I thought I was seeing a ghost. There was Charlie Hunter, sitting on the bench in the bus stop kiosk. We had been neighbors some years ago. No, it couldn’t be Charlie. Impossible. I had just read his obituary in the Sunday Courier. A brief write-up. Died peacefully in his sleep, the paragraph had concluded.
“You aren’t Charlie Hunter, aren’t you?” I addressed the man. I mean, people do look alike sometimes.
“Oh Hi, Elmer!” he said as he turned his face up to see me. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How are you?”
For a moment I felt a little woozy. This was nothing if not eerie.
“What brings you to these parts?” I finally managed to say. Could not think of anything else to say to a person who, I had just read, isn’t any more.
“I’m just on my way home from the cardiologist,” he said. “The old ticker, you know, needs a little boost now and then. Get my checkup every six months.”
I was still not quite sure if I was dreaming, losing my mind, or what.
“So,” — I was fishing for suitable words — “So what was the good doctor’s verdict today?”
“Good news, actually. He does not want to see me until a year from now.”
“You are quite well, then, it seems?”
“Oh yes”, he smiled. “I am still up on the world. Gave up smoking, you know. Clears the mind and the pipes, I tell you. Sometimes I do feel my age, though, especially when I have to fight the computer. I swear there lurks a dybbuk in that machine. Can’t tell you how many emails and things I have lost because I forgot to save, or send, or click on some other confounded button.”
This was no time for chit-chat, I felt. I mean, how weird can you let a situation get? So I told him straight out that I had read his obituary in the paper, enumerating all his accomplishments, how his children respected him, and all the nice comments his co-workers had left.
I was not prepared for his reply.
“Yea, I read it too”, he said. “I get the e-version of the paper. Made me feel really good about myself. I had no idea people liked me that much.”
“But don’t you understand? It said that you had died!”
“It said what?” he turned with a start. “Where did you see that?”
“Way down below, on the last line.”
There was a long pause. Neither of us moved. Then he burst out laughing: “Oh for God’s sake, I done it again.”
“What? What did you do?”
“I hit ‘close’ but didn’t scroll down first”.
(c) 2017 by Herbert H Hoffman