Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Social Media (12/01/11)
-
TITLE: Unofficial Notification | Previous Challenge Entry
By Deborah Rampona Oliver
12/15/11 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
(her second load of the day) and
carried her coffee to the computer
desk. Fifteen minutes until the kids’
bus arrived. Fifteen minutes to catch
up on Face Book and press the pause
button in her life. This part of the
day, the time when school let out until
bedtime, was always the hardest. Part
of her kept expecting Jeremy to stride
through the door, her white knight and
the boys’ hero, to save her from the
emptiness of his absence.
Joanne logged on and posted her
status. “It’s a good thing coffee is a
bean, because I’m well on my way to
drinking my five servings of vegetables
today.” She heard a computerized chime
and saw an IM from Jeremy.
“Please pray. I can’t talk about it,
but it’s been a rough day. Turn on the
news. Hug the boys and tell them daddy
misses them.”
Joanne quickly responded, “You got it
sweetie. Anything I can do?”
The connection was lost and she was
offered the opportunity to send him a
message. Instead, she reached for the
remote and pressed “on.” As the screen
illuminated, Joanne saw a red ticker
across the bottom of CNN’s screen.
“BREAKING NEWS: IED kills four
soldiers in Afghanistan.” A reporter
with a spray on tan and beautiful
porcelain veneers adopted an expression
of concern as she gave a ‘report’ of
the blast.
Joanne rolled her eyes, “As if you give
a rip!” she muttered. Just then, her
iphone buzzed with an incoming text:
“Can I come over and hang out?” Her
friend Jenny who had endured the same
grueling deployments with her and knew
the loneliness as well as anyone was on
her way over.
In the background, Joanne felt the bass
reverberations of the school bus as it
entered the neighborhood. She got up
and went to the door. Their little
home was right at an intersection and
she always double checked before the
boys crossed the road. They tumbled
off the bus laughing and jostling one
another in the daily race to reach home
first. Joanne greeted the boys with a
kiss and gave them permission to watch
cartoons BEFORE they did homework; a
rare treat indeed. They were off
without a second look.
Joanne sat down at the computer again
to log out when she noticed a new post
on her wall. “Tell Jenny we’re SO
SORRY about David!” Her stomach
plunged and she immediately felt the
world closing in on her, suffocating.
Fear and disbelief prickled throughout
her body! Nervously, Joanne focused on
the news again. That idiot reporter
had ‘scooped’ all of the other stations
and was releasing the names of the
soldiers killed by the IED! When
David’s name left the glossed lips of
the reporter, Joanne felt the urge to
vomit.
Dear Jesus PLEASE let this be a
mistake! Oh God, how could you let
this happen? Knowing that other
families in the battalion would be
checking her status, Joanne quickly
deleted their post and she changed her
own status: “In consideration of our
fallen soldiers and their precious
families, please do not release or
discuss personal information until
official notification is made! She
quickly checked Jenny’s wall as well.
No condolences, yet.
All of a sudden, Joanne realized that
social media had the capacity to make a
person feel like the loneliest person
in the world. Other people without the
right to intrude were now privy to
intimate details of her best friend’s
life before she could even be properly
informed! How could she protect Jenny
when David’s death had already gone
viral? Was the report even accurate?
A honk pierced the shock as Jenny
pulled into the driveway. She stared
at her friend’s beat up minivan and
idly wondered if that reporter would
get a raise; wondered if she’d go out
and buy a Mercedes in triumph. Would
she care about the impact of her story?
As Jenny approached the house laughing
with her “Littles,”(that’s what Jenny
always called her children) Joanne felt
relief and guilt: relief that it
wasn’t Jeremy who died and guilt
because she was certain Jeremy was
alive. She braced herself and
whispered a prayer, “Dear Jesus help me
to be your hands and feet.” Joanne
stuck a smile on her face that was
every bit as plastic as the reporter's
and braced herself, sincerely hoping
that notifications would be made before
the local news got ahold of the story.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
This was very well written and sobering. Well done!
I know first hand about the "press leaking info" prior to families being informed. Years ago my uncle was killed and I picked up our newspaper and read it in shock! So this story was close to my heart.
Thank you. God Bless you~
Anxiously I logged onto facebook on the work computer, which we are not supposed to do, but I was in shock. Come to find out a dear friend of ours who we had been close to our whole lives had passed away unexpectedly that day. It was a horrible loss for all of us and not a way that I would have chosen to find out.