He heard a rustle as she put her hand into the pocket of the cardigan he had last worn months ago. He pulled out the piece of paper that had hit his hand suspiciously. He was sure that he did not put the paper himself. As far as he could tell from the texture of the paper, it was old and obvious that it had been washed together with the cardigan. He read the paper, which he opened with great care so as not to tear it. “Call me now!”, there was a number in the continuation of the paper, but some numbers were barely selected, while the last digit was completely erased and unreadable. The young man had no idea where, when and by whom this paper came into his pocket. At that moment, it occurred to him that he had a meeting to catch up with, and he put the cardigan on and left the house. He was still looking at the paper he was holding in his hand, after stopping the passing taxi, he put the paper in his pocket again, where he found it, and told to the taxi driver the address to which he was going.
When he arrived at the workplace, the meeting had already started, obviously he had lost more time studying the paper than he thought. After he came in with an apology, the meeting continued where it left off. But the young man’s mind was elsewhere, he could think of nothing but thinking about who the number belonged to while he continued to play with the paper in his pocket. He couldn’t focus on the meeting or the work he had to do for the rest of the day.
Finally, when the day was over, he got ready as fast as he could and threw himself out of the building. As he was walking towards the bus stop, the first thing that came to his mind was to compare the number on the paper with the ones in his contacts. He wrote down the number one by one, but had to leave the last digit blank. Even so, it didn’t match any of the numbers in his contacts. He was determined not to give up. He was going to have to take it the long way. He decided to try all the figures one by one, after all, there was only one digit missing. He started from zero and tried all the figures. Fortunately, some numbers turned out to be unclaimed, but when he realized that the person who answered the phone at some numbers was not the person he was looking for, he had to make a long explanation. Now it’s the seven’s turn, after it ringed three times, the other side started talking before the young man had a chance to open his mouth.
“So you finally found me, huh.”
The voice belonged to a man who, as far as he understood, was not too old. After his sentence, the man who was laughing lightly continued to speak.
“I’m sure you’re wondering who I am. Believe me, I will do everything I could to satisfy your curiosity as soon as possible. But first, I want you to wait patiently for my message.”
These were the last sentences the young man heard, and the line was disconnected. Even though he had tried so hard to find the number, none of the questions in his mind had been answered, on the contrary, more questions had appeared. Although he had called the number repeatedly after the phone call, there was no answer, and he had to wait for a message for days. And the message that came after the other days made everything even more strange: “Come out, in front of the door.”
He did as the message said, the young man was standing in front of the door with his umbrella. Couldn’t this damn guy have found another day and picked the rainiest day of the whole week to text. Even though he was shivering from the cold, he stubbornly continued to wait. He stood where he was, looking around, his eyes searching for a face that matched the voice he heard. After looking for a long time, his eye was caught across the road. Was that woman standing there from the very beginning? The man could not be sure of himself and looked a little more carefully. The woman did not have an umbrella, and her clothes was dry despite this torrential rain, it was impossible for her to have been there from the very beginning, maybe the man was mistaken. He had been out for so long that maybe he couldn’t think properly because of the cold. He examined the woman a little more, she was beautiful and not moving at all. Unable to withstand the man’s gaze any longer, the woman lifted her gaze from the floor and fixed it on the young man. When their eyes met, he was electrocuted, the woman’s eyes were as beautiful as her, and her gaze was so frightening and deep in contrast to her beauty. After a long look, the woman said something, nothing could be heard, but neither side took a single step towards each other. the man’s eyes slid to the woman’s lips, he was reading her lips. “You found me.” she waited for another minute, “ And you found the seven,“ woman said, the last digit of the number, “the last digit, it was never written so it couldn’t be deleted.” the man could not understand. Just as the woman opened her mouth again, a long vehicle passed between them. When the car finally left the street, it seemed that it had taken the woman with it. There was no woman, the man started running around the street looking for the beautiful woman. He had left his umbrella in his hand now, he didn’t care about getting wet at that moment, his only desire was to find the woman again.
The young man ran around for hours, there was nowhere he didn’t look, but there was something he didn’t know.
The woman was just like the last digit, she had never existed so that she could disappear.