Imin a London branch of the Apple Store, about to buy a pair of Apple watches.
Place two fingers on the screen until you see and feel your heartbeat.
Lift to send, says the website.
This heartbeat, I ask one of the salespeople, is it his actual heartbeat?
Like, could I analyze it for irregularities or defects, if I was a doctor?
So, I pass on the watches for now, but at some point theyll probably update that feature.
Surely everyone will be asking the same question.
Death hangs over all of us like a watch-tapping chaperone.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
Dion calls it stalking.
If it does, theyre probably alive and Ill move on.
Until tomorrow, obviously.
The truth is, the dead do send signals to let you know theyve gone.
At that point, Ill call.
Ill message a few people to test whether theyve seen them in the last couple of days.
I wasnt always great at this.
For example, when my husband emailed his dad and he didnt reply.
That didnt occur to us either.
Not until we found him.
Both the police and the coroner thought hed been dead for about a week.
They couldnt put an exact date on it but using tech, I could.
He kept a document of all his passwords on his iMac desktop.
He hadnt opened an email for eight days.
Date of death confirmed.
I wonder how much longer an autopsy takes?
The truth is, the dead do send signals to let you know theyve gone.
It takes a while to spot them because were rather more calibrated to the messages of the living.
Newspapers left uncollected on the doorstep shout a little louder, but still go unnoticed to most.
Im not going to miss another signal.
Working from home, digitally stalking my friends has become a full-time job.
No news is good news, but no amount of no news seems to satisfy me.
Someone must have passed out on their panic button.
I move on to people I havent seen in a while.
Then, people I havent seen in years.
It starts innocently enough.
Dion texts me from work, Claude Littners going to replace Nick Hewer onTheApprentice!
He insists we watch the bloodyApprenticebecause hes endlessly entertained by my hate-watching.
And every week, he ends up hollering with laughter.
I Google, Does heart disease show up during a medical?
Maybe, if I just start a conversation and then casually… but Dion starts to key in back.
The little oval with the three dots appears, then disappears.
Why did he stop typing?
Whatever, I think, plugging in my charger and pulling myself up to the screen.
Im just thinking ahead.
I open Spotify, and blast out some playlist that professes to be uplifting.
I shudder with disgust and horror, and scurry back to my computer.
The screen is dark and in its reflection, I see myself.
My unwashed, pajama-clad, housebound body hunched over a screen.
Im not a friend; Im a head-counter.
I take a few deep breaths, Google how to get over agoraphobia, then quickly switch tabs.
Its there, on that last tab, waiting for me.
All the information I need.
Ill check on a few more people, then Ill read it.
This article was originally published byErica BuistonMedium.
