"And then I slammed the phone down..."

Laura Rahn of the independent student magazine The Wake of the University of Minnesota explores that something that is missing in modern lover's quarrels--that ever so gratifying phone receiver slam--in her short story "A Modern Day Breakup."

A young man was on the phone and engaged in a heated fight with his girlfriend outside in the stairwell. Obscenities were screamed, curses were muttered, under-the breath-threats were offered and countered. And then…a faint beep. A meep really, to tell the truth. The hormonal young man had hung up on the words of the offending female. For the eavesdropper in the next room, this climax of the young lovers’ angst was terribly anti-climactic. The second meep through the wall indicated the temperamental young man to be equally unsatisfied as he pushed buttons in anger. But instead of inspiring images of the wronged lover fed up and taking his vengeance, were instead images of baby chicks. As the unsatisfied young man stormed down the stairs, one could not wonder whether the inability to offer a resounding click would finally be the end of the cell phone.
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(via: The Wake)