48 Comments

Ooof that ending hit me like a landline phone to the cranium.

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Thanks, Andy. 😃 Loved your piece, too. I didn't have the bandwidth to add the screenplay elements. That was a clever idea!

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perfectly eerie and tragic, you nailed the TZ tone! well done!

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Thanks, EJ. That means a lot. I was really stressed about this one 😂

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I really loved the operator character. Be careful what you wish for. Well done.

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Hey Edith, thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed the story. Thanks for leaving a comment.

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Haunting <3 loved it!

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Thank you. After the baby deleted most of it, my husband thought it was rubbish. The edited story just ended with Pamela being overlooked for promotion 😂 Glad we could find the rest, or your comment may not have even existed.

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Oh gosh 😭 kids lol

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That twist!! What a gut-punching ending!

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Thank you. Hey, at least they're still together, wherever they are.

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Damn, didn’t expect to get punched in the gut like this 😭😭 well done Hanan

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Thanks Miguel!

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Eerie but poignant. A great combination!

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Thanks Garen. I did a bit of research on how many Twilight Zone episodes had happy(ish) endings and they weren't the most memorable ones 😄 but I did find two that ran with this theme of being somewhere between heaven and hell that wasn't earth, or the idea of making a deal to get a bit more time in the Twilight Zone.

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I like the somewhere-in-between-ness! That’s kinda what the Twilight Zone is at its heart, right? A place that’s neither here nor there. You definitely captured that feeling.

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The switchboard idea is so evocative. Really great Hanna.

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Thanks Jon. I thought it would work with the 50s theme and then I found myself getting a little bit sad that some people today wouldn't know what any of these things to do with telephones were. My husband's grandma always stated her name and address when she called someone, and now I know why. I always wondered 😄

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!!!

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Hey, at least he was sorry in the end.

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Wow! This was so good, and both heartbreaking and beautiful. Loved it!

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Thanks Liz. I had to do some research to see if there had been any episodes along this line, and there had thankfully. I didn't want to be the only one doing a happy(ish) ending.

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Oh wow. Couldn't read this fast enough to figure out what was happening. I'm scared of who is listening to my unvocalized wishes now...

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Are they just pending? Ted thinks they're pending, waiting for that phone call 😄 Thanks Bryan. This project was fun.

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This was a fun read, the whole substack zone was such a cool idea. Feeling inspired to get back to writing fiction.

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Thanks Jeff. Happy to hear that it inspired you.

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Loved it!! Creeepy 🚪

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Thanks, Adam! He has to make the best of it.

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I thoroughly enjoyed this! You did a great job of capturing the tone of The Twilight Zone and I even teared up at one point. Great work Hanna! <333

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Glad you liked it. The Twilight Zone isn't as easily available here, so I had to remember HARD from when it was streaming. I can't watch it on a lot of streaming services (or even on the internet) as it's not on at the moment. I had to do a bit of research to see if this would be Twilight Zone worthy and luckily there were a few episodes that dealt with this kind of thing---but they weren't the most memorable apparently 😄

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Great story 💔

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Thanks, Mata 😊

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What a fantastic turn! Makes me worry about those random spam calls now.

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One of them could change your life, J.

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