfied by the past three hours of sleep that I might or might not have gotten. My cell phone was ringing. The screen says Josh is calling, but I know two boys named Josh, and the screen isn't big enough for the last name. To see the last name, I would have to open the phone, thereby answering it.

One boy named Josh would call me at 2:37 am. If I could be sure it was him, I would let it ring, if for no other reason than the fact that he left me a lovely and revealing voicemail message once, and I've been waiting for another ever since, except I keep answering my phone. He called me once before in the wee hours of the morning. I think he'd been drinking, though he claimed only a light buzz when I answered the phone that time.

Another boy named Josh has never called me in the dead of night before, and it doesn't strike me as his style. So if it were his last name that was sitting just out of the range of the exterior screen of my cell phone, that might mean he needed something. Maybe he needed bailing out of jail. Maybe he was depressed. Maybe he couldn't think of the band that sang that "Time of the Season" song.

Ah well, I wasn't sleeping well anyway. Might as well answer it. For the brief second that I saw the screen of the phone before I put it to my ear, I saw that it was Josh #1. Crap. Should've just let him leave a message. Too late now.

"Hey, sailor."

"Oh, hey. I didn't expect you to answer. I woke you up, didn't I?"

"No. Well, kinda."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I was just going to leave a message. I figured your phone would be off."

"Nope. What's up? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. How are you? How's your job?"

"Fine."

"Yeah, it's a job. Listen, what are you doing May 28? I think that's the right date. The last Saturday in May."

"That's Memorial Day." A beat while I realize I've told a falsehood. "Weekend."

"Oh, really? Huh. Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, well, my apartment building is having a music festival, and there's-"

I laugh.

"...well, okay, you can laugh if you want." He's a little hurt.

"It's funny. 'My apartment building is the last stop of Lollapalooza!'"

He laughs.

"Yeah, okay, that is funny. Well, there's like four bands playing in different people's apartments. We're calling it 'Waltamont,' you know after Altamont, and-"

I laugh.

"You know, that old festival that went bad?" He's confused now, though he knows me well enough to know that I laugh at nigh upon everything.

"No, yeah, I know. Can I be the first person to get killed at your festival?"

He laughs.

"Sure. I was just calling to leave you a message about that, but you answered, and...hey listen, I should call back when you're awake and it's not the middle of the night. This was dumb."

"Yeah, okay."

"Okay. Sorry. Bye."

"Bye."