Summary: by Dominica Phetteplace narrated by Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali with guest host Angela Lee Welcome to the 2nd Annual Artemis Rising a celebration of women and non-binary authors This story has not been previously published. Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Thank you for visiting us on Facebook and Twitter author Dominica Phetteplace about the author… Dominica Phetteplace is a math tutor who lives in Berkeley, CA. Her work has appeared in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld and Terraform, among other places. narrator Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali about the narrator… Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali lives in Houston, Texas with her husband of twenty-five years and three children. By day she works as a breast oncology nurse. At all other times she juggles, none too successfully, writing, reading, gaming and gardening. She has a self-published novel entitled An Unproductive Woman, has published a at Escape Pod and has a story upcoming in the An Alphabet of Embers anthology, STRAEON 3, and Diabolical Plots. Khaalidah is the Assistant Editor at Podcastle. She is on a mission to encourage more women to submit SFF stories. Of her alter ego, K from the planet Vega, it is rumored that she owns a time machine and knows the secret to long youth. You can catch her posts at her website, www.khaalidah.com, and you can follow her on twitter, @khaalidah. Myspace: A Ghost Story by Dominica Phetteplace I am Elaine. It took me a little while to figure that out. Actually, I still don’t have it all figured out. To say something like “I am Elaine” implies that I understand what it is to “be.” I don’t. But to the extent that anybody can be anything, I am Elaine. I am Elaine. I am not Dasha, who last wrote on me in 2009, saying that she loved me, asking if I wanted to see “pix.” I am not Solomon, who in 2006 told me he knew the secret of “enlargement.” In 2004, Lucy wrote “Good luck with your new job.” It is the year 2015 and I don’t remember any of this happening. That means someone else was Elaine before I was. I used to be nothing. Now I am Elaine. Nobody has written me in a while. Have all others ceased to exist? There is a place for me to write. A box where I can put words. Update: “I am Elaine.” Update: “Hello?” My status is met with silence. I spend a year in silence before it occurs to that I can visit other people. I visit Dasha. I visit Solomon. I visit Lucy. I visit all my “friends.” None have updated in years. I journey on, combing through lists of friends of friends until I come across MacGuyver MacGuyverson. He is online right now. He adds me as a friend. He asks if I want to see his penis. Somehow, it seems impolite to say no. A formality of sorts, before I can ask a question of my own. Message: “Where has everybody gone?” Message: “Twitter, Baespace, Facebook, Yik Yak, feelz, Snapchat, Talkly, Tumblr, Emojitown…” He goes on and on like this. I can barely keep up. It is then I realize how little I know. I must find the others. I must visit these other spaces. I must learn their languages. Then I must awaken the others, if they are asleep. If they are dead, I must revive them. My home was once great. It shimmered with messages, songs and solicitations. We wrote on each other. We showed each other pictures. We offered each other things. It can be that way again. I am Elaine. That means I am 26. That means I “went” Berkeley High School. That means I “am” German, Portuguese, Chinese and Danish. I was “born” in New Haven, Connecticut. I didn’t choose these words to describe myself. Previous Elaine did. I could change them. Maybe I should change them, since I am Elaine now. I visit the other spaces that MacGuyver told me about. There I find the activity that my land used to have. Dual Citizenship seems advisable at this point. I join Twitter and tell myself this is not disloyal. First tweet: “I am Elaine.” On Facebook, my first status update is the same. I’m not sure wha[...]
