The hum of the air conditioner was the only thing keeping Ari company, a mechanical drone that filled the silence of a life that felt equally static. His room was a chaotic mess of a half finished charcoal sketches, discarded coffee cups, and opened textbooks with spines that hadn't been cracked in weeks. It was the typical sanctuary of a twenty year old who felt like he was drifting through time rather than actually living it.
Ari often felt like a background character in his own story. In the grand movie of life, he wasn't the hero or even the villain, he was the guy blurred out in the corner frame, the person people walked past in the University hallway without second glance. He was the student who sat in the very last row of the lecture hall, packing his bag five minutes before the professor finished, slipping out the door like a shadow. He wasn't miserable, he was just hollow. He watched his peers fall in love with a ferocity he couldn't replicate and chase dreams he didn't possess. To Ari, existence was a film played on mute and he was tired of waiting for someone to find the remote and finally turn up the volume.
He looked down at his latest sketch, a rough drawing of an empty park beach under a flickering street lamp. He realized then, with a sharp pang self awareness, that he only ever drew things that were waiting. Empty chairs, vacant swings, quiet bus stops. He was waiting too, though the 'what' or 'who' he was waiting for remained a mystery. He sighed, the sound swallowed by the room's heavy silence, and he reached out to toss his phone onto the nightstand. He was resigned to another night of ceiling starring and dreamless sleep.
Then, the screen flickered to life. The blue light cut through the darkness of the room like a jagged blade.
Unknown Number: If you only had some time left, who would you fall in love with?
Ari stared at the glowing text. His first instinct was to delete it, probably a bot, or a wrong number from someone who had too much to drink. But there was a strange weight to the words. It didn't feel like a prank, it felt like a haunting curiosity that had specifically hunted him down in his midnight boredom. It was as if the universe had finally noticed his silence and decided to break it with a riddle.
His heart which usually beat with the steady, boring rhythm of a clock, gave a sharp, painful thud against his ribs. He sat up, the springs of his mattress creaking, his thumbs hovering over digital keyboard.
Ari: That's a heavy question for a Tuesday night. Are you a philosopher or just a wrong number?
He waited, watching the three little grey dots bounce on the screen. His breath hitched.
Unknown Number: Maybe both. Or maybe just someone who thinks people don't ask the important questions until its too late. So Ari, Who would it be?
He froze. The air in the room suddenly felt thin. How does this person know my name? He scrambled to check his contact list, his instagram, his Whatsapp, nothing. There was no 'Ari' listed in his public profile, A chill ran down his spine, but instead of the fear he expected, he felt a jolt of pure unfiltered andrenaline. It was the first time in years he felt like he was part of a scene that actually mattered. He looked around his quiet, lonely room, at the sketches of things waiting to be used, and he typed the raw, unpolished truth.
Ari: I would fall in love with someone who makes the 'some time left' feel like forever. Someone who doesn't care about the ending, just the scenes in the middle. Someone who looks at a flickering street lamp and sees light, not the darkness coming after.
Unknown Number: I like that, Scenes in the middle are the only parts that matter anyway. The ending is just a period at the end of a sentence. Its the words before it that tell the story. I'm Mira. And I think we should create a few scenes of our own.
Ari didn't sleep at all that night, Every time the phone buzzed, the hollow feeling in his chest filled up with a strange, terrifying warmth. They texted until the sun began to bleed through the curtains, turning the midnight blue of his room into dusty gray. He told her about his sketches,she told him she loved the smell of old libraries and the way the air feels right before thunderstorm.
He didn't know that Mira was typing those messages with hands that shook from exhaustion. He couldn't see the white hospital wristband or the IV pole standing like a silent sentinel beside her bed in Room 402. He didn't know that for her, 'some time left' wasn't a deep philosophical question to pass the time, it was a ticking clock.
As Ari finally closed his eyes at dawn, a smile tugged at his lips for the first time in months. He felt like he had found a secret world hidden Inside his phone. He didn't realize that by opening his heart, he was stepping into a story that was already written in the stars and the stars already starting to fade.