Episode 2
I Meant to Reply Later
The message didn’t feel urgent,
The regreat changed things.
Daniel wasn’t estranged from his father.
They just weren’t close.
Their conversations were practical.
Predictable.
When a message arrived,
Daniel saw it. He decided he'd reply later.
Later became the next day.
Then the next.
By the time he opened the thread again,
it was too late.
New stories released daily.
Explore all shows: https://www.simplestoriesproject.com
Support and get exclusive content: https://www.patreon.com/cw/SimpleStoriesproject
Transcript
Daniel still sees the phone lighting up on the arm of the sofa.
Speaker A:It didn't seem large enough to deserve the space.
Speaker A:Daniel and his father were not estranged.
Speaker A:They were simply not close.
Speaker A:Phone calls were practical.
Speaker A:Birthdays were remembered.
Speaker A:Visits were infrequent, but polite.
Speaker A:There had never been a rupture, only distance.
Speaker A:One evening after work, his phone lit up.
Speaker A:A message from his father.
Speaker A:Short, unusual.
Speaker A:Are you around this weekend?
Speaker A:Daniel saw it immediately.
Speaker A:He was tired.
Speaker A:He had just sat down.
Speaker A:He decided he would reply later.
Speaker A:There was no urgency in the words, no signal that this one mattered more than the others.
Speaker A:He put the phone face down.
Speaker A:Later became the next morning, then the following evening.
Speaker A:By the time Daniel opened the thread again, there were three missed calls.
Speaker A:The last message wasn't from his father.
Speaker A:It was from his aunt.
Speaker A:He drove home that night.
Speaker A:The house felt smaller than he remembered.
Speaker A:His father's phone was on the kitchen counter, the message still unread on Daniel's side.
Speaker A:He tried to recall the exact moment he had seen it.
Speaker A:The weight of the phone in his hand, the brief calculation.
Speaker A:Not now.
Speaker A:There had been time.
Speaker A:That was what he believed.
Speaker A:Afterwards, people spoke about regret in large things, said arguments, unresolved, words left hanging.
Speaker A:Daniel didn't have that.
Speaker A:There had been no fight, no final exchange.
Speaker A:Only a message he chose to answer later.
Speaker A:He has replayed it often.
Speaker A:Not the hospital, not the funeral, the sofa, the dim light, the phone lighting up.
Speaker A:He tells himself he couldn't have known that the message contained nothing unusual, which is true.
Speaker A:But he also knows he made a decision.
Speaker A:Small, ordinary, unremarkable.
Speaker A:He decided to wait.
Speaker A:Daniel doesn't speak about it because nothing dramatic happened.
Speaker A:There was no last conversation that could have changed anything.
Speaker A:Only an absence, a blank space where a reply might have been.
Speaker A:Years later, he answers messages more quickly, not anxiously, just deliberately.
Speaker A:He has never explained why.
Speaker A:It isn't guilt, exactly.
Speaker A:It's an awareness that sometimes the only thing separating before and after is a pause that felt harmless at the time.
Speaker A:He didn't ignore the message.
Speaker A:He postponed it, and that has been enough to stay with him.
