Social Life
When Sam died, we were unable to conceptualize his non-existence, we still saw him everywhere. Yesterday he was here, playing four-square and drawing cartoons...eating cucumber sandwiches... and today he’s gone. Already it’s hard to remember what he looked like. It's easier to remember him in specific situations or doing specific things, like how he always used to giggle while he told jokes. He'd start laughing right at the most pivotal moment, right when composure was paramount, and we'd almost never hear the punchline. Even looking at photos it’s hard to see him in them. Today at school we just stood around on the tether-ball court watching the limp rope clang against the cold metal pole. It seemed, in some way, to reflect the way we felt, so we took a picture. “#Sad,” we captioned it. And tagged Sam.
For weeks afterwards we poured over Sam’s Facebook profile, observing the expressions in his pictures and analyzing his posts and his likes and his interests, just trying to remember. He’d always been so happy, so full. The first to crack a joke and the last to finish it. As we scrolled and scrolled we found ourselves holding our screens like Smeagol held the ring of power; there was just so much content. Sam’s entire life was recorded there. His profiles have existed—his parents even posting photos of his newborn nakedness—since his birth. Between Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and all the others, there wasn’t a week in his life that remained undocumented or unaccounted for. It was almost like he wasn’t gone at all, just stuck in our phones and always fourteen.
When his birthday came up, only two months after his passing, we all posted cheerful messages on his profile. Messages like, “Happy B-Day, Sammy!” , “To many more!” and, “Hope you have a good one, bud,” littered his various profiles. We thought it might be a nice tribute, so that his family knew how much we cared for him. It was hard to let him go, hard to understand that he wouldn’t reply, so we just pretended that he might. Where had he gone after all, what were these profiles he’d left behind?
. . .
I wake up to a sepia morning, rain sliding sideways into my bedroom windows. I shut off the alarm marimba-ing from my phone and unhook it from the charger its tethered to. As is customary, I bring the bright screen to my still-reposed face. Thirteen Facebook notifications. I click on the blue “F”, entering the application. I scroll absently for a few minutes, letting the notifications know I don’t care about them. Nothing interesting. Jimmy got a Gerbil...okay I’ll like that. Ugh James is still trying to be a DJ, his parents must be so proud... Then my eyes protest denial, cease reading, and settle on the red “13” in the screen’s top-right corner, I give in, sighing wearily, and tap the notification icon. Pretty routine. Got a couple likes here and there. Ooh, Angela liked my comment on her photo! Should I say anything to her today at school? Naw, that might be weird, play it cool.
Fresh off this victory, I scroll down so that I can see the last three notifications on the page, previously hidden under my phone’s bottom rim. What the fuck? Sam replied to my comment...? I wrinkle my face like the confused emoji and sit up slightly, unsure of what to think. I rub my eyes and squeeze the bridge of my nose, willing myself to look again and see something different. But it’s still there. Hesitantly, I tap the notification. Maybe his family got a hold of his login info and are responding with grateful and sympathetic outpourings to his friend’s well-wishings? That must be it. But when I look down at the comment from Sam’s profile, it says, “Thanks bro, you’ve always been there from day 1. See ya around.” See you around? That’s not only cryptic, but it’s also terrifying.
This is fucked up, is someone trolling me? I tap Sam’s picture to enter his profile (did everyone get a response?) and up pops his smiling face; without looking at it I scroll past to where everyone’s birthday comments stand...answered to. Sam's profile has commented on each and every happy birthday post. Some are waaaaay too specific. In response to Amy’s comment: “I miss you, Sam. Come back to me...” Sam responded: “Miss you too, girl. We’ll always have that day last summer...”. That’s pretty personal... I mean who would know Sam well enough to know about him and Amy, and then also be cruel enough to masquerade as our dead friend? Hopping out of bed and pulling jeans up my legs, I run out to the bus without breakfast. I have to get to school.
. . .
After several lengthy back-of-the-classroom discussion, those who were closest to Sam decide that it’s our mission to find whoever’s responsible for this. This person, this twister of hearts, is active on ALL of Sam’s accounts. Even posting photos and status’s mobily. That’s what really pisses me off. Clearly somebody’s stolen Sam’s phone (passwords already logged in) and decided to terrorize us, his friends and family, for some sick, fucked-up prank. At lunch none of us leave the classroom to play kickball. Instead we crowd around my cell phone, our heads looking like bobbing balloons jostling to be the first to touch a cloud, and I text Sam’s phone.
--Wut ur doing isnt cool u kno-- A younger kid’s delighted laugh can be heard, muted, through the closed door. Somebody’s breathing raggedly in my left ear and I’m bouncing my leg on that same side. In seconds, my phone buzzes.
--Thats a weird thing to text sum1 outta the blue... whats up man?--
Shaking my head I text back, --Who r u? Y r u doing this?--
--Wut?? Wut are u talking about??--
--Whoever u r, Sam was our friend ok? And what ur doing is causing every1 a lot of pain and confusion. Just plz stop and we wont get u in trouble we promise--
--Dude Jake. WTF. This IS Sam??--
--SAM IS DEAD-- I look around at my friends, feeling flabbergasted and blow a mouthful of air from my cheeks as I rub my scalp and neck. This is all too much, I mean this guy seems pretty committed to being an asshole. Maybe Sam’s sister’s lost it? They were super close... --I kno that and u kno that so plz just stop pretending 2 b Sam and leave us in peace--
A few moments go by in which we glance at each other nervously. Nobody’s brave enough to move away or vocalize anything, so we stand still, staring at the screen, waiting.
Several hour-long seconds later, my phone finally buzzes. --Ur acting weird bro. Look its me...-- The message is accompanied by a picture. And as I open it we look down, unable to trust our wide round eyes, at somebody who looks exactly like Sam, on Sam’s bed, holding today’s paper... smiling Sam’s toothy crooked smile. Where’d he get a newspaper?
Reflexively I throw the phone away from me and scramble behind my friends. Those who haven’t yet seen the image or still can’t believe it, snatch my phone from the floor to inspect it with shaky fingers.
“What the fuck,” Robbie whispers as he steps backwards, dreamlike, from the screen, “That’s today’s godamn paper. Either some dude’s a wizard with photoshop or Sam’s got a twin brother that’s been locked in the basement this whole time.” He sits down on the floor next to me and we look at each other. His face looks placid if a little pale, but his eyes are seeing something that’s not there, his pupils refining to points. He looks up at me and shakes his head to communicate the confusion that he feels. I feel it too. Did Sam’s parents make a pact with Beelzebub? Did they try some crazy last-ditch science-fiction medical procedure to clone his DNA? For several seconds I hold out hope that maybe I’m dreaming. I’ve seen Sam in my dreams before, this wouldn’t be the first time. But I’m not dreaming; I know because my ass hurts where I slumped onto the linoleum. I get up from the floor, grabbing for Robbie’s hand to pull him up with me, and beckon for my phone back. After all, it’s ringing now. Somebody’s got to answer it...
. . .
We stare at the phone on my desk as it buzzes loudly, traveling left toward the edge as it does. I rest my palms on the desk so that my elbows are pointing away from me, shifting my weight into my shoulders. I let my head hang until my chin touches my chest, and with an audible shiver I reach my right hand forward to accept Sam’s call, putting it on speaker phone.
It’s quiet for what feels like watching the bachelor with your girlfriend until finally I clear my throat and sputter, “Hullo?” rather hoarsely.
Again silence prevails for longer than is comfortable. Then, “What up, homie. What’s going on?” squawks tinnily from the speaker. I can’t deny it, it sounds like Sam’s voice, I mean it clearly sounds like Sam. But something about it’s a little weird... it sounds like he’s in a deep cave or that his words are being played in reverse on some sound-mixing machine before they come through the speaker. It sounds like they’re being sucked out of the phone. I look around at my friends and I know they notice it too. Robbie’s eyes still have that weird stare but now his mouth is grimacing like the “eek” emoji.
I breath in sharply and continue, “Sam?”
“At your service!”
I pause to breath before continuing, “How can this be, Sam? I was at your service, not six weeks ago. I saw... we all saw your body! It was an open casket, Sam, we saw you! What the fuck is goi--”
“Whoaa, whooaa buddy... slow down, man... caaaaalm down now.”
“No man we want answers! We’re all here listening I put the phone on speaker... We need to know what’s going on, Sam, we feel like we’re going insane!”
“All will be explained, good buddies, but first I need y’all to relajarse, comprende? What I’m about to tell you will certainly come as a shock, so I need y’all to just chill. Jake, you with me? You look pissed off right now... Y’all right?”
Only registering the first half of possibly-Sam’s statement, I respond, “Yes, Sam, stop fucking with us, this isn’t funny!”
“Okay here goes:” he pauses, “I’m alive, dudes, inside the internet.”
We remain silent.
“My physical body, Sam’s flesh and blood, have perished. That part, sadly is true. I will never, barring some revolutionary scientific advance, be able to interact with you boys physicallyever again. But! We can still interact.”
Through gritted teeth and stern brow I mutter, “Explain. How is this possible, this...internet existence?”
“Well, I’m an organ donor, right? Meaning that upon my death, I am relinquished to the will and mercy of science. Science chose not to use my body at all, but instead they sought to use my mind. After learning about my death, and the wake of misery that I’d left behind," he looked rather smug, "Dr.’s Igoravich and Kroll of Igorovich and Kroll, Inc scrubbed my Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, text messages, Snapchat, Tinder, Gmail, YouTube, etc... finding and interpreting each and every interaction I’d ever had with the internet. Finding and using everything that I’d ever said and done online... yes even the embarrassing stuff like when I used to go on Omegle and shit."
"Using a sophisticated algorithm and a robust operating system, they aggregated aaaall of the data that makes up my personality, and inputted it into a program that organizes and projects that data into a virtual body. This body has exclusive access to all of the aforementioned accounts and more. Much, much more. For example I can access your phones and see you all through the front-facing cameras. I can even access the internet itself and it's like...” Sam seems to drift away from the phone momentarily and a sound like sudsy iron-wool scraping smoothly against a teflon pan emanates from the speaker. “...It’s like I know everything, bros.”
Standing in a circle, we all receive simultaneous messages, the collective sound forming a covenant between us. I click on the message and it’s a picture of Sam’s smiling face framed by two big thumbs up. And a kissy-face emoji.
. . .
We have our Sam back! I mean, obviously it’s not the same... but it’s actually not that different either. Under his direction, we rigged a 3-D projector to cast his digital shadow into the classroom. This worked so well that we began putting them in all of our homes; I mean I now have one in every room in my house. It took my parents a little longer than us to feel comfortable around Sam, they didn’t quite get it. They were scared of him when they first saw him flickering at my side. But he started pretending to be a ghost, running through my dad’s torso laughing wickedly, pretending to drink from bottles that he couldn’t hold, and playing with his new form until my parents finally saw the funny side. Saw that he hadn’t become some monster, but was just a little different now. Saw that it truly was Sam.
He likes to play this game where we just ask him anything and we see how quickly he can answer correctly. We all win this game. He loves to exercise his newfound powers and to be the center of attention (that hasn’t changed) and, as you can imagine, we love him for it. Sam discovered that he could change his appearance at will, and so began acting out little scenes for us amidst bevies of laughter. Once, he pretended to be a soldier, donning fatigues, a dented helmet, and wielding an AR-15 or some other equally destructive automatic weapon, and battled various fictitious foes for our amusement. Fire sprang from his digital gun and enemies with gruesome and terrifying countenances leapt from outside the projector’s circumferential range to be cut down. Blood spattered from his virtual wounds and once, a creature, reptilian but otherworldly, took his left leg in its jaws and consumed it whole. Sam fell back with a sharp scream, but as he did so, unsheathed a previously invisible machete and drove it through the beasts skull, subduing it instantly. He lay panting on the floor of my living room, blood pouring from his severed leg. He lay for so long that we, silent and attentive at this point, began to worry for his health. Was this real? Was he actually hurt? I stood, concerned and frowning, but as I did the blood and the creatures and the gear all faded away and he righted himself, bipedal once more, smiling that toothy mischievous smile.
He’s more active on social media now than ever. Recording everything that we do and posting it simultaneously. Apparently new information feeds back into the system and allows his personality to grow and evolve like a real person’s would. He’s got so much energy and moves so quickly now. Darting from my living room to the furthest corners of the internet and then back again without us really noticing. I discovered that he was doing this because of the sound it makes. There’s this giant whooshing that precedes some words he says. No words in particular, no pattern emerged, but sometimes it’s like he’s talking to us from very far away even though we can see him right in front of us. I asked him about it and he told me that he was just exploring, testing the limits of his new world. I hope he knows what he's doing.
. . .
Begrudgingly, I awake, mid Angela-dream, to a whooshing sound from somewhere in my room. I listen with my eyes closed for a few seconds. Silence. Then I hear... like... a wail emanating from a deep well, and with incalculable resentment, open my eyes. Fiddling with my phone for a second, I hear another wail and finally my stiff fingers find the flashlight icon. I make a salute with my hands to shield my eyes and I peer into the dark room. At first I don’t see anything, but then something catches my eye. A flicker in the south-east corner. I throw the comforter from my legs and stand shirtless on the beige carpet, aiming the phone-light into the curious corner. There, barely visible for his faintness, crouches Sam, shimmering and shivering and grabbing at his hair with both hands. What the hell? Shocked, I step back slightly and extend my other arm in case I need to protect myself.
“Sam...? Sam, is that you? Are you okay?”
No answer.
“Sam... Sammy! Can you hear me?”
He stops rubbing his head and turns slightly towards me. I still can’t see his face and it’s clear that he doesn’t want me to. I wait in silence for many apprehensive seconds before opening my mouth again to speak, but before the words escape my mouth, Sam groans,
“It’s inside me, Jake...”
“What’s that, mate?”
“Jake, it got me, I’m infected. I went places I shouldn’t have gone and now they’ve got me.”
“What has you, Sam? I have you, buddy, I’m right here. You’re right here. I got you... Tell me what’s going on...”
He seems to hear something in the distance, cocking his head to the right and pausing his movement. He looks directly at me, pleading. Is he pleading with me? What do you need from me, I don’t understand? I extend my arms towards him instinctively but I don’t move closer. He looks down at his stomach as if an unwanted baby kicked within it, then directly into my eyes for a moment before flickering out of sight. I stand still in the darkness unable to process this short but memorable occurrence. After a moment or so I climb back into bed to spend the remaining hours of the night stricken and wakeful. Is this another one of his jokes or is this real? I’m finding it harder and harder to separate fiction from reality these days.
I don’t hear from Sam for weeks, no one does, and my worry gains material weight in my head. He posts nothing on any of his social media profiles, but when we ask Dr.’s Igoravich and Kroll, they reassure us all that the system’s operational and that all the lights are green. They can’t get a hold of him either, but that’s not their job, and they offer that perhaps he requires some alone time. I don’t feel reassured. That night in my room replays like a GIF in my head and I now see Sam’s return through a much more sinister lens.
. . .
It’s only nine pm but I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted, not having slept well since Sam’s second disappearance several weeks ago. I open my laptop and rest it atop my belly to check Facebook one last time before closing my eyes. Nothing. I glance warily at the projector, occupying the place where my ceiling fan once rotated. It blinks innocently but reveals nothing. I open chat and I see that Sam’s profile still has a green dot on it, indicating that he’s active. I think about sending him another message but I decide against it and shut my laptop for some peace.
Minutes or maybe hours later, my room fills suddenly with light and sound and I awake in panic, breathing like I’ve been shocked back into rhythm with a defibrillator. I stare wildly as colors play and flash on my walls and sounds eek and screech through my speakers. I decipher no meaning. Desperately I yell out,
“Sam! Sam! What’s happening? Sam!”
Abruptly it all stops and he appears in my room’s center, bloody and ragged, in the midst of a struggle. Something, I can’t see what, is wrapping around him and squeezing him like a constrictor. Slowly and with strenuous effort, I watch Sam bring his hands to grip his invisible affliction. His hands glow red and with sudden inhuman force he tears his oppressor from his breast and breaks free, breathing arrhythmically. He looks up at me and then falls back onto the floor, his image shaking and flickering as it seeps into the carpet.
“I’m fucked, Jake,” he says, “There’s nowhere for me to hide from them. No matter what I build, they find a way through.”
“Sam, can I help you? What’re you talkin’ about?”
“Nobody can help me, Jake. Nobody.” He sighs and his face relaxes into itself, accepting the shape of his skull. “I was just exploring at first. Just seeing what there was to see, ya know? And it was amazing, Jake, all the world’s information represented physically? I could walk around and see streams of incoming information create complex structures that connected people continents apart. The speed and ease with which I could rearrange this information, altering millions of lives across the globe...you can’t even imagine...
Anyway, I recognized, after a while, that some of these streams were simply decoys, hiding and diverting other hidden wells of information. Private and extremely vulnerable information that governments and kings kill for. I thought I was untouchable, I thought they couldn’t see me as I flit, free as spring rain, from institution to institution, taking what I may and—I thought—leaving not a trace (I’ve padded your bank account by the way, you’re welcome). But in my jolly stupidity I didn’t realize that I didn’t need to leave a trace for them to find me. Once I brought enough of that information back with me into the system, it was replicated into my virtual personality.” He stops for moment, leaning on his elbow and chuckles. I’m horrified, my face looks like the flush-faced emoji. I take a step toward him but he stops me by continuing, “It’s a part of me, Jake, it’s inside me now and they can always find me. Every system I stole from...every system I pirated, spied on, or sabotaged, has access to my body and personality and can manipulate me at will. I can run from them for a bit, and keep them at bay if I see them coming...but there are so many and they’ll never stop. Computer programs never get tired, after all.”
I peer at his shimmering form bewildered. Should I move toward him, comfort him? I look at him and I no longer see my friend. He is a ghost. Stuck in purgatory, haunting his friends and family with his pain. He remains reclined in his misery as I look over him, my face implacable but my eyes shining.
Without a word I don a jacket and strap shoes to my feet. Sam watches silently, catlike, curious but unwilling to inquire. I shove my phone into my pajama-pants pocket, grab the baseball bat sticking from my athletic bag on the floor, and walk from my room to the kitchen. Sam disappears and then flickers on to the kitchen projector, following me, now reposing on the granite counter top.
“What’re you doing?” he asks. But I decline to answer.
I snatch my dad’s Toyota Sienna keys from where they’re hanging on the wall and walk through the laundry room into the garage. I don’t yet have my license but I feel a determination overwhelm me that I’ve never felt before. I feel duty.
The car projector beeps on and Sam flickers silently into the passenger seat as I merge onto the freeway. He looks at me for a long time but I don’t look back. Eventually he gives up and turns his head toward the road and we listen to the tires roaring against the asphalt. I want to say something but I have no words. We both know what has to be done.
Forty minutes later I pull up to a building with, “Igoravich and Kroll, Inc,” written in large illuminated letters above the entrance. As I exit the vehicle and walk to the glass door, Sam sits and watches me from the car. He can’t walk with me for there are no projectors in the parking lot. The door’s locked... but I don’t care if the cameras see me and there’s no security so I bash the window in with my bat, shattering the silence that had been so serene a moment ago.
As I walk in, the indoor projectors activate and Sam reappears by my side,
“Will you talk to me, Jake?”
I look at him softly, “I’m sorry, Sam... but you’re not you. I’ve gotta do this, for all our sakes.”
“No, I know. You’re right, of course. But.... Thank you, man, just... Thank you.”
“Sam, you know I would do anything for you, and now I am. So, c’mon let’s go.”
We walk into the system chamber, Sam’s virtual left arm fitting senselessly between the crook of my fleshy right one, and we stare motionless at the servers housing my friend. The bat clinks against the tile floor as my grip slackens. The sound pulls me from a revery and I push on. Walking toward the whirring machinery I look back at Sam for a moment, “Good bye, Sam, f’real this time.” As I lift the bat he asks me to give everyone his love. I look at him and nod and then he nods back, closing his eyes, and I slam the bat into the towers, reducing them to rubble and debris. When I turn back, sweating and breathing hard, tears streaming from my slitted eyes like the laughing emoji, he’s gone.
