The girl with the wrong cellphone plan

Short story by @fatijaoui //

The girl with the wrong cellphone plan

Amala decided to go camping alone because she desperately needed to disconnect from her boring life, as she describes it. Upon arriving at the campsite, she felt powerful and good about herself. However, she had a hard time sleeping the first night, but eventually acclimated on the second and third nights. On her last day, she went for one last swim in the lake. While she was cooking dinner, a distant scream startled her and she was terrified. She took her lamp torch, but couldn't figure out where the scream came from. A few minutes later, she heard a man yelling: "Help!".

Amala can't decide if knowing it's a human male out there is a relief or not. She doesn't know what to do. She pulls out her phone and dials 911, but the call doesn't go through. She starts walking towards the lake with her lamp torch, hoping that the reflection of the moon will help her see better. As she arrives, she feels her phone buzz in her pocket. She receives a text message from her cell phone carrier asking her to type 'yes' to upgrade to a new plan starting next month. Relieved to have service again, she calls 911 again, but unfortunately, the call still doesn't go through. She finally screams with all her strength: "Where are you? Are you hurt? ».

The man answers almost immediately: "I'm in the water!" Amala gathers her courage and puts her feet in the cold lake, even though she wishes she had left earlier that morning. After entering the freezing cold water, Amala sees a man lying on some kind of paddle or surfboard. She swims over and drags the board outside of the water. The man has blood on one of his legs and seems unable to move.

Amala is all wet and tells the man that she will get her first aid kit and be back in no time. However, he stops her and asks her to call 911. She shouts that she already tried multiple times, but it didn't work. The man is shocked, but surprisingly, he ends up laughing. Amala is so soaked and cold that she doesn't pay attention to his reaction and runs to get the first aid kit.

Amala comes back and tries to disinfect the man's nasty wound, bandaging his leg the best she can with a t-shirt and a scarf. The man confirms her fear: he can't walk. Amala changes into dry clothes and gathers all the things she might need to walk back to the trail and find help. She tells the injured man that she has to walk back to the parking lot to get an ambulance. However, the man starts to panic and says that he's way too scared to stay here, as wild animals might smell his blood and attack him. Amala insists that she can't carry him all the way to her car, but the man starts crying. Amala knows she'll regret it, but ultimately decides to take him with her.

The way back is pure torture. Amala has to carry all of the man's weight on a board while following the path. She alternates between pushing the board and carrying him, but the man cries and stops her every five or ten minutes. What should have taken her 45 minutes now took them seven hours. They ran out of water one hour into their trip, which made Amala furious. Amala has never been happier to see her car. She tries to install the injured man in the back seat, but he makes no effort to help. She finally puts him in the truck and hopes for the best. She looks for the closest hospital on her GPS. When she arrives, she reports that she found an injured man in the lake. The lady at the entrance is surprised and looks at Amala suspiciously, as if she's lying or sounds crazy. A nurse comes to see the man in the car and scolds Amala: "Why didn't you call 911?" Amala is on the verge of collapsing but responds somewhat politely: "I tried, you really think I would have carried this injured man all night long if I could have reached 911." The nurse empathizes with Amala, who is clearly exhausted and can barely stand still. An intern examines her while the man is taken care of by a team of nurses.

The county sheriff asks Amala if he can ask her some questions while she is lying on a bed, trying to recover. Amala agrees to answer all of his questions. The sheriff then asks one final question: "Do you know this man? Do you know who he is?"

Amala didn't understand the question: "Sorry, but does he not remember his own identity?

-No, not at all. I meant, do you have no personal knowledge of this man's identity, correct?

-No, no idea. I've never met him before, or at least I don't think I have. I spent hours with this guy and I never thought to ask him that. I don't know, I guess I didn't think much about it.

-Okay, well... He is a billionaire CEO who threatened to commit suicide a few days ago. No one knew where he was.

-Okay, so he wanted to die...

-Yes.

-Okay, but he wanted to live so badly...

-Please, let the nurses take care of you and please let us know if someone is coming to get you."

Amala is now fully back to overthinking after a night of intense activity. What does it mean that she saved a man who wanted to die? She starts to Google "suicidal CEO" and there are far too many results for her liking. She checks the news section and an article about a CEO leaving the office, telling everyone he will kill himself over the weekend, catches her attention. She finds a list of all the companies he has some involvement with. She remembers he laughed when she told him there was no cell phone service at the lake.

Her intense googling leads her to a Reddit post about her cell phone carrier and how they changed settings on all the phones associated with their SIM cards to make it difficult to call 911 in some areas without a premium plan. The mastermind behind this strategy is believed to be the man she saved. The theories weren't on official news outlets but on blogs and forums.

One blogger who claims to be a former employee wrote that people in distress can make illogical choices due to fear, stress, and danger. This made Amala speculate: was the text she received an invitation to upgrade her plan in order to be able to call 911? But the new plan always starts the next month, meaning that if someone doesn't survive, they would be charged. The company could then charge them more until the plan is canceled. The company could use the text sent as proof that they provide service and that 911 needs to do a better job at being reachable. Amala is disgusted by this evil mastermind's plans, but she wouldn't be surprised if they were true. What she just experienced could be additional proof that deserves another Reddit post. A doctor interrupts her thinking and announces that they could not save the injured man's leg that she brought in.

Amala stretches and her whole body is in pain. Everything hurts. She manages to walk to her car and grab her pack of cigarettes. She sits on a bench and the sheriff joins her and she asks him: "Do you believe the rumor that cell phone carriers won't give you access to 911?

-Well, I've heard another rumor about 911 itself, that it intentionally refuses some phone calls in certain areas because it's just too much work.

-Wow, okay... There's no way to know for sure, then...

-Probably not. And a lot of people aren't going to help us find out.

-Yeah, it's some kind of capitalist conundrum.

-Maybe in the long run, you'll regret saving this man.

-You think so?

-Well, all the rich and mighty capitalists look for faults in anyone but themselves, and they hate being held accountable, so I'm praying he won't sue you for his lost leg..."

The sheriff and Amala laugh loudly because it's so freaking sad and true. It's a crazy world out there, where it's hard to know what to believe and who to blame. A never-ending story... Amala goes home the next morning, hoping to never hear from that CEO or go camping again.

AUTHOR: FATIMA MOUDJAOUI

SUMMER 2022

LAST EDITS: DECEMBER, 14TH 2022