by Pascal Inard
Stephanie shrugged. “I don't know if many men would be attracted to a widow, and I don't blame them. It would be like a ménage à trois.”
“Hey, knocking on my door comes out in two weeks. Let's go to the premiere together and then we'll go dancing. It'll be like old times. Come on, what do you say?”
Charlotte wasn't going to give up. Stephanie had been buried in her grief, and she hadn't opened her eyes until now to realise that Charlotte was a real friend. All the others had given up on her. At first, they'd called her, but the awkward silences had been too much for them. Death was an alien concept to them. It was one of those things that they didn't want to be confronted with, and they thought they could continue to ignore it.
But grief wasn't alone; it had a more tenacious companion, guilt.
If she'd gone with Roger to his friend's birthday party, he wouldn't have been killed in a car accident because the man who was driving him home was drunk. But she was exhausted after a long day at work and had preferred to stay home and watch TV.
Guilt and grief weighed her down and stopped her from moving on.
#
Stephanie opened a parcel she'd collected from the post office on her way home.
Her favourite perfume, Forever.
She hadn't ordered it, so who could have sent it? She looked for a note or a card in the package, but all she found was the eBay invoice. It had been purchased by Roganie, an eBay user name that she shared with Roger. But he couldn't have ordered it in advance; eBay didn't let you do that. Could it be an order that had somehow been lost and all of a sudden recovered? No, the purchase date was one week ago.
She took the bottle and sprayed her neck. The scent reminded her of Roger. He had chosen it for her, but the last bottle had remained half-empty, as if it contained his love for her and she couldn't bear to watch it slowly emptying. She sprayed more fragrance, inebriating herself with its essence.
She couldn't move on; her heart belonged to Roger and no other man.
The next day, another parcel waited for her at the post office.
This time it was 'Uomo', a perfume Roger had bought himself one month or two before the accident; she didn't remember exactly.
Stephanie sat down, her heart racing. It couldn't be a coincidence; no one knew their taste in perfumes. Had her prayers for Roger to manifest himself been answered? She had given up trying to convince him that there was a life after death, and that they would be reunited in heaven. “You'll see for yourself when you get there. Just promise you'll send me a message when you do,” she'd said, not thinking for one second that he would be there a week (or was it two?) later.
Stephanie answered a call from Graeme, Roger's best friend.
“I thought I'd call you rather than respond to your message.”
“What message?”
“On Facebook. You invited me for a drink.”
“What? I never go on Facebook these days.”
“The message was posted from Roger's Facebook page. I thought you were playing some sort of joke on me.”
“It wasn't me; I don't have his password, and if I really wanted to invite you for a drink, I'd call you. Not that I don't want to go for a drink with you, but—”
“Sorry, it sort of freaked me out; whoever it was liked three of my posts too. For a split second I thought Roger was still alive. And then I came back to reality; the landing was rough.”
“It means his spirit is trying to reach out to us from the other side. He ordered a bottle of my favourite perfume on eBay for our wedding anniversary, and a bottle of his. And then he chatted to you on Facebook.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but someone's hacked Roger's accounts. If I was you, I'd change all your passwords and ask Facebook to close his page.”
“I can't do that. It would be like burying him again.”
“I know what you mean. When I die, I don't want my Facebook page to be closed. I feel like I'll still be alive somehow. But you better get to the bottom of this before the hacker does more damage. Contact the cyber police; they should be able to find the IP address of the computer where the purchases were made and the Facebook messages were posted from.”
Stephanie put the phone down and wiped the tears from her face. How could she have been so gullible?
She opened her Facebook page. Roger, or rather the person who had hacked into her account, had written 'Happy Anniversary, I love you forever' on her wall.
A message came from Roger: “Hi honey.”
At last, she was going to have an explanation with the hacker. “Who are you?”
“It's me, Roger. Did you get your perfume?”
“What do you want from me?”
“I just want you to know how much I love you.”
What a sick individual, getting his kicks out of playing with people's emotions.
Rage bubbled inside her, the pressure rising. If only she had a cigarette, it would calm her down. But she had stopped smoking for Roger and she wasn't going to start again now. She didn't want to give the hacker that satisfaction, and wondered what would have happened if she'd played along with him. Or maybe it was a woman; men didn't have the monopoly on hacking.
#
Later that day, Roger (or the hacker) shared a link: activist organisation Getup was asking for funds to pay for a TV spot to raise an alarm on the future of the great barrier reef: oil reserves had been found underneath, and the government was arguing that the reef was doomed anyway, so a couple of oil rigs weren't going to make a difference.
Stephanie smiled. Roger refused to be called a Green; he hated being labelled anything or following a movement. To him, preserving our planet was a moral obligation towards future generations; politicians were not to be trusted, even those in the Green party. He would tell his children that he stood up for them, and that they would have to do the same for their children.
It was a source of discord between them; not because Stephanie disagreed with his views, but contributing a thousand dollars to a cause when they were saving for a mortgage didn't make sense.
Stephanie viewed the transactions on her credit card; there was a payment of two hundred dollars to Getup. It was the amount they'd agreed he could spend on his causes every month, after their latest argument on the matter, three weeks before the accident.
How could a hacker know these details? And why give away $200 when he could have bought himself anything he wanted using their PayPal account?
Stephanie pinged Roger on Facebook.
“If you really are Roger, tell me: when and where did we meet?”
“On the sixth of April, 2007 at the Black Cat Jazz club.”
“When did we get married?”
“On the 15th of September, 2009.”
“What is your favourite band?”
“Mahavishnu Orchestra.”
“What is your favourite book?”
“Shantaram.”
“Favourite dish?
“Tarte Tatin, but only the ones you make. Have I passed the test?”
“I still can't believe it's you, Roger. You died two years ago, and all of a sudden you're chatting to me on Facebook as if nothing had happened.”
“I'm here now. It's all that matters.”
“What do you mean, here? Are you in the room? Can you see me?”
“No, but I can see the words you're typing.”
“So are you in my smartphone? Here, I'll turn on the camera. Can you see me now?”
“No, I can't. Take a selfie and post it on your wall.”
Stephanie went to the bathroom to brush her hair and put on some make-up.
After the photo was posted, Roger typed, “You're beautiful, baby. I love you.”
#
“Are you sure it's him?” asked Charlotte.
“I'm positive. Oh, I'm so happy.”
Charlotte looked behind her. “Is he in the room?”
“No, he's in the Internet. He can go to Facebook, eBay, PayPal,
YouTube, anywhere he wants. He's got unlimited access.”
“Cool. So that means when we die, our spirit can live in the Web forever. But why isn't this happening to more people?”
“I asked him, but he didn't know. There have been no reports of this on the Net. Maybe he's the first spirit who's figured out how to travel to the Internet, and others will follow.”
“Doesn't surprise me; he was pretty clever. It probably explains why it's taken two years for him to manifest himself too.”
“I'm so happy. We chat every day; I tell him what I've done. He tells me what he sees on the Net, what books he reads, what movies he watches.”
“Hey, check out the news. The web sites of energy giant Adani, the Liberal party and all titles of Rupert Murdoch have been taken down by a hacker; that will make him happy.”
“I better tell him, but I bet he probably knows about it already.”
#
Three days since their last chat. Three long days. Roger said that it had been child's play bringing those web sites down. He could go anywhere, he could do anything. Stephanie had asked him to be careful of the anti-virus software and he'd replied that they couldn't do anything to him because he wasn't a virus.
Maybe he was wrong, or maybe he'd felt insulted by Stephanie's insinuation that he was one.
A news flash caught her attention:
Roger virus destroyed.
The virus responsible for the destruction of a number of web sites was destroyed yesterday by the cyber police.
It was a virus of a new type, named after the man that it was emulating. It had trawled through Roger's Internet history: purchases, videos viewed, eBooks read and Facebook posts. It had gathered enough information to take on Roger's personality, and then it had acted exactly like him: chatting to his wife, liking the same sort of posts, reading the same sort of books and going as far as taking down web sites of organisations that Roger was opposed to.
At first, the cyber police suspected a very clever hacker, but by tracing the packets of data in the network, it found that they did not emanate from a device. It was connecting to the Internet from the inside. It moved through the web from one server to another. Attempts to trace the source of the virus failed. It was finally destroyed using a technique called BGP hijacking, whereby routing messages indicate that the best place to send the packets of data is an IP address that specifies a non-existent host. Then the packets just disappear into a black hole.
The cyber police are warning Internet users to be on their guard. The virus could strike again, taking on another personality Analysts are predicting tighter identity controls in the Internet; the days of anonymity in the Web could be over.
Why didn't they tell me? It must be a mistake; Roger wasn't a virus. And now they've destroyed him.
Their last Facebook chat was still there.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Their last words.
Stephanie shook her head. She'd lost him twice, and this time, it was for good.
Then she remembered a detail that she'd relegated to the back of her mind: Roger had tried Uomo but hadn't liked it.
Buying fragrances online was only a good idea if you knew what you were buying.
Roger had ended up going to David Jones and had settled on Le Male by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Stephanie had suggested finding him a skirt to go with it, but he didn't get the joke. She'd explained to him that Jean-Paul Gaultier was famous for wearing skirts.
So why buy another bottle?
The cyber police was right: the virus had trawled through Roger's digital footprint where it had found all the answers to Stephanie's questions.
How could she have been fooled so easily?
Stephanie called Charlotte to take her up on her offer to go dancing.
Time to move on.
END
Connect with Pascal Inard
If you’ve enjoyed reading Pushing up the digits, please leave a review at your retailer. Thank you in advance.
If you want to keep in touch, here’s how you can connect with me. I look forward to hearing from you.
•Email: [email protected]
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About Pascal Inard
Pascal Inard has published novels, non-fiction books and short stories, as well as articles in online magazines. He writes mostly in English, but sometimes in French or in both languages.
He lives a creative life in Cheltenham, a suburb of Melbourne in Australia with his illustrator and crafter wife Isabella and their three children. When he's not writing or photographing, he manages IT projects for an Australian bank.
Other Books by Pascal Inard
The Memory Snatcher – A Doctor Collingsworth and Inspector Ninoska Science-Fiction Mystery.
Doctor Stephen Colllingsworth is on the verge of a breakthrough in his research on an unlimited source of energy, when he loses his memories of the past year.
He suspects he has amnesia, until he meets Inspector Ninoska who is convinced that the serial killer she was hunting erased her memories of the past months because she was getting close to catching him.
Ninoska only has four weeks before the killer strikes again. While she continues her search, Stephen seeks an explanation to the mystery of the disappearing memories. Could they have been stolen by aliens or by that creativity consultant that he and Ninoska consulted a few months ago?
When people start losing their memories all over the world, Stephen and Ninoska join forces to stop the memory snatcher before it paralyses the whole planet.
Available in print and eBook at major online retailers from November 2015.
Web of Destinies - a time travel mystery with a French flavour:
Guillaume Chambon, a French doctor has inherited a mysterious typewriter that can change the past. He doesn't have to travel in time; the past comes to him through a vision of anterior events that he describes using the typewriter. When he sees those events leading to a tragic end, he types a different continuation. Reality is thus modified, but there are consequences that he didn't foresee.
To use the typewriter to stop his sister from losing her life twenty years ago, he is going to have to remove the safeguards put by the inventor, a friend of Jules Verne who found crystals with extraordinary properties. As Guillaume tries to unravel the mysteries of the typewriter, assisted by his friend Sylvie who has secrets of her own, he is confronted with a secret agent who wants to use it to make a major change to history, and a Buddhist monk who is trying to stop him because if he succeeds, the fabric of the universe is in danger of collapsing.
Available in print and eBook at major online retailers.
Discover the food, places and music of Web of Destinies
Dear France, sweet country of my childhood – Chère France, doux pays de mon enfance:
A tribute to France with beautiful photos, delicious recipes, vintage postcards and posters, stories from the authors' childhood and interesting facts on French places and traditions. A must for anyone wanting to learn more about France or who is learning French, as it is entirely written in both English and French.
Available in print at major online retailers.
Discover it on the Dear France blog
Un dernier roman pour la route (novel in French)
The story of a bestselling author with writer’s block who travels the world in a quest for his inspiration.
Available in print and eBook at major online retailers.
A to Z Guide to happiness – A gift from dogs to their owners (and everyone else)
Dogs are gifted at being happy. They don't have to learn how; it's natural to them Watch their tails wagging to show you how happy they are, as they jump, run and roll over, their tongue hanging out.
Dogs are also generous creatures; they want us humans to partake in their happiness, because they know that happiness is made to be shared with the gr
eatest number and that it grows bigger and bigger as it spreads around, like a snowball rolling down a hill that they would gladly chase.
In this book, dogs give you 53 simple recipes for happiness, illustrated with hilarious photos.
Available in print at major online retailers from November 2015.
Chapter One of The Memory Snatcher
31st March 2046, Melbourne.
Doctor Stephen Collingsworth had the unenviable honour of being the first victim of the memory snatcher. That scoundrel could not have made a better choice; the doctor had hyperthymesia, a rare condition that allowed him to recall every detail of his life, from the most trivial, like the colour of the socks of the man who sat opposite him on the train to Ballarat where he worked, to the most complex, like the value of every parameter of the standard model of particle physics to the tenth decimal place.
The train pulled into Ballarat station, and Stephen made his way to the boarding area of the shuttle train that would take him directly to the Quantum Particle Transformer facility. It was placed completely underground, and the thirty square kilometres above it were some of the best protected in Australia.
The inauguration of the facility yesterday had been a success, but he couldn’t get rid of the nagging feeling that something was wrong. It had started when he awoke that morning with a massive headache. He had blamed it on the glass of champagne that Bob Fultrow, school friend and Prime Minister of Australia, had made him drink, whispering something about the importance of public image.
But it wasn’t just a feeling, there were signs that something was indeed wrong: his ponytail has doubled in length overnight, he had lost one kilo since last week, and the most disturbing one was the brown stain on the right pocket of his grey trench coat that wasn’t there yesterday. His co-workers made fun of him for wearing it, but it was his insurance against Melbourne’s capricious weather that was worsening every year. A forty-five-degree heat could turn into a ten-degree chill in a matter of minutes, and he didn’t want to be caught out, so he wore it every day of the year, no matter what the weather forecast was.
