No Service

No Service
(Book-exclusive)
Published	August 1, 2016 (2016-08-01)
Page count	4
Major characters	Mike
Minor characters	Paulo, David
Locations	Mike’s house
Collected in	Volume Four
Appears between
← Safe Boundaries Critical Hit →

No Service is a book-exclusive chapter appearing in Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Four. Mike’s cheery texts to his long-distance girlfriend go unanswered, and even her voicemail box is too full to take a message. When the phone finally buzzes back, the senders are a couple of considerably less romantic boys.

Synopsis

Mike spends the opening page texting his girlfriend into a void. He sends her a photo of trilliums in bloom, a selfie in a new striped shirt, and a shot of a waterfall, all without a word back. In his last message, Mike gives up the cheerful act: “Meant to leave you a voicemail, but your box was full.. I miss you.”

Getting nothing in return, Mike lies awake in bed stewing over it. He wonders whether he’s just thinking too much again, rolls around in frustration, and asks nobody in particular, “Why can’t things be simple?”

When the phone finally does buzz, Mike sits up and grabs it hopefully. The sender is David, and the messages read, in their entirety, “Hey” and then “U gay”. Mike’s face falls accordingly.

A cutaway shows Paulo grinning away at David’s phone. Mike’s frown softens as he reads the next messages and replies, and he settles back against his pillows looking genuinely content. The chapter closes on his wry thought, “Who woulda thought Paulo’d message me more than my own girlfriend?”

Character dynamics

Not quite the reply Mike was waiting up for.

• Mike and Paulo: A friendship that mostly runs on needling and on Paulo helping himself to Mike’s belongings, up to and including the $245 bill he once racked up on Mike’s own phone. Under all that, they do care about each other, and for once Mike is the one showing it. A few texts from Paulo are enough to pull him out of a lonely spiral, and Mike’s own surprise at the end makes clear this wasn’t yet something he counted on.
• Mike and Sandy: Most of their long-distance relationship happens over the phone, and this is the first chapter where Sandy’s silence costs Mike sleep. Her surprise visit in Just Beautiful was only a few months back, which makes the string of unanswered messages sting a bit more. For now, Mike only notices the gap and says so to himself.

Trivia & observations

• The chapter is nearly wordless. Apart from the messages shown on phone screens, Mike speaks just two lines aloud and thinks one more, and David’s two texts are the only other dialogue.
• Despite the title, there is nothing wrong with Mike’s phone, which receives messages perfectly well. The missing service is on the other end, where his texts go unanswered and the voicemail box can’t take one more.
• Mike and Sandy’s phone troubles go back to the very beginning. In A New Leaf, his first-ever call to her went straight to voicemail too, and he promptly forgot about it.
• “Hey” and “U gay” are David’s usual brand of phone humor. He pranks Mike by text again in Textual Harassment, where Mike finally gets him back with an alarming emoticon of his own.

Related chapters

• Just Beautiful: Sandy’s surprise visit to Mike’s fashion show, a few months before this chapter, was the relationship at its recent best. The blue scarf Mike wears while texting her here is her gift from that trip.
• Critical Hit: In the very next chapter, Mike and Paulo are back to sniping at each other. Mike refuses to lend Paulo his audio guide, bringing up Paulo’s whole borrowing record, and later joins Sue in laughing at him.
• Boy Toy: Sandy’s silence has stretched into days by this chapter, and Mike admits that even a little heart symbol from her would tide him over.
• Dial Tone: Mike runs into voicemail again here, redialing Sandy’s number over and over and hanging up each time her answering machine picks up.