Krishna kumar Mani: SFS1: Science Fiction Short Stories

their customer base is worldwide.

A few different statistics say that about forty-five percent of the calls are to ghosts that people want to reconnect with for reasons of love and affection. Another forty-five percent of the calls are to get information such as where someone put cash, a certain document, jewelry or even something as simple as an internet password. The last ten percent was simply people passing the time. The CEO of Ghost On Call Inc. has claimed that conversations are secure and are not taped. He also said in an interview that they were about to take the company public and in the next quarter were going to allow ghosts to make outgoing calls to anyone they wanted to. They didn’t implement this before because it was impossible to collect money from ghosts. Now they’re in talks with two different carrier networks in North America to allow ghostcalls to be charged to the receiver so ghosts may very well be calling us soon!”

After seeing my article, the assistant editor of the magazine called me and said that the article was a very good piece of work and that he wanted me to do a full investigative report for a cover story. He told me that I should do three different articles and that the senior editor would choose the article which he liked best. Also he gave me a code for an hour’s worth of time to Ghost On Call. Already my wife has really enjoyed using this service to talk with her mother’s ghost about food recipes, now I will get a chance to do so myself.

I decided that I should talk to my grandma’s ghost since she loved me perhaps the most of all of my relatives. I used to spend the holiday’s in my grandma’s house. She was so affectionate towards me. I knew her birth date but wasn’t sure of her exact date of death so I called their customer support and gave the full name, date of birth and death year. In a few seconds they connected the call. I heard a default ring tone and sat there, thrilled that I would get to talk to my grandma once again.

“Hi my candy boy, how are you?” asked my grandma in a happy voice. Yes, it was my grandma. She was the only one who ever called me candy boy. I was speechless for a moment.

“Grandma, how are you? Is this real?” I asked emotionally.

“It’s real alright. Please don’t cry my boy, I am fine and happy,” she replied.

“Oh grandma it makes me so happy to hear your voice again.”

“Why you didn’t call me before? I’ve been expecting you to call. All my ghost friends get calls from relatives all the time. I’ve been the only person who hasn’t gotten a call lately. We don’t have an outgoing facility here to call you, otherwise I would have contacted you!”

“Sorry, grandma. I thought you didn’t have a phone. After your death my mother took your phone. How did you get a new one? Is that an iPhone or an Android that you’re using?” I inquired.

“My candy boy, we don’t have phones here,” she said with a laugh. “Once you make a call to a ghost, the call is routed to the ghost. When you talk into the phone on your side, we understand it on our side. And what we think here, you hear that there. Put simply, your speech is transmitted to thought and my thoughts are transmitted to an audible voice.”

I was impressed with my grandma’s simple explanation about how the ghosts and the living communicated with each other. But then again, she had been a professor when she was alive so it shouldn’t have really been that impressive.

“I saw Steve Jobs” grandma said excitedly. “But even he doesn’t have an iPhone!”

“Who else have you seen up there grandma? Got any other interesting news for me?”

We talked about our family members for a little while before my call was suddenly disconnected. I looked at the mobile display. It said “call disconnected” but the signal was full. I checked the balance to see if that was the problem. It wasn’t but I had already used up almost half of my allotted time! I didn’t quite have enough for my article so I decided that I should call some famous people. The first person I tried was Adolf Hitler. After a Google search I put in his date of birth, his name and his date of death to see if it would connect me. An error message flashed upon my screen and said “Person is unavailable, has been reincarnated.”

After that I tried to call Abraham Lincoln. The phone rang for what seemed like forever, but no one answered. I tried Steve Jobs. Same thing. Then I tried Princess Diana and a few other celebrities, but just more ringing.

I guess it made sense. Normal people couldn’t reach VIPs even after they were dead. I thought of calling Osama Bin Laden but I’m pretty sure the FBI would have me on a watchlist faster than a sand storm. I noticed my balance had been reduced even though no one had answered the call. I called customer service to complain.

“No one has picked up my call but still you’ve charged me for time spent. What gives?”

“We can’t force ghosts to talk with you. If they know you and want to talk with you, then they’ll answer your calls. Per our policy we collect a connectivity charge of $1 per call, even if the call is not answered.”

“Really?”

“Yes, please check our terms. For the best response, you should call ghosts you know like relatives or friends. Celebrities and people you don’t know answer stranger’s calls only very rarely.”

Now I understood the proverb, ‘the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know.’ So I decided to call some devil I did know. Suddenly my wife came to mind. I decided to try to use the service to call someone that was still alive. I mean, investigating the service was my goal for the article and that would be part of it. So I gave my wife’s date of birth and her full name. It showed me a list of people that I could choose from and I chose her name. It rang.

“Hello?” asked my wife, her voice a little unclear.

“Hi Lilly, Are you in hell?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“Hey Joe. Yes, I’m in the hall way. Why are you calling me from such a strange number? You’re just in the bedroom, right? What are you calling me for?”

She hung up the phone and walked into the bedroom. After seeing her I understood what had happened. They simply had routed the call to my wife’s mobile number. I hadn’t been in her brain at all. I checked the balance which was getting lower by the minute. I decided it was best to talk to some other ghosts.

After thinking long and hard about who I could call, I decided to call my old friend James who had died in a train derailment a couple years before. I wasn’t able to attend the funeral because I had been on vacation when he died. I didn’t know whether or not he knew that. I thought to myself that I’d have to apologize for not being able to make it. I knew his birthday from my calendar and reverse-engineered what year he would have been born in based on his age. I didn’t know when he died so I searched on the laptop for it but still couldn’t find anything. I decided to call my friend Ben to see if he knew.

“Hey Ben, how are you man?” I asked.

“Pretty good, Joe. How are you? Did you find a new job?”

“Just been doing some freelance writing. Can I ask you a quick question?”

“Sure, shoot.”

“Do you know James’ date of death?”

He laughed and told me the date of James’ death. Then he said, “I know why you’re asking. I also tried to call him but haven’t been able to reach him. That devil James hasn’t responded.”

I was shocked and surprised. I knew that Ben never spent a penny on others. The idea that he would spend money to call a ghost was unbelievable.

“Why did you call him?”

He took a moment before he replied. “I had free minutes so I used them to call him hoping I could get the number of his girlfriend. I mean it’s not that useful to him any more.”