The Answer

A man becomes tormented by a recurring dream in which he enters his estranged wife's dark apartment, strangles her, and then is haunted by the insistent ringing of her telephone. The dream returns with unnerving regularity, leaving him unable to recall how he arrived or to distinguish illusion from waking life. Obsessive focus on the unanswered call and sensory details such as perfume and heat drive his anxiety, eroding daily routines and sharpening feelings of guilt, curiosity, and dread as he struggles to break the cycle and learn what the ringing conceals.