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2014.
New York City.

The man sitting on the couch in the living room of the dark apartment cast a sullen, forlorn glance at the answering machine on the coffee table as a robotic-sounding female voice piped out through the speaker.
"You have, two, new messages."
The device beeped shrilly, an all-too-familiar voice piping out through the speaker.
"Hey John. It's, uh...It's me. I was just calling to see how you were feeling...You seemed pretty upset after the court date yesterday, and you ran out before I could get a chance to talk to you. Uh, anyways...Em's got a violin recital tonight at 7, and I thought you might want to come to that. Admission's free, and it's just gonna be a small, short event at the school, so...Yeah. She's hoping that you'll be there, so it'll mean a lot to her if you do decide to show up."
She was silent for a long moment, as if out of things to say.
"...Look, I gotta get off. Jimmy needs help with his homework, so I should go do that. I'm sorry about how things went down with the ruling yesterday, and I hope you're okay."

The machine beeped again, and another voice, this time male, began speaking.
"Johnny, what the hell? You haven't been at work in the past few days, and the boss is threatening to lay you off if you aren't back soon. Look, I know you've been going through that stuff with your ex-wife and your kids, but if you ever want a chance of regaining at least partial custody, you gotta prove you can provide for Em and Jimmy. Gimme a call, alright?"
The machine beeped a third time, and the first female voice returned.
"You have, no, new messages."

John considered the messages, then snatched up a piece of paper and jotted down a few words in a large, messy scrawl. A moment later, a flash of light illuminated the dark room, accompanied by a loud bang.