Hold, Please!

You work nights at an afterlife telephone exchange. The living ring in wanting to speak to someone who died. They never say the name. They say "my late mother, the one I miss most at Christmas," and then they wait. Ten case files sit on your desk. Four of those ghosts are on the line tonight. One of them liked snowmen and family gatherings. Work out which caller wants which ghost, then get up out of your chair and carry the plug across the floor to their socket yourself. The lines can't cross on the floor. Anchor posts lift one over another. The wiring is old, and if you hold too many live lines at once the breaker goes and you're patching in the dark until you find the frequency again. Eight nights. Three strikes each. Nobody is in a hurry - the callers have all the time there is.

You work nights at an afterlife telephone exchange. The living ring in wanting to speak to someone who died. They never say the name. They say "my late mother, the one I miss most at Christmas," and then they wait. Ten case files sit on your desk. Four of those ghosts are on the line tonight. One of them liked snowmen and family gatherings. Work out which caller wants which ghost, then get up out of your chair and carry the plug across the floor to their socket yourself. The lines can't cross on the floor. Anchor posts lift one over another. The wiring is old, and if you hold too many live lines at once the breaker goes and you're patching in the dark until you find the frequency again. Eight nights. Three strikes each. Nobody is in a hurry - the callers have all the time there is.