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
When you are young, say fifteen or so, there is little that you don’t already know. You also can do just about anything. I was already seventeen when I thought I could ride a horse, for example. I just needed some practice. There was a riding school a block away. The instructor must have known I could not tell a horse from a mule, let alone tell either of them what to do. He assigned me to a slow old mare. Then we started off, all around the arena. All but my horse. Smart horse: I was still fishing for the stirrups and would have slid off the saddle, had she moved. The instructor came over, cursed the horse and smacked her. The horse reacted by starting off in a gallop, me holding on to saddle and mane. I do not remember how we eventually came to a stop. All I can say with assurance is that riding a horse came off my can-already-do list that afternoon. I forfeited the rest of the lessons.