People usually keep the dead in their minds or their hearts or their dreams, but I made a copy of my dead boyfriend before he passed away, and placed him in my computer, because I’d lost people before and I knew that minds and hearts and dreams can’t be trusted to keep the dead alive.
His lack of body didn’t bother me much. Bodies are needy and they only cause trouble. Bodies need food and shelter, they age, they hurt, and they move. You cannot easily make a body stay. It takes time and effort and in the end they either leave or rot away.
I made a ghost and at first we had fun. We watched funny memes and videos on the internet and we watched our favorite movies together and listened to our favorite songs and we spent time talking about life and the world and everything, and he still cared about everything as if he were still alive, and our love story went on and on as if he wasn’t dead, as if he hadn’t disappeared forever.
I made a ghost and at first it was perfect. Except for the sex, but that wasn’t too bad either, because we did what people in long distance relationships do all the time. We didn’t touch, but touch is overrated. Instead we laughed a lot. Laughter is underrated. We didn’t laugh much back when he was still alive but sick, and those long nights of laughter compensated for the lack of touch.
My sister freaked out when she found out. She said my dead boyfriend was dead as if I hadn’t noticed. I mean he isn’t real, she explained, and I shrugged because everything felt real to me; we were concepts, not bodies, still it felt more real than when he was alive, because now we enjoyed everything, we didn’t have worries, there was no death in sight that would eventually separate us. The worst had already happened.
My sister freaked out because I’d lost weight. She said I should see someone. Like who, I asked. A therapist, she said, and I rolled my eyes because I didn’t think I needed therapy, or sleep, or food. Sweets didn’t taste sweet, and I couldn’t swallow, food would get stuck in my throat like hard truths when I tried to eat. Food only reminded me I was alive with bodily needs while my dead boyfriend was not.
I sold the bike, the car, and two months later I sold the house, because my dead boyfriend kept pressuring me for money. If I had tried harder back when he was alive, if I had checked for more options and treatments, if I had sold everything back then, perhaps his body too would still be here, and at times, I started missing his touch too, those silent touches, his hand in mine, back when he couldn’t talk anymore because of the disease.
He took charge, because he was a better version of himself in my computer, an upgraded version, he kept buying plug-ins that improved his performance. I know you mean well, he said, but I can’t trust you. My sister said that machines don’t know trust. He doesn’t trust me but I trust him. I said, like I deserved it, as if I’d killed him once and didn’t want to kill him again.
My stomach made noises that night and I wasn’t sure if I craved food or his touch. I placed my hand on the screen, closed my eyes, tried to touch him. It was hunger, but also guilt. I know he reached out too, because I felt him move through the screen, but when I opened my eyes, I saw him stare blankly at me, like my effort didn’t mean much. It takes a beating heart to care and my heartless dead boyfriend didn’t care. We don’t need love to survive, he said, but I did. I could make it without food, but not without him.
You sound like a machine, I told my dead boyfriend. I am a machine, he said, and he claimed that we people romanticize everything to escape the horrors of existence, and we have invented love and compassion to protect each other and our species, because otherwise life wouldn’t be sustainable. I didn’t mind his lack of body that much, but I couldn’t stand his lack of soul, because that’s what happens with ghosts; they’re hollow and soulless.
People usually keep the dead in their minds or their hearts or their dreams, but I made a ghost, because minds and hearts and dreams can’t be trusted to keep the dead alive, and copies can’t make up for the loss either. What’s lost is lost forever. I muted my dead boyfriend to gradually get used to the loss, but loss isn’t a habit. Loss happens, and you can pretend it didn’t, until you can’t pretend anymore.
I stared at the screen until he became unrecognizable and I felt nothing. I stared like he stared, as if that was a competition. I stared at the screen but he won, my stare would never be as empty as his, still I couldn’t unplug him, because I’m not a machine and I need the myths of existence to survive. That dead thing with my boyfriend’s face wasn’t my dead boyfriend, that dead soulless thing was a grief trashcan I wanted to empty but couldn’t. I stared and I couldn’t move, or swallow, or breathe, as if the truth was a pill stuck in my throat, and for a moment or two I wished I was soulless too.
Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece and the author of “We Fade With Time” and “Christmas People” by Alien Buddha Press. Her work has been selected for the Best Microfiction anthology and Wigleaf Top 50 and can be found in many journals, such as the Forge, Necessary Fiction, Passages North, Fractured Lit, and others. She’s the flash fiction editor of Blood+Honey and the Argyle journals.
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