New and weird, ready for you to read.
May 27
Here
May 28
Here
May 29
Still here
May 30
I’m still here!
May 31
Here. Does anyone read these?
June 1
It’s getting hot in herrrreeee
June 2
I’m here. Is anyone there?
June 3
Does anyone talk to you besides just checking in?
June 4
I didn’t get murdered, or die after falling down the stairs, or choke on a mouthful of cereal in the last 24 hours.
June 5
This is so morbid.
June 6
This is a shitty way to start the day. A reminder that I might have died yesterday. I didn’t, so yay for me! But watch out for today…
June 7
I get your notification every morning, reminding me to check in. Which reminds me I live alone, and don’t go out a lot, so no one will know if I die. My body could just rot in here, unknown, for days, weeks, months? I’m reminded I will die. And no one will notice or care.
June 8
Someone pitched this app. Someone went in front of some tech bros, some venture capitalists, and pitched them Proof of Life. Everyone probably chuckled, thinking of these poor old women who have no one, who will die alone and get eaten by their cats unless we, us young and cocky men, help them.
And maybe someone, one of them, shuddered. They voted to fund the project, then went home and got back on the dating apps, desperate and hopeful, looking to find someone, anyone, to be with them. They would never be the old hermit who needed a daily app check in to make sure they didn’t die.
So I’m your specter. The threat of what’s to come, if you don’t do your life just right.
June 9
Boo! I’m your ghost of Christmas future! But I’m alive!
June 10
It’s so hot today. I stepped out to pick up a package, and it took my breath away. I don’t remember if the heat always did this, stole my breath and replaced it with sweat. Don’t know if you care, but I’m telling you anyway.
June 11
I bet you’re young. You, reading this. Someone has to, right? Unless it’s all AI now.
I remember all the lyrics to “Gloria” by Laura Branigan, and “Common People” by Pulp, but I don’t remember how the heat used to feel on young skin.
Are you a person? Or a machine?
June 12
I’m sitting on my porch this morning. I don’t usually sit out here, in the heat, in the purview of bugs and mosquitoes and creatures. But I’m sitting, and I just caught myself waving to a woman running by. Waving. I don’t wave to strangers. I don’t say hello or nod unless absolutely necessary. I move through the outside world quietly and unseen.
That’s why I need you, I guess.
June 13
When I first saw the ad for this app, I wasn’t interested. How pathetic. How impersonal. How desperate. I live alone, and I’m satisfied and content with that choice.
But your marketing team is relentless. I saw your ad everywhere. In my morning newsletters. In my online ads. In a fucking truck that drove by with a banner in the back.
I used to work in marketing and advertising. I hated it. But I can still recognize good, effective creative when I see it. Well done.
June 14
That banner truck drives by every day now. I actually saw it a few times yesterday. It’s drawn to my house. Like I’m a magnet and it’s the filings. Like I’m the one target for your app. Like I’m the only one using it.
June 15
Is this a scam? Is there someone in a forced labor scam factory in Myanmar reading this? Are you waiting for me to reach a certain point, a moment of weakness or strength, to hit me with another pitch? To convince me to drain all my money with a well-placed plea?
I’m writing this as a joke. But it’s not, is it? You could be a person caught by a human trafficking scam, trapped behind a computer for every waking hour, forced to scam others online. Starved, beaten.
Do you need help? Can you send me a sign somehow?
June 16
I used to joke with friends about sending a proof of life every day. A few lived alone like me, and weren’t used to it. They were waiting for that status to change. In the meantime, they worried. But then they found partners, or had kids, and the idea was discarded.
It’s like you heard us. Or another group of friends like us. So many groups talking about their end, and you, you’re listening in, you’re watching, waiting for us to be primed and ready to pitch.
You’re a machine. That’s what I’ve decided.
June 17
Here
June 18
Here
June 19 June 19 June 19 June 19 June 19 June 19June 19June 19June 19
Fucking hell, I’m HERE.
June 20
I’m here, right on time today. I wasn’t avoiding it yesterday so much as… seeing what would happen. If you would notice. Or care. If I might get a message beyond the notification. But nothing.
June 21
I’m here.
June 22
Here
June 23
There was a raccoon on my front porch today. Just staring at me through the window glass, as I looked out at the morning. It didn’t clamor for food, or watch me as it tried to sneak away. Just sat there on its haunches and stared at me. She had big, hanging nipples, and looked a little depleted, like she’d recently had babies.
What happens if I talk about nipples here? Or tits? If I say cunt? Dick and balls? I wonder if you’ll flag me.
I can’t be the only solitary lady that gets a laugh if she talks about boners on this thing.
June 24
The raccoon is back, and she’s brought her babies. They’re just outside on the porch, sitting in a sort of clump. The babies can’t concentrate for long, so they crawl around and suck on her tits and climb the tree that hangs over, but they don’t take their eyes away. Dark eyes, without any bits of light.
June 25
There was another bat last night. I used to have them at least a few times each summer, but not this early. The bat was just hanging out in my bathroom, scuttling around in the corner behind the toilet. After I stared at it for awhile, deciding on my move, it burst out from the corner and flew past me. I searched for an hour and couldn’t find it. I know it’s here, watching me.
The first time I had a bat in this house, I told my friends, long time residents of this neighborhood. They revealed the existence of “bat season.” Like the season of the plague, or locusts, or other biblical shit. By the late summer, the bats have fucked their fill, and had their babies in your walls, and the babies are like drunk teenage drivers without full control of their wings or wits, and they bumble around and crash out of vents and seem to laugh and screech from delight and fear.
I’d open doors, wait for their instincts to kick in so they’d stop their parabolic jaunts around my bedroom ceiling and fly out into the night, where millions of mosquitoes waited for a buffet. Dumb shits never did. They’d disappear back into the vents, and I’d sleep with the lights on, relying on the lessons of those biblical times: the glow of the fire would keep the monsters away.
June 26
There’s another bobcat on the loose. I got a few texts this morning with links to news alerts, fueled by scared neighbors and their Ring cameras. I know she’s hanging in my bushes, just past the porch. I can hear her purr.
June 27
The bat was flying around my bedroom again last night. I just pulled the covers over my head and waited it out.
June 28
The babies are getting close now. Right up to my feet, sniffing me. Eyes glued on mine.
And there’s more out there. Maybe it’s another water buffalo rampaging through the city. A deer, turned around from the trails. Foxes. Geese. Lost creatures, wandering, watching. I hear the green being shifted, settled in.
June 29
The animals gather and watch. But I wave again at people walking by and they… ignore me? Not even a glance. Do they see me?
June 30
I gotta tell you, whoever you are, wherever you are, I’m starting to feel like the crazy old coot you think I am. Thinking these fucking animals are spying on me, and people can’t see me.
Does “crazy old coot” translate? There’s a word for it, for me, in every language. Has to be. Everyone, everywhere, hates women. So they have to have words to make us disappear.
July 1
Are you doing this?
I went online, a place I don’t frequent much anymore. I went looking for others like me, people using the app and seeing things. I didn’t find any.
But does that mean anything? Did you make that happen, delete any proof? Are you watching the others using the app, like you’re watching me?
July 2
I’m used to being ignored. I’m a fucking woman, so I’m used to either being too seen or completely unseen. Examined across every inch for beauty, then discarded when none is to be found.
But this is something else. This silence, the spies you’ve sent. The people walking by who won’t acknowledge me. You’re trying to break me.
Oh…Now I’m seeing read receipts on my messages to you.
Fucking got you!!
I know you’re there.
Have I scared you? Have you notified your leaders that someone is on to you? Will you be notifying my animal spies next?
Hello?
July 3
Come on. I know you’re there. Say something!
July 4
Maybe you scammers are just homeless Americans. Forced out of your tent cities and into goddamn American-made scam factories of our own. God bless ‘Murica.
July 5
I’m trying to turn them. I’m looking deep in my raccoons’ eyes, and staring straight into my bushes, and willing these animal spies to be my double agents.
I’m telling you because you need to know I’m not just accepting this. And whether it works or not – you need to know that the info they’re providing might be suspect.
July 6
You chose them well. You chose me well. You know I love animals, that I respect them. That when it comes down to it, I care more about the animals surrounding me than the people who may or may not see me. I won’t hurt the bat that’s invaded my house or shoo away the wildlife that comes to my land. Even if they are spies.
July 7
Mamma raccoon has a message for you.
She says, “let her babies go.”
You sick fucks – are you controlling them? Torturing them? Making them all watch me?
July 8
I tried talking to her, telling her that I’m sorry, that I didn’t mean for this to happen. She just stared, like she doesn’t understand me anymore.
I tried waving down people as they walked by, tried to tell them that something is very wrong, but no one saw me.
You want money?
I’ll send you money, ok?
I’ll do what you need me to do.
Just let them go. Please.
July 9
Whatever it is, whatever you want. Just tell me! All the things I said, I can take them back. I won’t tell anyone, I won’t post about this, I won’t
We can fix this, ok? Tell me what you want. Tell me
Oh
They’re leaving
Mamma and her babies, they’re sprinting away
And there, from the bushes, there goes the rest of the menagerie. I don’t even recognize some of those shapes.
Did you make new animals? How did you
Doesn’t matter.
Thank you.
July 10
You held up your end. I will hold up mine.
Tell me what you want.
July 11
You’re waiting for me to understand.
Drain my accounts?
Recruit people to buy or sell this app?
My mind is a little clearer without the animals staring at me. But it might take a while.
July 12
I get it now.
You need to serve your purpose.
Whether you’re a kidnapped person being held in a scam factory, or you’re some corporate CEO moonlighting as a master villain to feel alive, or you’re just a new form of AI… you need proof of concept.
Right.
Ok.
July 13
I walked around the yard this morning, making sure the animals are truly gone. Not that I doubt you, not now. I guess maybe part of me was hoping one of them had stayed behind? That I’d have an animal by my side for this?
I didn’t find any creatures, and none of the people who walked by saw me. I was a little sad.
But when I came back inside, there was the bat. Curled up on the couch. Waiting for me.
Did you ask her to do that?
I appreciate it.
She told me what’s going to happen. She’ll hide, and I’ll seek. And when I find her, I’ll win.
I’ll be so overjoyed with my win, and with my new friend. And she’ll be so pleased with making me happy, she’ll fly around in a great flurry of her young, limber wings.
And I’ll turn to watch her circle, and I’ll slip, and down the stairs I’ll go.
A quick series of cracks, and a puncture wound pouring out my blood, and it will be done.
Tomorrow, when I don’t respond to your text prompt, you’ll notify the local emergency response. The paramedics will find me. Not soon enough to save my life, of course. But they’ll save me from rotting alone in my house.
That’s what you promised when I signed on, didn’t you? That I wouldn’t rot alone?
This app really does work.