31 Ghosts 2020 – October 16: The Social Networks

“Janice, did you see the message on Facebook?”

“I did. I haven’t had a chance to call their help line yet.”

“I thought you shut down the account.”

“I did, Karen. They ‘memorialized’ it, which supposedly freezes it so no one can access it–“

“Except someone is accessing it.”

“Yes, apparently so. I’ll take care of it.”

“Dude, did you see the meme your grandmother tweeted?”

“My grandmother is dead but thank you for bringing that still-fresh pain up to the surface.”

“Jesus, who pissed in your Cornflakes? I don’t know, man, she may be dead, but that is a straight burn on Trump.”

“Wait, what? Here, let me see. Huh. I have so many questions…”

“Oh, see, the cat’s butthole…”

“No, not about the meme. My Nan never accessed her twitter account. I created that for her and tweeted on her behalf. I don’t think she even knew the password. And she wouldn’t even know what a meme is. But, I mean, she’s dead…”

“DM her. See if whoever it is responds.”

“Good call.”

“Andrew, two questions.”

“Taylor, go.”

“No, three questions…”

“Okay.”

“One, your grandmother is dead, right?”

“Yes.”

“Two, she had an Instagram account, right?”

“Yes, @sunlovinggranny. I created it for her so she could put up her pictures from her last trip to Hawaii. That was… Jesus, ten years ago? I don’t know. My sister had me shut it down when she died.”

“Huh… Three, is this sunset picture posted 54 minutes ago by @sunlovinggranny in Fiji? Isn’t that by where we honeymooned? Huh, she’s got 33 likes already…”

“Holy shit, I think it is. What the hell?”

“Janice, I thought you said you were going to contact Facebook?”

“Karen, I did…”

“Well, whoever is using mom’s account posted again – did you see this? The video of the woodchuck eating lettuce?”

“It was a beaver eating cabbage.”

“I don’t give a shit if it’s Sasquatch, Janice! I thought you said you were going to contact them? They clearly haven’t done anything…”

“As I was trying to say, Karen, I did contact them. They said the account is set to ‘memorialize’ and no one can log in–”

“How do you explain the goddamn woodchuck.”

“It’s a fucking beaver, Karen… ahem… I’ve already got a call into them. Clearly something is going on. We’ll figure it out.”

“Oh my God, she replied to my DM.”

“Dude! What’d she say? Did you ask her about the afterlife?”

“No, asshole. Let me read this… oh… wow… wow…”

“Dude, are you crying? What she say?”

“She said ‘Augie, it’s Nan. I can’t explain this, but I hope you go have a cream soda and think of me.’ That was our thing. Cream soda. Oh my God.”

“Taylor, I have a Direct Message from @sunlovinggranny.”

“What’s it say?”

“I haven’t looked at it.”

“Well… look at it.”

“…”

“Andrew?”

“It says, ‘I can see why you two honeymooned here. It’s amazing. Give Taylor my love, Nan.’”

“She died before we got married.”

“She did. Who the hell is doing this?”

“Crazy theory?”

“Yes?”

“What if it’s really her?”

“The asshole posted a video about voting, Janice. Doesn’t look like a memorial page to me? Can’t you handle this?”

“Karen, shut it.”

“What?! I thought you said you were handling this? You’re the executor, not me, in case you forgot.”

“I got a message from mom…”

“Like from a psychic?”

“A Facebook message, Karen.”

“You mean from the asshole using her account.”

“No, Karen. From mom. It was about Tiddly Whiskers. She wrote about when we had to put her down.”

“Your cat growing up?”

“Yeah. She mentioned things only mom and I talked about.”

“Social engineering, Janice. It’s probably general stuff and you’re reading into this. Jesus, this is exactly what these scammers  want.”

“Karen, stop. It’s not general. It’s word for fucking word. It’s mom.

“Dude, Augie, are you okay, man?”

“…Yeah, sorry.”

“What’d she say this time?”

“She had to go, but to keep an eye out from time to time. Heh… she called me muffin head.”

“Because of that time in fourth grade! Ha! Even your dead grandmother won’t let you live that down!”

“Yeah… damn I miss her. Again.”

“But it was good to hear from her, right?”

“Yeah.”

“New Direct Message, Taylor.”

“And?”

“I need your support.”

“Okay, let’s open it…. Oh my God. Oh my God. Andrew… that’s…”

“Yeah it is…”

“…our house. The sun set, what? Fifteen minutes ago? That was fifteen minutes ago? Andrew, that was fifteen minutes ago.”

“Did you see the message?”

“’I’ll always watch the sunsets with you, Pinkie. Love, Nan’? Who’s Pinkie?”

“I was a particularly hairless newborn. Apparently everyone referred to me as ‘Pinkie’ at least for the first couple of weeks. Nan always called me that – and only Nan.”

“It’s Nan?”

“It is… there’s still some light on the horizon.”

“Sure is.”