A man wakes up every day around three in the morning with overwhelming existential dread, as he fears that everyone in his life will die. He has a hard time falling back asleep with these emotions, so instead he makes calls to automated call services, like the weather, just so he can hear another human voice. Eventually, he's unsatisfied with robotic answers, so he begins to call strangers, and sometimes even his friends, though he doesn't let them know. He'll remain quiet, or sometimes he'll answer, and insists that he learns something about these people by hearing how they react to a strange call. Most of the people he calls hang up soon, but one night he calls someone who wants to talk to him. The night after, he forgets the person's phone number, and is unable to ever reach them again. Soon after, someone knocks on his door, and he assumes it is the caller. When he opens the door, it turns out to be an agent and a technician, who have come to take his phone away for disturbing so many strangers in the night. They claim that this is the right choice for him, and that with nothing to do when he wakes up in the night, he should be able to sleep with no issue. Rather than accepting this, the man says that he will move tomorrow, change his name, and buy a new telephone.