He recalls this. He recalls that it was not a person he knew, but that those were among the complaints he observed on the telephone network. He had assumed the man making those complaints was human, but perhaps his assumption was not incorrect at the time.

"I exist," says Rashad, because that seems more accurate to him than to claim that he lives "where I may. This place is largely undisturbed." Apart from when apparitions of former humans manifest in it, it would seem. "I no longer seem to require...contact."