I'm going to stand as myself and you're going to stand as yourself. Beside either of us are simple rotary telephones. These phones seem sessile and give no indication to how long they've been here or if they've ever decided to collect and do away with dust. They don't ring out to us. They wait atop their simple, opaque, dark stain.

For the standard sake of background mechanics everything is watercolor in a palette of gradient brown and recedes into very dark brown shadows where physical space cannot be detected. The only change in shade, warmth or tone is the lean of feathered light that seems to come from no particular source but what seems to represent a 'wall' - which seems to hold a 'window' - that is if walls or windows are even a part of 'here'.

With no memory of how you got 'here' you could only assume you simply materialized in this space. All your atoms and their apprehended and yet undiscovered features collected here beside this table - this phone. Your carbon-based form simply is and you don't really bother stumbling over the semantics.

Ahead of you, or what you perceive as 'ahead of you' through simple differences in 'light' and 'dark' shades another form stands. He is presumably standing as far as you can tell. He certainly doesn't look as if he's falling, or stumbling or really moving at all. He is still, all but the delicate blink of eyelids. From this distance you can hear the light teary mucus 'click' once the eyes snap back towards the individual's brow.

Or, maybe its your own lids. Sound here was difficult to perceive. Far off, as if bouncing from grey, dry walls that were set against an almost equally grey winter cloud scape. Each being angled in various directions while hovering over light ocean waves. Waves which didn't have very much character to them...It was much like the philosophy behind fun house mirrors.

In such a stillness you were susceptible to mental fill-ins. You almost ached to see movement and couldn't be sure if a such a twitch was filled in. There! It had to have happened. Somewhere his index finger was thoughtfully tied to a marionette's string. It tugged ever so gently as if it was calling out to you. You were a fish and you put this thought in the front of your mind to form an edge over your 'fill-ins'. The blinking no longer satisfied you and you almost took a step forward before a distant 'RING...RING...RING" was heard as the bell was stirred awake but the initial thought of stepping forward. The mechanism rattled in its steady distant pulse.

You couldn't tell who's creme colored telephone had been disturbed. The person across from you wasn't showing even the slightest effort to construct the thoughts needed to guide his hand to the receiver. So you shifted your posture a bit towards the table and lifted the receiver from its metal handles. When you looked back up to the individual across the seeming immeasurable distance his phone was ready at his ear.

"Why?"

The question was formed in a parched voice like wind and sand pressed against limestone. You licked over the 'greeting' in your temporal lobe like a bad cut. Yet, thats as far as it reached. You simply heard. There was no further mental processing that began after that, even though you tried. It stuck with you like a deep sea anemone - Its arms outstretched and searching to fill you with neurotoxins.

Your voice, finally retched forth like some abominable stench and slipped into the little holes in the mouthpiece. The only sample of yourself you could hear was it being played out of the other end of his telephones earpiece. You weren't even quite sure what came out and more likely than not it was probably some assorted grunt or whisper and in your own ears you could hear it. Not in the traditional sense, though, more like feel the vibrations as whatever was opened from your trachea reverberated through your skull.

There was a pause on the other end. It was one you could hear and feel - maybe 10 seconds. With one blink and an almost vacant stare he simply stated again as if his previous voice in all its intonations and sound was simple played back on replay:

"Why?"

This time you didn't process it. You wanted to snap back in physical response. Yet, you couldn't.

"Why what?" you say into the mouthpiece with a hint of annoyance trailing behind...

This time he didn't take time to respond, but almost as in the same annoyed tone as yours. Almost as if it was your voice he states a clearer answer to your question as if he was expecting himself to have to say it back to you. Much like a child reiterating "why" to each solution to each problem and answer given.

"I want you to fill me with a certain knowledge." His lips fit into every syllable. A clear pronunciation of each letter. " I am a man of knowledge, sure. However, it is nothing grand or elegant to speak of and rather simple with certain topics i may prevail in. I want your words to be interesting and I would rather not hear something cheeky such as 'one plus one equals two'. I don't want to know your name or your age. In fact, i really don't want to know anything about you unless its staggeringly interesting in every since of the word. I don't want you to tell me the nominal truth behind Iceland and Greenland. I want to hear something thought provoking. I want to hang up this telephone and not know how to respond to you. Just like the feeling you got when i initially asked 'why?'. I might also add that failure to accumulate something of worth may be fatal. Do you understand this request?"

As soon as sharp edges of air formed the 'st' of his last word, the synapses of your brain fired off a response. You thought to say "No, i don't understand this request" and in your mind you had mocked it in your own voice exactly as he said. Like a sweet cherry candy you rolled around the word "fatal". Time seemed to have lapsed, but you couldn't really tell and what pushed forth was:

" ... "

[ I don't feel like writing anymore and i probably kept switching to present / past tense because i always do that when i write in present tense - anyone want to contribute? Or rather. If you want. I want you to respond to the man. Or rather, me. I want you to tell me something interesting. Some form of knowledge you hold inside your long term memory. I want you to 'fill me in' on something i might not know anything about. Something maybe your pretty familiar with. Or maybe even just some random 'factoid' you came across. I don't even care if you look something interesting up after reading this. Enlighten me. loosely put - teach me. What do you say? What would you say? ]