Lost iPhones

Chapter 2- You Cant Just Stop Existing Like That!

"Do you think we'll find a body?" I asked.

"I don't know. Do you want to? It'll be like "Stand by Me." I'll be River Phoenix," she kicked a stick, "unless you want to be River Phoenix."

"No, I'm ok. I don't like people who die pretty and young. It makes me self conscious about aging."

"I don't know why people romanticize youth anyway," she said, "it's a hella temporary state."

"People like to think things can last forever," I said, then, "almost there."

We walked ahead, toward the twist in the path where the video had been filmed. I don't know why we were going there. It was dumb and we were young. What did we think we'd find? And why did we want to find anything?

"What did you see, when we stopped the tape for a second, right before the person holding the camera got pushed, or whatever?"

"Nothing, really," I said, "we are almost there right?"

"I know it was just a shadow," she said, "but I felt like I saw something."

"Is it here?"

"Like - you know when an image gets messed up on a website? It's just a digital scramble? Then it's normal? It was like that - the glitch before it goes normal. But I know there wasn't anything there."

"Here," I said. We turned the corner. We were at the little break in the park where the video had been shot. To the left, woods. To the right, the precipice. And there, standing in front of the cliff, was James.

He was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing in our kitchen: tight jeans, a black t shirt, black chucks. His back was to us, but I know immediately who it was. You can recognize someone without seeing a face.

In his hand, I saw a phone. He pointed it at his left, then his right.

I should had been screaming. I thought I would. And maybe some part of me believed I was. I looked at Hayley. Her mouth was open: veins popped out on her neck as her lips stretched wide and her eyes grew wider and larger. But no sound.

Something was coming.

I could feel it, in the woods, something was rushing moving towards us. To James. I wanted to scream, I felt like I was but I knew I wasn't. It was coming.

James lowered the camera. The wind came and went by the two of us and into him. It looked like colors and decaying images, like a pixilated drawing of a tornado. It was a cartoon. It was t real. It ripped into his shoulder. I saw blood fly up and into the dead sky. He stumbled to the edge of the cliff. Then over. Then there was only the nothing of our screaming, suddenly audible and hysterical.

Everything after that turned into the slow, sick time, where events feel delayed, as if it was happening from a great distance. We ran down the path that looped down the hill, loose dirt and rocks slipping under our feet. My chest hurt, I remembered thinking as I ran; it felt tight and full of breaths I couldn't believe I was still taking.

At the bottom of the path we jumped into the clearing where James had just fallen. But there was no James. There was no blood. Just a space where a body should have been and, in that area, a brilliant blue iphone.

*****

We got back to our apartment after eight, exhausted and suddenly cold in the night air. Cars were backing up at the traffic light, the city starting to sound louder, different, as the streetlights flooded corners. I could hear music blaring from one of the cars as I unlocked the door, Hayley following me.

Once we were inside, Hayley put the phone on the kitchen table and walked out of the room.

"Where are you -"

"I need to take a shower," she said. "Don't touch the phone."

Within moments, I heard the rattle of pipes, the rushing of water. I walked over to the fridge and poured a glass of the cheap American pink wine we drank too much of. It tasted like headaches.

I finished a glass. Then poured another. Then I pulled out my phone and texted James.

"Hey. How are you."

Then,

"What happened inthe parf"

"*park. stupid phone. what was thet?"

My phone buzzed back. A little green circle.

"who is this"

"this is Ariel is this James?"

"sorry. wrong number"

"Is this a new phone? Did you just get this number"

"No had it forever sorrry. Have a nice nightZ"

Hayley came out of her room, her hair still damp, almost a half hour later. I was finishing my third glass of wine. She said hey and I said hey back and she grabbed the wine from the fridge and walked out into the living room and I followed her. She sat on the muted grey couch her parents had let her take when we moved in and I sat on the floor, leaning against the cold wall. Another kid lived in the apartment next to us, on whose wall I leaned. I had a semi whatever crush on him. He worked nights at a gas station and smoked so much I could taste the cigarettes sometimes through the walls. Was he there, I thought. Would he still be there? "I looked James up on Facebook," Hayley said. Her voice sounded numb. "I couldn't find his profile. His tumblr's gone too. So his Twitter."

"I texted him. Somebody sent a text back saying I had a wrong number."

"He's gone. He doesn't exist."

"We're going crazy. People don't just stop existing."

"He did."

"You're right," I sighed, "he did."

"So," she took a swig off the bottle, "now what?"

"I don't think there's really a manual for this sort of thing."

"There should be," then, hesitatingly, "what is this sort of thing?"

"Whatever it is, it's not real. Like, this isn't happening. I don't think this is real."

"It is happening, though," Hayley murmured, holding the wine. "It's happening."

"I've been sitting here," I started, "trying to figure out what we know, like for a fact. I thought it might help."

"Did it?"

"Fuck no," I laughed and she almost did. "But this is what happened: James found the phone, leaving a party. He never told us what party-"

"We didn't ask."

"I know. But on television shows they reconstruct these things. So, he finds the phone, figures out the password -"

"All fours," said Hayley, "four means death in Japan."

"- right? Watches the video, doesn't recognize his feet in the video? Shows it to us instead of investigating, goes to work? That's crazy: James doesn't fucking care about his barista gig," I said.

"But he went."

"He went."

It was silent for a minute or two, the sounds of traffic and night slipping the window, as both of us sat, not saying anything. Finally, Hayley took a swig, then:

"I think I know what happened. Maybe. Wait here," she said and she left the living room and walked off to her living room. She came back, carrying her laptop.

"Did James ever tell you about that time his school bus crashed," she said, as she sat down and started to typing.

"He did," I nodded, "he was like ten and it skidded on black ice. He wrote a story about it. He seemed really freaked out by it."

She opened up the laptop and passed it over.

"Look."

The screen was opened to an archived article from a Connecticut newspaper. James' home state. About a bus crash. One fatality. A ten year old boy. James Han.