May 14, 2030
1:00 pm
My wife, Ethereal, has been missing for three weeks, and now the
unthinkable has happened. A policeman - an Officer Savvy - stands at my front
door. He says they think my wife is dead. He wants me to come to the morgue
and identify her body. I'm stunned. I realize my iPhone is in my hand. I put
it in the case that's attached to my belt, grab my coat and iPad and follow the
policeman to his squad car. I'm glad he has offered to drive me to the
morgue. I'm in no condition to drive myself.
Officer Savvy is a young guy - just a few years older than I am, I
guess. He seems uncomfortable. Maybe he hasn't been a policeman long enough to
be used to this sort of thing.
When we arrive at the morgue, a detective in plain clothes joins us on our
walk down a long hall - Detective Bygone. He's an older, gray-headed
fellow, wearing a neatly pressed suit and speaking with a raspy voice. Double
doors are at the end of the hall, and they grow larger with each step. We're
not half way there, but I stop. The policeman and the detective keep walking
until they realize I'm not behind them. Then they turn.
"Are you alright?" asks the blue uniform.
"I don't think there's any point in my going in there," I hear myself say
with a confidence that seems out of place.
"But Mr. Numbman," the detective says, "we need you to make an
identification. I know this is hard, but . . ."
"I just don't think I'll recognize her," I say.
Officer Savvy tries to reassure me by telling me that my wife is not
disfigured in any way.
"Oh, I hadn't thought of that. No, it's just that I haven't seen her in
years."
The policeman and the detective exchange confused looks.
"I didn't know," the detective says slowly, "that you and your wife were
estranged. When you filed the missing persons report, you said that you and
Ethereal share a residence."
"We do," I reply, "I mean we did, but we really didn't see much of each
other."
"I guess your work must take you out of town a lot?" Officer Savvy
suggests.
"No, no. Neither of us is out of town very often." I feel weak, so I sit
down in one of the plastic chairs in the hallway.
The detective and the policeman sit down, too. They seem like kind men,
and I think they're beginning to wonder about my sanity.
"Mr. Numbman, you said you haven't seen your wife in years. How can you be
in the same house with someone everyday and not see them?" says Detective
Bygone.
"Well, you know," I begin to explain, "we watched TV every night. And we
both did things on our iPads."
"You mean you did these things in separate rooms?" Neither of these men
seem to understand.
"No, we were always in the same room. We just didn't look at each other,"
I say.
"But surely you did other things sometimes," the policeman says, "like -
maybe - eating out together?"
"Of course, of course. We ate out often, but we always had something to
check on our iPhones, and - well, we just didn't notice each other much."
"You had no personal communication?" the detective asks in disbelief.
"Well, sure. We had personal communication. We texted each other. We
posted on Facebook. We even sent each other personal messages on Facebook.
Sometimes we even talked on the phone."
I'm feeling a little indignant at their suggestion that Ethereal and I
didn't have any personal communication. We communicated all the time. We just
never looked at each other. Why is that so hard for these men to
understand? Maybe the detective is too old, but Officer Savvy ought to
understand.
"Anyway," I go on, "you can see why there's no way I can identify my
wife."
There's a long pause, and then the policeman says, "Wait right here."
He and the detective go into a room that opens off the hallway. They close
the door. I can hear the low buzz of conversation, but can't make out what
they're saying. The policeman is doing most of the talking. There's an
occasional grunt from the detective. They're coming back out in the hall
now.
"Look here, Mr. Numbman," says Detective Bygone, "Officer Savvy here found
your wife's photograph on her Facebook page. He's got it right here on his
phone. You, me, and Officer Savvy are going to go in there where your wife
is. We'd like you to look at the woman lying in there on the table, and then
look at the picture on Officer Savvy's phone, and see if you can make an
identification based on the photo. You know - maybe it will jog your
memory. You must have known what your wife looked like at some time in the
past."
2:30 pm
The double doors close behind us as we walk back into the hall. Truth be
told, I'm a little embarrassed that I needed a photo to come to the conclusion
that the woman lying on that table is not my wife. But I console myself,
knowing that if I were lying on that table, Ethereal would need a photo to
identify me.
"Mr. Numbman, we're going to continue to look for your wife, and when we
find her, I hope to God you'll look at her," says Detective Bygone. I don't
appreciate his superior tone.
Officer Savvy smiles. My phone rings as we're shaking hands.
"Gotta get this," I say with urgency. "It might be important."
"Yeah," says Detective Bygone, "maybe it's your wife."