How can the ringing of a phone bring such panic to my mind? How can that single, shrill, artificial sound make the entire world seem to stop, and pause, and hover for one breathless moment on the brink of something nameless and terrible and disorienting, as though it were about to slip over the edge of the universe and fall, fall down towards forever with no break in sight?

The phone rings; the radio seems to stop, and I can't breath as my vision spins. Why? I can't get up to answer- I can't even move.