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Creative Writing: An Inspector Calls

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“Hello?” a child’s voice greets him, and he can hear faint clattering and noise in the background; it is probably breakfast time and this young girl is somewhere else, perhaps she has already finished.

John wonders if he has the wrong number, because if that’s not the case, then he’ll have to accept that he’s missed a whole lot more of his son’s life than his childhood; this child could be his granddaughter, and he wouldn’t know what she looks like, wouldn’t know who his son had married, if he had any more children.

“Hello,” he answers back, a little hesitantly. “Is Matt Rivers there?”

“Yep,” the little girl says cheerfully and John's heart races, “I’ll call him for you.” There’s a moment where he can’t hear anything from the other end …show more content…

You know who it is?” His son speaks and it’s as if the air has been knocked from his lungs. He sounds so grown-up, almost nothing like the little boy he had known.

“No, but I can ask,” the girl- his granddaughter- replies, and there’s a loud noise from where he assumes she picks up the receiver and almost lets it drop. He can hear her giggling in the background.

“Who are you?” she finally asks, and his voice catches in his …show more content…

“You’re my grandpa?” she gasps, full of wonder. Her voice sounds more far away as she turns away from the phone, probably towards her father.

“Daddy, it’s your daddy.” She says matter-of-factly, and John can almost hear the child’s enthusiasm.

There’s a moment of silence, where the background chatter ceases and it’s almost as if time itself has stopped.

“Come on, Lian, let’s leave your dad alone for a while,” a woman’s voice breaks the silence, and John instantly knows it is the woman his son has married. “He hasn’t spoken to his daddy for a long time...” their voices are getting fainter; he assumes they’re walking away.

“But can we talk to Grandpa again, Mommy? Can we visit him? Can I paint his nails?”

“I don’t know, we’ll have to see…”

The girl- Lian- sounds very excited, her mother fondly amused, and caught up in listening to them, John doesn’t notice his son has picked up the phone, not until he hears him laugh at his daughter’s last suggestion involving nail

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