A Story, quasi monitum, or at least a warning.
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 substantial write-up. Died peacefully in his sleep, the paragraph had concluded.
“You aren’t Charlie Hunter, aren’t you?” I addressed the man, somewhat haltingly. 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 isn’t any more.
“I’m on my way to the cardiologist,” he said. There was nothing ghostly in his speech. “The old ticker, you know, needs a little boost now and then. Nothing special, just get my routine annual checkup.”
I was still not quite sure if I was dreaming, losing my mind, or what.
“So,” — I was fishing for suitable words — “So you are really quite well then?”
“Oh yes,” he smiled. “I am still up on the world. Quit smoking, you know. Clears the mind and the pipes, I tell you. Sometimes I do feel my age, though. The modern world puzzles me. Everything seems to go so fast these days. Where is everybody going in such a hurry? And then the computer. I swear there lurks a dybbuk in that machine. Can’t tell you how many emails and things I have lost or messed up because I forgot to save or send, or because I clicked on the wrong 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?”
“At the very bottom of the obituary notice. ‘Died in his sleep’ it said.”
There was a long pause. Neither of us moved. Then he burst out laughing: “Oh for God’s sake, I done it again.”
“What?” I had to swallow. “What did you do again?”
“I have done this before. I read something, you know, a message, a letter maybe, and then I click on the ‘close’ button and go about my business.”
“Hold on, hold on,” I said, to myself, mostly. ” All this cannot be real?”
“It is, apparently.” Charlie said. “My fault, I guess,” he admitted, somewhat subdued. And after a pause, “Didn’t I say there is a dybbuk in that system? Seems that you never know what you miss if you don’t scroll down!”
(c) 2018 by Herbert H Hoffman