notes on bewilderment

notes on bewilderment

phone

[note #32]

nick flynn's avatar
nick flynn
Sep 06, 2025
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[image: Abelardo Morell]

I’m somewhere in Brooklyn, waiting for my daughter in a place called Cropsey Bagels— its window overlooks Cropsey Avenue. I’ve never been here before. She’s doing community service next door at the animal rescue league with her soccer team. A couple is seated in the window next to me, looking out at the traffic on Cropsey. My computer is open, I’m working on something about living on a boat. I look up and they are gone. A phone rings. The counter is black, the phone is black. Either the man or the woman left their phone. I look around the shop—the couple is no longer there. I pick up the phone. The name on the screen says Angel. Hello? I say.

Angel starts to talk, I interrupt her. I just picked up a phone that was left behind.

Angel pauses—This isn’t Andre?

No, I say, I just found the phone.

Angel asks who he was with.

A woman, I say.

His wife? she asks.

I guess so, I say.

She tells me she’ll call his wife to let them know I’ve got the phone. A few minutes later the phone rings—the screen says Gypsy.

Hi, I say.

Gypsy says, I hear you have my husband’s phone.

I guess so, I say.

Where are you? she asks.

I’m at the bagel place on Cropsey.

Cropsey? she says. That’s across town.

It’s clear this is not the woman Andre was with.

I tell her I’ll leave it with the cashier.

UPCOMING WORKSHOP

5-10 oct / Omega Institute / Rhinebeck NY (THREE SPACES LEFT)

UPCOMING EVENTS

11 sept / Kaatsbaan / On Literary Kinship: Nick Flynn + Marie Howe / Tivoli NY

12 sept / Writer-ish / reading + discussion / worldwide (via substack)

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