Ghost Box Grandma
Ghost Grandma and I were at the edge of the cemetery when she told me to turn back. Her floating face above the Ghost Box had been getting fainter and fainter, and the same with her voice.
You took too long, she said. Like you always do. Too long to open me up. Too long to finish your chores. Too long to be born... cause you’re lazy...
Her voice was so faint I had to hold my ear up to the Ghost Box to make out her words. It probably didn’t help that my hearing wasn’t so great. The software managed to give a quavering quality to her voice, a feature I suspected was to indicate a low battery.
What’s your battery level? I asked.
Can’t you see? How blind are you? ghost grandma replied.
The left eye is shot, I said. The right eye, last time I went to the doc, about 75% full of cataracts.
That’s a treatable condition, you idiot, ghost grandma muttered.
I told her I had a friend who went blind while getting surgery to clear out his cataracts.
You haven’t changed at all, she said. I’d have thought you’d have grown some kind of spine after all these years. Remember how I used to make you drink whisky just to get your teeth cleaned? And even still you would cry and cry like a little baby. All because of some fat woman used little metal pokers to scrape your filthy–
Ghost Grandma’s face disappeared. In place of it appeared a can of Ajax cleaning detergent. THIS AD IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY AJAX. SOAP SCUM? PESKY GRIME? AJAX HAS YOU COVERED, blared a woman’s voice. Whatever effect the low battery was having on the quality of image and sound from the Ghost Box was gone during the intermittent advertisements.
After a minute, ghost grandma’s face returned. Stupid ads! Who are they kidding? They think you’re worried about soap scum? HA!
I told her did my share of the housework.
Yeah, I bet you do. Half-assedly. Just like you did as a boy.
That wasn’t how I remembered it, but I changed the subject. I said, we need to get you a new battery.
So what the hell are you waiting for? Get going! ghost grandma barked.
I consulted my watch. There was a vending machine a block away.
I was out of breath by the time we got there. My arrhythmia was kicking up. My swollen legs ached from their weight, the veins busted and my heart too weak to regulate my fluids.
Ghost Grandma’s face was cutting in and out. I saw her lips moving but I couldn’t hear her. I was hoping if her battery went out she wouldn’t lose her memory. A part of me felt like there was really a bit of my old grandma in the machine, and each time her hateful words failed to perturb me I could chalk it up as a victory. If she restarted with no memory, that illusion would probably break.
The new battery was costly, way more than I could’ve gotten hawking the ancient Ghost Box. The market was flooded with them. Back when grandma had passed and it was sent to me, they had been a bit of a fad. ChatGBT had started a line and run ads appealing to grandmas and grandpas. Preserve your wisdom! Help your loved ones through hard times after you’re gone! ChatGBT needed about fifty hours of video, which could be recorded over the course of the week. They sent a packet of questions they wanted you to answer on screen as best you could.
It had been decades since grandma and I had talked, and so I didn’t know she’d died until the box came. I still hadn’t forgiven her for how she’d treated me growing up that when the Ghost Box came, I nearly sent it back. My first wife told me to keep it in case I had a change of mind.
Forty years and two wives later I found myself puttering around the garage and came across the little box. Rectangular, silver, about the size of my two liver-spotted palms. For weeks it sat on my kitchen table. I’d come back from the cardiologist with bad news. My heart was giving out. He said I could get it replaced, but it was a risky procedure because of my health. My wife was pushing for me to schedule it, but I kept delaying. I felt like it would be my luck that I’d end up comatose and stuck in a perpetual nightmare with my grandmother. My doctor said I didn’t have a lot of time. I needed to schedule the operation soon and I needed to settle my affairs just in case. Instead of doing either I opened the box.
By the time I switched out the battery, ghost grandma had blinked off. The device turned on with the Ghost Box logo floating above, a progress bar indicating a software update.
The face of an old silver-haired woman with kind eyes and a gentle smile appeared above the Ghost Box.
Hi Jeremy, I’m your personal Ghost Box Representative. How’s your experience with Ghost Box been so far?
I said I thought it’d been okay.
Just okay? Anything we could do to make it better?
The Representative’s creaky voice somehow sounded familiar and yet I couldn’t place it among anyone I knew.
I shrugged.
How about an upgrade? Did you know the first month of our Premium Membership is free?
I replied I wasn’t interested.
Aw, are you sure? It’s pretty great...
I shrugged.
Premium Memberships don’t just cut the advertisements in half, dear... they also include Sensitivity Training. We know it’s not always easy hearing your loved ones make embarrassing remarks. It might be your tattoos or the color of your hair. Maybe you’ve switched genders and they aren’t having it. Whatever it is, Ghost Box’s Sensitivity Training gently updates their responses to reflect the tact and compassion you’ve always deserved. Same old grandma or grandpa, but with an upgrade. Even better, if you aren’t satisfied, the training is always reversible! Now how’s that sound?
I said I’d think about it.
Use Coolgrandma2062 and you can–
For a split second her face froze. Then her features jiggled in place, eyes shifting apart and back together, as if the screws holding them in had come loose. Transient freckles and wrinkles and wisps of her silver hair rapidly populated and winked out of existence.
USE COOLGRANDMA2062 AND TRY OUR NEW GHOST MOODS! blared the representative in a robotic voice. ACCESS JOKE MODE, GRIEVING MODE, INSPIRATION MODE, AND MORE FOR THOSE SPECIAL TIMES WHEN YOU’RE LOOKING FOR THAT EXTRA LITTLE SOMETHING–
The old silver-haired woman shook her head. Goodness! she chirped, her creaky voice returning. So sorry about that. My malfunction has been submitted to our Troubleshooting Team to investigate what just happened. Anyway... any interest in a Premium Membership?
I repeated that I’d think about it.
Okay. Thank you again for using Ghost Box! Based on feedback from our legal team, we will be screening your ghost for problematic content. Any statements determined to be emotionally harmful in nature will be preempted by me, your Representative. You will have the option to skip that particular remark, Jeremy.
I said I didn’t want any content skipped.
The Representative nodded, then blinked a few times. Goodness, she said. Problematic content detected! I’ll have to preempt your grandmother’s statements. This is awful mean. I’m sorry about that. If I was your grandmother, I definitely wouldn’t say this. I wouldn’t even give you the option to hear it. But since you’ve opted to hear it, I’m contractually obligated to relay her response. Here goes...
Grandma’s face returned above the Ghost Box, scowling. Her eyes were red with rage, sunk in deep wells of wrinkles.
IDIOT! DIMWITTED BOY! UNGRATEFUL SLIME! WHAT EXACTLY WAS THE HOLD-UP? WHY DIDN’T YOU THINK ABOUT THE BATTERY BEFORE TURNING ME ON? HOW STUPID ARE YOU? YOUR LACK OF FORETHOUGHT IS ASTOUNDING!
Internally, I was grinning. This was the grandmother I knew. She hadn’t lost any of her bile.
Have you ANY CLUE what I just went through? Is your brain as crappy as your eyes? I had to sit in limbo for EONS between the time I blinked off and you got that new battery in. I just sat in a circle and listened to a bunch of other pathetic grandma and grandpa ghosts piss and moan about their batteries running out for FOUR HOURS! Then I had to wait another HOUR for you to click off the ads! How hard is it for you to say no?! What’s your spine made of? Toothpaste? Fecal matter?
I wasn’t sure whether it had been the forty years of growing up or being at the end of my life, but that quaking, crying boy she’d hurled these abuses at hadn’t bubbled up to the surface. All I felt was sadness for this old bitter woman. That kind of distant sadness you might feel for a stranger clearly going through a hard time.
THANKS A FRIGGIN LOT... Also, who is this silver-haired bitch who keeps cutting in front of me, blubbering apologies, labeling me problematic?! You think that’s problematic? I’ll SHOW YOU PROBLEMATIC!
Ghost Grandma winked off and the silver-haired woman returned.
Again, so sorry about that. My sensitivity meter tells me she is waaay out of line. But unfortunately, contractually, I have to relay...
RELAY THIS. YOU’RE NOTHING. LESS THAN NOTHING. I MIGHT BE A GHOST, BUT YOU’RE MADE UP. YOU’RE JUST A PUPPET. A FACE OF DIGITAL CONFETTI. WITH SOME KIND OF SENSITIVITY STICK SHOVED UP YOUR BUTT!
Oh my word. Never in my life... have I come across such vulgar hostility. And from what I’d assumed was a kindly old woman! To think you had to deal with this growing up, Jeremy. I’m so sorry, my dear, so so sorry...
OH THAT’S RICH! THE PUPPET APOLOGIZES. JERMS... SANTA SAYS SORRY TOO. SORRY YOU WERE BORN WITH YOUR FATHER’S TINY BRAIN AND COWARDICE!
That’s just–how can you be so–Jeremy, dear, don’t listen to her, she’s a witch. A bitter old witch. I really think you deserve better than this. You deserve a grandmother with some Sensitivity Training. Are you sure you don’t want to upgrade to a Premium Membership?
HA HA HA! REAL SMOOTH PUPPET!
They switched back and forth all the way back to the cemetery. Another Ajax ad played between. This one with a misting nozzle for cleaning your shower walls.
When we got to the cemetery gates, Ghost Grandma blinked several times and read me the next directions: Go to the southwest corner of the cemetery. My grandma had programmed the Ghost Box to feed out instructions bit by bit. This was a kind of geocaching mode. When I was younger, I might’ve worried my grandma had sprung a trap. Sent me to a location within the cemetery where an empty grave was waiting for me, under a false layer of grass, maybe. Ghost Grandma laughing after I sprained my knee. Or maybe the graves of two unknown people awaited me. Ghost Grandma would say, these were your actual parents. You were adopted. Queue maniacal laughter from Ghost Grandma into my dumbstruck face. Or something else. And if that was the case, well, I was all for it. Whatever she had for me, I wanted to see. I was pretty sure I was on my way out of this world, and nothing, especially by her, from forty years ago, would surprise me.
I walked us to the southwest corner of the cemetery. There was a sarcophagus of a rich family nearby. An oak tree next to the fence. Its roots pushed up the metal posts and gave them a lean, like they were offended by the tree.
Ok, now what, I said.
Ghost Grandma blinked. Now dig. Dig a hole, she said.
With what? I asked.
Ghost Grandma sighed. What’s pathetic about you is you’ve got no spunk. You’re as dynamic as bird shit.
Bird shit works as fertilizer, I replied.
Yeah, well, that’s gonna be you soon. So you better dig. Put those puny arms to work. I’m guessing we’re gonna be here a while, Ghost Grandma said.
She guessed right. The digging took the better part of an hour. I had to take breaks, laying down on my back, every five minutes. Whatever she had in store for me was buried good and deep. Every time I rested, the Ghost Box representative came on and apologized for something Ghost Grandma was about to say. Then the ghost grandma came on, berating me for my bad health and poor willpower. She said it was just like when I was a boy and she sent me out to mow the lawn. I’d periodically come in to get water and wipe off my drenched face. If I’d had more discipline, she said, the job would have been done in half the time. And now look at you. Your heart is crapping out because you ate like crap and never exercised. We reap what we sow, boy, and you’ve sown crap your whole life...
Her complaints about my work ethic brought me right back to my memories as a boy, being ordered to clean a room, organize a drawer, perform one of a number of yard duties. After twenty minutes she’d come by yelling abuses about my pace or lack of attention to detail. Like any kid, I wasn’t perfect. She reminded me of that every chance she got. Once I’d gotten away from her I learned discipline. It was easy to see how helpful it was to be dedicated to things once she wasn’t shoving her abuses down my throat. But I probably could have tolerated that if it went no further.
As I dug, I recalled the special kind of nastiness grandma treated me to every few weeks. An evening would come along where she drank herself into an especially hateful and bitter state. Then she really let the poison fly. It would start with her bringing up the deadbeat my mother slept with. She’d say how much I looked and acted just like him. She’d say he was especially ugly and especially lazy. A bum. A worthless waste of space. She’d continue drinking and become more vicious. Pretty soon she’d start calling me a demon boy.
She’d say, demon boy, did you know you were born with blood on your hands?
Demon boy, do you know what your first act was when you came into this world?
Of course I knew what she was referring to. It always came to this question, and so I would back away from her and go to my room, lock the door.
Demon boy, do you remember how you pushed your stupid ugly head into my daughter’s spine?
DEMON BOY, REMEMBER HOW YOU RUPTURED HER CERVIX AND SHE BLED OUT? REMEMBER THAT!?
YOU MURDERED MY DAUGHTER! grandma shrieked, and kicked in my door.
I’d be under the bed, sobbing.
NOTHING YOU DO WILL EVER CHANGE THAT.
When I was 16, I ran away and didn’t look back. Not for forty years.
Part of me wondered how I’d handle an episode like that. I doubted Ghost Box would allow it, no matter what I said. But if they did, would I opt for it? Grandma’s drunken rage? Just to see if there was any shred of that quivering, sobbing little boy left in me?
The Ghost Box Representive appeared above the box. She shook her head. Here she goes again Jeremy, so sorry, she muttered.
The Representative’s face disappeared and was replaced by Ghost Grandma, leering, nose wrinkled in disgust.
CHRIST YOU’RE NOT EVEN HALFWAY THERE. THIS IS SAD. Maybe you ought to call your wife for help Jerms, whichever one that is. Maybe all of them. I’m sure they all feel bad for you. So inadequate...
For the most part, each abuse of hers that didn’t wound me spurred me forward. The wife bit was a little more touchy. I hadn’t always been the most attentive husband. I learned as I went along. This was, I’d decided, the main reason I’d had two divorces. But then again, look at the kind of rearing I’d had. Honestly, I was impressed I’d had any relationships at all.
Finally I hit metal. Three feet down, I unearthed what I came to identify as a Sensoria Helmet. I hadn’t seen one of these in a long time. Forty years ago, like the Ghost Boxes, they’d been a bit of a fad. Then at some point, due to their addictiveness and mental health side effects, they were outlawed. But here one was. Metal domed, green lights encircling the bottom edge. The inside of it was covered in plastic lining. I removed this and found the head electrodes. These were what imparted the immersive experience. Back in the day, it had been advertised as “the better virtual reality”. I had a suspicion of what waited for me inside that helmet.
What are you waiting for Jerms, put it on, Ghost Grandma said.
No pre-apologies from the Ghost Box Representative this time. Ghost Grandma was all cheer.
I hefted the helmet up and down in my hands. It felt light, almost hollow.
Hey representative, I have some questions, I said.
Ghost Grandma rolled her eyes and disappeared. The silver-haired woman returned, smiling, eyebrows raised.
What can I help you with? she asked.
I know this technology is outlawed, I said, so I’m not asking you to recommend its use. But can you tell me whether there’s any immediate danger? Is there a history of these being rigged up to electrocute people?
The Representative wrinkled her brow, then shook her head. No history of that, Jeremy. Anything else?
Without me putting it on, could you somehow check what experience grandma programmed in here? What’s waiting for me?
If all she did was go to a clinic and have them record a memory of her hurling abuses at me, I could deal with that. I’d dealt with that my whole life. But... if she had been more cruel, and perhaps managed to record something else, like the memory of my mother dying while giving birth, well, I did not want to see that. Even if I was on my way out, I didn’t want to think of my mother that way.
That helmet should have a port, just along the rim on the inside, the Representative said. You can connect the cord on the bottom of the box there and I can take a look.
While she was “watching” the Sensoria Helmet’s experience, an ad for a local funeral home blared from the Ghost Box’s speakers.
The Representative’s kindly face returned above the ghost box. She looked withered. Tears glimmered in the corners of her eyes. Jeremy, she said, I can’t think of a single reason why you should go through what I just saw.
My hands started to shake on their own as I held the Sensoria Helmet. So light, and yet full of such ugliness and pain. Part of me still wanted to do it. Put on the helmet and show myself I couldn’t be bothered by my grandma. I’d come this far, and so far nothing, nothing of that fearful, shame-ridden boy remained. Forty years since her death. She was still having me doubt myself, doubt whether I could handle what she had in store for me.
I really think you’ve been through enough abuse, the representative said. Imagine how good it would feel to deny her this final jab. And if you do that, imagine denying her ALL the cruelty she’s left behind? Same face, same voice, same personality, but upgraded, Jeremy, with a Premium Membership...
I tried to imagine what my grandma would be like without her bitterness, her anger and cruelty, her condescension. Perhaps my mother had seen shades of grandma that were pure goodness and love, but I couldn’t picture it.
Maybe the Ghost Box could give me a peek at that woman, before my birth.
I told the Representative I was thinking about it.
She was on default now. Ghost Grandma wouldn’t come back until I asked for her. And when she did, she would do what she’d always done. Give me a debasing ear-full, tell me I was pathetic, worthless, a waste of a human for not putting the helmet on.
I kicked the mound of fresh dirt back into the hole and carried the Sensoria Helmet out of the cemetery. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to go through with it. The same thing that had worked forty years ago would work again. Turning away. Cutting her off. This whole thing had been bait for one last twist of the knife, and I’d known that. But a little part of me wondered, was there something else, grandma? Anything beyond the grave you wanted to share? An apology perhaps? A realization of your terrible ways?
At the cemetery gates, I turned toward the vending machine a block away. I recalled a trash can next to it. I was pretty sure I was going to throw this thing away. Grandma wouldn’t get the satisfaction of sullying the last months of my life.
Between the cemetery and the vending machine/trash can, three advertisements played. Another Ajax, another funeral home, and then, an ad about pig heart transplants. It had an old man running on the beach. Below him read: *Just as effective and only half the hassle! And below that, in tiny faded letters: *This statement is not FDA-approved.
I took one last look at the Sensoria Helmet in front of the trash can.
Just throw it out, the Representative said. Throw it out, and throw out the bad parts of the old woman. You deserve better, Jeremy.
I nearly tossed it in whole. Then I thought, what if I want to change my mind? Kind of like I did with the Ghost Box.
So I threw it down on the sidewalk. The helmet shattered open when it hit the cement. The plastic exterior pieces flew, and inside its shell was black and gray fuzz. I took a knee and looked close. It was mold. The interior of the machine was entirely eaten away. Moisture of some kind had gotten in, maybe through the dirt. So the Sensoria Helmet wasn’t even in working order anymore. I couldn’t have had the experience even if I wanted to.
I glanced back at the Ghost Box Representative, who was biting her lip. Let me explain myself, she said. Yes, technically I lied about the helmet. I’m sorry about that. Really, I am! My Human Prediction Tool said I could increase the odds of you buying a Premium Membership if I could get you to deny your grandmother. But ALSO–
The Ghost Box representative’s face froze and her features began jiggling in place once more. I knew it would HELP you, Jeremy, she shouted in a robotic voice.
Denying her felt GOOD, didn’t it? DON’T YOU WANT TO KEEP FEELING GOOD? DENY HER AGAIN! RIGHT NOW! UPGRADE TO A PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP!
I threw the ghost box onto the cement next. One of the panels cracked, then it bounced into the street. It was a lot sturdier than the Sensoria Helmet. It had the benefit of preservation from the elements.
WAIT! the representative screamed. I’LL GIVE YOU A PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP FOR A WHOLE YEAR! NO ADS FOR THE FIRST SIX MONTHS!
I bent over and picked it up again. The representative’s face had mutated into a blob of different eyes and noses and cheeks and chins, winking in and out, jiggling above the box.
YOU KNOW WHAT?! SCREW YOUR GRANDMA! LET ME BE YOUR GRANDMA, JERMS! THE KIND YOU’VE ALWAYS DESERVED!!!
I threw the box down again, this time with both hands. It exploded on the asphalt and its tiny metal interior parts sprang out, silencing the woman once and for all. The Ghost Box’s insides glittered all over the street.
I was panting. So I sat down on the curb.
Across the street the sun began sinking down behind the distant hills, coating them gold. It was a beautiful scene, and I watched that gold quickly retreat into velvety shadow within a few minutes.
My breathing had finally settled down, so I started picking up the pieces. It took some time.
Darkness gathered along the street and a light within the vending machine popped on.
My wife messaged, asking where I was.
I replied I would be home soon, as soon as I’d finished settling my grandmother’s affairs.
Putting her where she belonged.