“I’m… alright.”
Gary heard the hesitation in his own voice and hoped it hadn’t carried too clearly down the line.
“How’s it going yourself?”
There was a soft rush of air on the other end, the faint background noise of someone walking somewhere outdoors.
“Could be better,” the woman said. Her voice had that easy, unhurried American cadence he had only ever heard in films and the occasional documentary. “I was planning to take a hike this afternoon. Just a little walk up in the hills. But the weather’s looking pretty foul.”
Gary glanced automatically at the rain sliding down his windows.
“So I might just put an extra day in at the pool instead,” she continued.
He blinked.
“Oh,” Gary said carefully. “That’s cool. You mean the Missoula pool, right?”
There was a brief pause.
Then a small laugh.
“Well… what other pool is there, Frank?”
Gary felt something tighten pleasantly in his chest. Not dread. Something stranger than that. A kind of electric curiosity.
“You okay today?” she added. “You seem a little off.”
“Oh,” Gary said quickly. “That’s just my attempt at humour.”
“O…kay…”
The word lingered slightly, as though she were smiling while saying it.
“I feel like I caught you at a bad moment.”
“Well,” Gary said, rubbing the back of his neck, “you’ve caught me at a weird moment, let’s say that.”
Another pause.
Then her voice changed slightly—sudden movement, the muffled distraction of something happening nearby.
“Oh—Frank, I’ve got to go.”
Gary straightened a little in the chair.
“What’s—”
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “Someone’s at the door. I’m in a bit of a rush.”
He opened his mouth again, but she was already halfway out of the conversation.
“Talk later, okay? I love you.”
The line went dead.
Gary sat there with the phone still in his hand.
The room was quiet again. Rain tapping the windows, a car passing slowly outside, the dull hum of the computer fan on the desk.
“I love…you?” he repeated softly.
He placed the phone down and stared at it for a moment.
“What the hell was that?”
For a while he didn’t move at all.
Then, with a slow deliberate motion, he turned back to the computer.
Missoula.
He typed the word into the search bar.
The results appeared instantly. A town somewhere in the western United States, apparently. Mountains. Rivers. Photographs of wide skies and pine-covered slopes.
Gary leaned closer to the screen.
“Right,” he murmured.
He tried again.
Missoula swimming pool
More results appeared. A municipal pool building. Indoor lanes, bright overhead lights reflecting across pale blue water.
Gary clicked one of the images.
It opened into a larger photograph: long quiet lanes, white tiles, the shimmering echo of indoor acoustics almost visible in the still image.
He frowned slightly.
“That looks real enough.”
Next he typed:
Missoula archery club
That existed too. A small outdoor range somewhere just outside the town. Targets in a line beneath open sky.
Gary sat back in the chair.
“Well,” he said quietly.
He drummed his fingers once against the desk.
Then typed again.
Frank Missoula archery club swimming club
Several ordinary results appeared. Social media fragments, scattered mentions of people with that name.
And then one entry near the top of the page:
Frank Calder — YouTube
Gary hesitated for a moment.
Then clicked.
The channel page opened.
The banner image showed a quiet stretch of hillside above a small town. The sort of view you might find almost anywhere in the American west.
Beneath it sat a modest profile picture: a man about Gary’s age standing beside a river, squinting slightly into the sun.
Gary leaned forward.
“Right,” he murmured again.
The channel statistics appeared just below.
27 subscribers.
Gary blinked.
The video tab was open.
517 videos.
He scrolled down.
Each video thumbnail showed some small fragment of a life.
Morning Walk Above Missoula
Swim Club — Quiet Night
Archery Practice — Windy Afternoon
The view counts were tiny.
Eleven views.
Fourteen views.
Eight views.
Gary clicked one at random.
The video opened.
The man from the profile picture appeared, adjusting the camera on what looked like a bench beside a swimming pool. Bright lights reflected across the water behind him.
“Evening swim tonight,” the man said casually to the camera. “Pool’s pretty quiet.”
Gary watched him slip into the lane and begin swimming slow steady laps.
The video was oddly calming.
No music. No editing. Just the quiet sound of water and distant echoes inside the building.
Gary clicked another.
Then another.
An archery range.
The same man drawing a bow beneath a pale sky.
“Not my best shooting today,” he said to the camera. “Wind’s coming down off the hills.”
Gary found himself leaning forward slightly.
“Right,” he murmured.
He scrolled back up to the top of the page.
Something there caught his eye.
A small grey button beneath the channel name.
Gary frowned.
He leaned closer to the screen.
Next to the bell icon, a single word was already visible.
Subscribed.