The Night Telephone

Dr. Tarak Sarna cannot sleep. Recently of the Mumbai Royal Hospital, he’s taken a job as a telemedicine doctor in Garnet, Texas. No one in India has ever heard of the place! And no wonder—it took Tarak two days and five airports to get to Garnet. Tarak is so tired, yet he cannot sleep at night. His mind and his body still think it’s lunch time in Mumbai. Rather than lay awake in his new apartment, he goes out at 2 AM and wanders the empty streets of Garnet. And what he finds on his walks is something he never imagined. There’s a brightly lit pay telephone sitting on a dark and forgotten corner of an old shopping street nearby. Even though it’s the middle of the night, people are driving up to the pay telephone, one by one, and making a call! What on earth are they doing in the middle of the night? Who are they calling? There is much more to little Garnet than Tarak ever thought. 

The mystery deepens when Tarak visits the same spot during the day, only to find an empty lot filled with grasses, dirt, and trash. How could a pay telephone be there only at night? Tarak thinks he’s made a mistake! Is his jet lag that bad? Is he losing his mind? But when he goes back at night, the pay telephone is back in its spot, glowing brightly in the dark street. When an older man comes to use the phone, Tarak picks up his courage and asks what the telephone is for. The man tells him it is a “night telephone.” Then the man asks Tarak, “Is there someone you need to call?” before he drives away into the empty and dark night. As Tarak looks at a telephone that should not be there, it begins to ring. Tarak is the only one in sight. Will he answer the night telephone?