The bathroom is indeed empty and quiet and my leg is still vibrating, but when I touch it I realize it’s not a muscle at all but an actual phone. I take it out and look at it, savoring the suggestive pulsation, and then catch sight of myself in the mirror, beholding this chunk of bite-sized technology the way a monkey might have beheld the Italian Renaissance. I push the green button and hold it to my ear without saying anything. I want to be careful not to give myself away. On the other end there is a woman’s voice calling itself Cynthia and claiming to be my wife. It asks me when I’m coming home and I giggle. I love riddles. The voice is patient. It talks about the importance of sleep and getting back into the swing of things after all the recent difficulties. I am glad that it is talking to me in the empty resonant room. Over and over I say thank you to it, I say I really appreciate it making contact across so much distance. Let me tell you a funny story, I say, about how I thought my leg was vibrating with impending death but it was really just you trying to reach me. The voice seems to be losing patience. It asks me to wait and then there is another voice, a little boy’s now. It says hello in a more conversational tone. No riddles about coming home. Just a request to play gin rummy again sometime soon. It says it had great fun during our day-long tournament in the sun room. What a combination of words. Sun room. I tell the voice to enjoy that room while it can, to soak in it. Maybe events will conspire to deliver me there again and perhaps a deck of cards will be in the vicinity as well, and then who knows? Another day of lazy competition or something else worth savoring. I apologize to it, explaining that I’m not really in charge of my own itinerary anymore, that I jump from travel agent to travel agent, and that right now, unlikely as it may seem, Dick Cavett is calling the shots. It asks if I want to talk to Mom again but I don’t know what it means. My mother is long gone. This voice, kind as it is, must have the wrong guy. Sure, I say, I’d like to talk to her again, but it isn’t going to happen. It says okay, pauses. Then it says please. Tell me. Do you understand what’s happening? I am laughing to myself about this conversation. The voice wants me, of all people, to explain. Okay, look, I say, almost crying now because it’s so funny. I know where I am. Everything is quiet and I have the only key. The floor is telling me that everything fits together despite natural and manmade obstacles that divert the current now and again, making it difficult, at a glance, to tell whether the geometry of the tiles really works out. But it does. The contractors plan it that way, with calculators. So thanks, I say, thanks for the call. I really appreciate it. I’ve had enough of you now for a lifetime.