Death By Google

"Did you try Googling your name?" asked Millie.

"No!" snapped a defensive Debby. "There's no reason to do that. I don't do anything online."

"You're the one complaining about not being able to get back in the job market."

"It's only because I've been out 15 years raising the kids plus the market is soft."

"All I know is first thing anybody does anymore is Google your name after you apply. Up to you, though, just trying to help."

"I know. But you're barking up the wrong tree here. I'm completely safe. You know I'm the most private person in the world already. I don't put my business out on the street."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Debby's friend was unconvinced but tired of the fight. Still, she'd struck a chord and judging from the reaction, a painful one at that. Debby couldn't wait for her to depart. It was as if Debby had been sitting on an ant bed ever since the discussion began.

The house was empty, her husband attending a Giants game. Debby strategically picked a computer on which to search, her fingers burning the keyboard. She'd very carefully managed her life to never slip up, to maintain the perfect facade and be perfectly possessed by her possessions. In all the known world, only Debby knew where the bodies were buried.

How could that possibly be online?

Her pulsating temples must know what she must not know! As the results bled down the page in living nightmare there was her name emblazoned on page after page in shining lights. "The Death of Debby" "The Seventh Seal Of Debby" "Missing Debby, Portrait #9" Page after page starred her name as the scarred heroine in stories of lost love and a dishonest life. All these years of perfect hiding wasted. It was as if she'd walked naked through the town square without anyone ever telling her. Dear God, what had she done?

"He used my name that son-of-a-bitch!" she fumed in vehement whisper. Her buried body had written of her long after its "death", a fatal miscalculation.

Never a drinker she had no way to buffer the shock. Humiliated before the world - a world she worshipped in proper reverence with swallowed feelings. She felt cheated beyond despair. It was like seeing her life savings wiped out in a single stroke.

Her first stunned thoughts were to the undoubtedly laughing people in personnel who'd first Googled her name. Perhaps they even passed the results around the office for everyone to see, exposing the poser.

Oh, God, this can't be happening.

Her secret pride on finding the formula for success had made her smug and quietly condescending of the problems of her friends, fools who let their warts show to the almighty world. Were the all-knowing angels in heaven pointing at her? How to die? How to die...

No way out. Nowhere to hide. She trusted not even her husband not to laugh. "Here's why I can't get hired, honey." Suicide seems an honorable solution. Leave before they find out. Oh God, how to explain to the kids? The marriage, her family, her status, lies to be mocked by children. A wasted life.

How to destroy the evidence before it destroyed her? No, don't contact him! That's like admitting he's right! She'd bluffed her way out of tight spots before, no one the wiser. But this was outside of her control. Of all the things in the world she needed most, it was control.

There's no turning back, no fixing this. It will be like this for the rest of my life. Waves and waves of pain smashed upon her brain like an angry dam bursting. She had not the will to swim. Who would look at her the same? A lifetime of whispers behind her back. Even God was her enemy. Welcome to eternal hell Sister Christian.

As her mouth opened in the realization of the horror and the horror to come, her spirit escaped past her blank eyes and drowning heart. But the body does not give up so easily, kicking back in ancient primal instincts of survival at all costs. But she refused to continue life on anything but her own terms.

A voice tried to reach her through the darkness and shooting pains. "Those stories have been out there for years. You've lived just fine. It could stay that way. Maybe even until you die! Just keep pretending. Pretend like you never have before!"

Was it true? Could she keep the lie? No, no chance. I can't fake it anymore. But maybe...maybe... Like snaps from a bullwhip, the lie she clutched so fiercely stung her from every side. I don’t want to die! I don't want to die! Her body started to convulse. She had to make a decision.

"I'll live! I'll live!" But how??...I'll just go on like nothing's happened…Oh God in heaven help me! Still she could not convince herself. I'll just lie to myself like I've always done. Standing on the cliff of mental suicide she looked over the edge, feeling herself letting go. To fall would be to fall into bliss.

Then the phone rang.

It was Millie. "Oh, god! Oh, God NO!" Instinctively Debby knew the reason for the call. Her friend had Goggled her name and now wanted to gloat about being right, to question her as to how and why, and then spread the word from pastor to parent. She fell to the floor, a knife in her head, her eyes clouding grey. She lay there with the short gasping breaths of a patient on life support.

slippin' away...her wonderful wonderful world gone with the ashes...is there even a choice at this point, after a life of crime...who could make such a leap of faith to stay...outcast, untouchable, freak...this is her sentence, her just desserts...death in sick surrender...