A Modern Ghost Story

Orange. It’s been his favorite color since middle school. Video games, basketball, and tech news. His favorite hobbies. Any music but country. He’ll listen to just about anything as long as it has a good bass line.

Clif was just like any other recent college grad who moved thousands of miles away from a place he called home: a little lonely, a little horny, a little bored. However, he had come up with a solution. A dating app. In the past, Clif had condemned dating apps, assuming they were for people who were afraid to make face to face interactions. But things have changed. “Look at me” Clif said to himself out loud, and smiled. “I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, and I’m pretty damn desperate right now.” He had a habit of talking to himself out loud whenever he was alone, but it didn’t bother him because he read somewhere that the more intelligent you are, the more likely it is to be a habit- and he considered himself very, very intelligent. As he added the finishing touches to his profile he remained cautiously optimistic.

Clif went to bed that night and dreamed he was at a fork in the road. One sign pointed to a road that would lead to long-term happiness but at the cost of any short-term reward. The other led to instant gratification, but demanded an even heavier toll…

The next morning, Clif awoke to several new notifications, but the one that drew his attention almost immediately was from the dating app. Apparently, from the time he went to sleep until the time he woke up and checked his phone, his profile had received 6 likes. Taylor, Hannah, Morgan, Maria, Jessica, and Brooke. They all had college degrees, shared similar hobbies, and were very attractive. So he decided to message them all and was pleasantly surprised to see that one of them-Hannah-had messaged him first. He decided to save her message for last. When he finally opened and read the message he was even more shocked.

“Hey Clif, you probably don’t remember me but we went to middle school together back when we lived in Pennsylvania.” the message read.

He began to think. He remembered living with his grandparents for a few years in Pennsylvania during middle school, but he didn’t remember meeting a Hannah. Curious, he probed for more details.

“Hey Hannah, I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but I’m not sure we’ve met in the past. Do you know of anything that could jog my memory?” He pressed send, attended to the rest of his notifications, and headed off to work.

Work that day felt like a haze. He was way to preoccupied with what Hannah would say back, but every time he checked his phone for a response-nothing. “Maybe she was put off or embarrassed because I didn’t recognize her” he thought to himself. The concern mounted as each day passed without a response and he began to wonder if maybe he should give up on hearing back from her.

Five days later, as he was leaving work, he felt a slight buzz in his pocket. It was his phone. Hannah had sent him a message.

“Hey, sorry it took so long to get back to you. I’ve been so busy lately that I had forgotten that I didn’t actually respond to your message.”

A red flag went up in Clif’s head but again-he was lonely, horny, and bored, so he decided to entertain her.

“Yeah, I get it, I’ve done that sort of thing before. But… I still don’t remember you.”

Before he could press the power button on the side of his phone, the typing bubble popped up.

“Oh yeah, sorry about that haha… I was the girl who sent all those love letters to you in 4th grade. Remember we spent a month learning how to write, address, and send letters? You were my partner and you hated that all your friends were paired up with each other and you were stuck with me-a girl.”

Instantly, a lightbulb went off in Clif’s head. He remembered her now. She was several inches shorter than he was, had long curly hair, wore glasses, and dressed kind of funny. He also remembered that she was pretty shy and kept to herself, but she always gave him a smile whenever they saw each other.

“Ohhhhh, yeah, I remember you now. Wow, that’s crazy, how did you end up in town?”

This Hannah was drastically different from the one in his memories. For one, the thick, clear-rimmed glasses she used to wear were gone, revealing luminous hazel-colored eyes, trimmed by long curly eyelashes. Also, her hair was still long, but she had it up in a bun, accentuating her jawline and her plump, pink lips. And the bathing suit she had on in the picture fit her hourglass shaped body like a glove.

“Oh, I’ve been in town for a while now” she replied. “I started working for the Legair Company right after I finished school. What about you?”

The Legair Company was a rival company to the one Clif worked for-Cababana Industries.

“Ah, I see. I moved out here about a month after I graduated to work for Cababana Industries.”

“Oh nice, do you like it there?”

“Yeah, it’s not bad, it pays the bills.”

“Haha, I hear that. Look, Clif, I’m really excited to see that you’re in town now and I’d love to set up a date sometime.”

Getting right to the point. Clif was beginning to like this new Hannah more and more.

“Yeah, I’m glad you hit me up-are you free this weekend?”

“Yup” she replied. “Let’s grab brunch on Sunday, I know of the perfect spot. Send me your address and I’ll come pick you up at 11.”

Clif didn’t hesitate.

“Alright, be ready for some fun, Clif” she texted.

“Yeah, haha I’ll be ready” he replied.

The cafe she took them to was called “2 Cups of Cocoa” and was located about 25 minutes away from where Clif lived.

“So what do they have to eat here that’s good?” he asked as they walked in.

“To be honest, everything. I’ve been here just about every weekend and have had just about every dish and they’re all fantastic.”

They sat down at a round, intimate table near the front window of the cafe.

“I think I’ll try the cinnamon-raisin french toast with a side of hash browns and a cup of cranberry juice” Clif said to the waiter.

“And I’ll have your fried chicken and waffles with some earl gray tea” added Hannah.

The food came quickly and they began talking about childhood memories, hobbies and interests, and even a few touchy subjects such as politics and religion. Soon, the conversation shifted to their time together in the 4th grade. She looked at him intensely and gave a slight smile.

“You know, I seriously thought I was in love with you at the time” she said flirtatiously.

“Yeah, look, I’m sorry for being such a jerk back then. I didn’t kn—”

“Oh it’s fine, we were both so young and immature, neither one of us knew what we were doing” she said quickly. “But here, I want you to have this.” She dug in her purse and pulled out a small black notebook and slid it over to Clif. “I know it’s a little strange to bring gifts on a first date, but I’ve been wanting to give this to you since way back then.”

He hesitated.

“Go ahead” she encouraged.

“Why, what is it?” he asked. Something about it was a little off, he just wasn’t sure what. “Cliff” she pressed on “it’s a notebook… you know, something you take notes in.”

“I get that” he shot back “but why are you just giving it to me?”

“Clif” she said firmly “you either take it or you don’t.” She began to reach over to grab the notebook, but Clif quickly picked it up.

“Ok, ok, I’ll take it. Thank you for the gift Hannah, I appreciate it.” “I’m being paranoid” he thought to himself. How much harm could a little notebook do?

She smiled and seemed to relax a little.

“You’re welcome, Clif.” She glanced down at her watch. “Hey, are you ready to head out?” she asked. “I have a yoga class at 3:30 and I really don’t want to be late for it again.”

“Yeah… yeah I’m ready to go. I actually have somewhere to be too”. And he did. On his sofa. In front of his TV, watching the football game. But she didn’t need to know that.

Clif waited until he was back at his apartment before fully inspecting the little black notebook. He sat on his couch, cracked open a beer, and slowly pulled back the cover…

At first, there was nothing. It was an ordinary notebook. It had vertical blue lines that spanned the length of the pages, and a little bit of space on top for writing headers. “I don’t know what I was expecting” he said, slightly disappointed, and closed the book. He replayed the events that had recently transpired. “Why was she so adamant about giving me this notebook?” he thought. Impulsively, he picked up the notebook again and pulled back the cover, but this time there were words written in the little space at the top of the first page of the notebook.

“Long-term happiness or short-term satisfaction. Circle one” it read. Shocked, he closed the notebook quickly, blinked a couple of times, and took a few sips of his beer. Then he slowly opened the notebook again, only to see that the words were still there. He picked up his phone to call Hannah, but remembered she had a yoga class and decided against it. A few minutes passed before Clif decided on what to do. Eventually, he got up, went to his bedroom, grabbed a pen, and circled “short-term satisfaction”. A moment later, the doorbell rang.

There was no one at the door when he answered, but when he looked down he saw a large rectangular envelope addressed to him. He immediately looked around to see who had left it, but after seeing no one he quickly picked it up and went back inside his apartment. The envelope wasn’t heavy, but it wasn’t light either. It intrigued him, so he opened it as soon as he sat down on his couch. In it was $20,000 in cash and a little slip of paper which read “you’ve made your choice-now you must live with it”. “Eerie” he thought out loud, then quickly tossed it in the trash. He wasn’t going to let a piece of paper get in the way of this incredible luck the heavens bestowed upon him. “I should call Hannah and tell her the good news, maybe even split it with her” he thought. He called Hannah, but it went straight to voicemail. So he tried again but got the same response. “I’ll just send her a message” he said after a few more failed attempts. But she never responded. Not that day, or the next day, or even a month later.

Clif never heard from Hannah again. He looked for her profile on the dating app, but it was no longer there. He asked for her at her job-The Legair Company-but no one there knew of a woman who fit her description. He even went to the cafe they had gone to-the one she said she was a regular at-but they also said they didn’t know of any such woman. It was almost as if Hannah had disappeared from the face of the earth, without leaving a trace of her existence. It was almost as if…Clif had been ghosted.