ONCE UPON A TIME in a not too distant
land, in the not too distant past, a young woman or, perhaps, a young man – you
really can’t tell anymore – clicks some keys on a computer. In a similarly not too distant land – if it
isn’t the same land – a message arrives on the desk of a young woman who, this
time, actually is both young and female.
The message makes her smile.
Selene, the
young woman with the juvenile smile and the warm flush, clicks back. A friendship is begun - begins with a few
brief keystrokes. The conversation,
however, is anything but brief. They
exchange messages, exchange the details of their lives, in a steady, almost
unending stream of clicks and clacks.
The ping of Selene’s computer becomes a constant accompaniment
to the sound of crickets and the creaks and moans of the old farmhouse she
calls home.
Selene gets
very little sleep. Her friendship is
most intense at night – at all hours of the night – but sleep is of little
consequence. Selene senses a growing
affection for the friend she knows only as Hera2014; she pines for the day they
will meet.
Before any
such meeting can be arranged, the fates intervene.
Hera2014’s dog
is killed trying to cross the railroad tracks that run near her home. She complains that Noodles, her beloved
childhood pet, a dachshund who has enjoyed an extraordinarily long life, never made
it over the northbound line, lamenting that only the front half of the
unlucky wiener dog managed to cross the rails. When found, Noodles was poised for
a run across the pasture that separated the rail line from their home; the rear
half of the old dog was, unfortunately, still sitting patiently between the
tracks waiting its turn.
Needless to
say, Hera2014 is overcome by grief. She
is devastated by the abrupt loss of her most constant and familiar companion. Selene is deeply moved by her friend’s grief and
begs to visit. All she wants is to hug
and console her friend, to hold her close and take away some of the pain, but
her offer is rebuffed. Hera2014 is not
ready for company. She needs some alone time
with her memories – and a bejeweled collar she now wears as a bracelet. Their visit, their first meeting, will have
to wait for better times.
Better times
should take about a week.
They both
agree.
The week
passes with tedious pauses in the conversation.
Slowly, Hera2014 starts texting again and soon she seems to be back to
her vigorous, near persistent, self. The
messages fill the night once more and Selene grows excited and anxious; their
meeting is finally getting closer. She
has been packed since Tuesday.
On Friday,
Hera2014 attends a frat party at the local college. She is not a student but friends are going
and she decides to tag along. It is not
– by any measure – a good decision. A
frat brother, a guy famous for smashing empty beer cans against his ample forehead,
takes advantage of her in the living room…over the back of a sofa…in front of
everyone. She is too drunk or too
drugged to do more than mutter the occasional “Wee!” and maybe – possibly – puke on the back of some anonymous guy
kissing her breast. She remembers
puking, anyway.
Needless to
say, Hera2014 is an emotional train wreck (no pun intended). She is
embarrassed…mortified…humiliated…shamed…and disgraced – plus one or two other
words listed in the thesaurus on her desk.
She locks herself in her room.
Sitting on the bed, clutching her knees beneath the homemade quilt she
got when her grandmother died, Hera2014 texts that she will never go out again. She will spend what is left of her life
alone.
Once again,
Selene asks to console her inconsolable friend.
Once again,
she is rebuffed.
Questions are
asked.
Have you told your family?
My stepfather would kill me.
What about the police?
Are you crazy? My friends would never speak
to me again. Those boys are THEIR friends.
“I’ll talk to
you,” Selena texts.
“Thanks,” Hera2014
replies, following that text with, “I know”.
Another week
later, Hera2014 gets thirsty. There is
nothing in the house except milk and water.
Tap water. Yuck! Hera2014 walks to the
grocery store down the block and across the street. She is promptly struck by a speeding pickup that
is literally falling apart; the driver doesn’t stop but the police find a
cracked mirror, bits and pieces of rust and some mud smudges on the street. Hera2014 is thrown a record fifty-seven
feet through the air landing with a coma inducing thud!
Selene doesn’t
hear about the accident from Hera2014.
She doesn’t hear much of anything for days – and days of texting – until
a different voice messages her back from Hera2014’s computer.
The new voice
is detailed but brusque. It is
Hera2014’s sister but there is nothing warm about her. Nothing like Hera2014. The information is more like reading a
newspaper. At times it is harsh. After a while, the messages get even harsher. All the warmth, all the affection she came to
love and to need is missing from the computer.
It is like a file has been deleted, a file Selene cannot bear to lose.
Selene tells
her brother what has happened. She wants to commiserate, to share her pain with someone close to her but he is amused. He says
it sounds like a country song. She gets
mad when he laughs and slams her door.
She stays locked away in her room connected to the outside by nothing
but her recalcitrant computer.
The news
continues to get worse.
The family is thinking of pulling the plug.
She wouldn’t want to live like this.
“Can I see
her,” Selena begs. Privately she cries
and when the ping comes back to her, she cries harder.
No.
That would not be a good idea right now.
In time, the
messages no longer matter. Hera2014 is
dead.
Her account is
silenced.
Selena tries
to express her condolences…
I am sorry…
I don’t know what to say…
She was my best friend…
…but the
computer remains silent.
As Selena sits
on her bed scratching her wrist with the tip of the X-Acto knife she uses for
art class, she tries one last message.
I can’t tell you how much I miss her…
She waits…
Makes a second
scratch…
And waits some
more.
She makes six
new scratches before the computer finally sings again.
Sometimes the wrong person dies, don’t you
think?
As Selene
presses harder on the blade, Hera2014’s messages disappear. All of them.
Hera2014 no
longer exists.
It could just
as easily have gone black…and does.
