My name is Ethan Reyes. I’m 29, and I’ve been living alone for almost four years. Last month, I started receiving voicemails from an unknown number. The first one was only six seconds long. A little girl laughing. I deleted it. The next day, another voicemail arrived. This time, a girl’s voice said: “Ethan, are you still mad at me?” I thought it was a prank. But the messages kept coming. Every few days, the same girl would leave a voicemail. Sometimes she’d talk about school, sometimes she’d complain about our parents, and sometimes she’d simply ask when I was coming home. The strange thing was that she always called me her brother. I eventually searched the number online, but found nothing. One evening, I played the messages for my mother. She immediately turned pale. “Where did you get these?” I explained. She grabbed my phone, deleted every voicemail, and told me never to answer that number again. I asked her who the girl was. She said, “Nobody. Just someone trying to scare you.” ...
In the mid-2000s I was an executive and my boss personally paid for a table of ten for a fundraiser for breast cancer. It was really high-end. five tsar hotel in the CBD, very high-quality wine and food, beautifully presented, with lots of entertainment and some auctions to raise extra money. Everyone was in suits and having a good time. Over dessert some speeches came along and then to our surprise the head chef came out in his stained apron and his toque and started speaking in an Italian accent. "Ladies and gentlemen, today is very important for me. I lost my mother to breast cancer and I just wanted to acknowledge how important a cause your money is supporting. I would like to repay you in a small way by singing you a short Italian song." He then launched into a full-blown aria - I don't recall what it was but it was clear he wasn't just a chef. He had a glorious tenor voice and we got absolutely blown away by the performance. I was actually quite drunk and had...