Swipe Right

Introducing Swipe Right, my recent story that is sure to entertain and surprise. This humorous short story with a twist showcases my creativity and storytelling skills, and I am excited to share it with you.

Today is my hundredth birthday and I’ve started seeing ghosts.

Not in the flesh, or the spirit or whatever. Not yet anyway. Online. It’s my husband, Michael. On Tinder.

I mean, it was that young girl who does my meals on wheels, Anastasia, that’s her name, has an earring in her nose, can you fathom? Anyway, she said that my getting old didn’t mean I should be lonely, so she set me up on this dating app. Every night after Coronation Street, I fire up the iPhone and swipe here and there to pass the time.

Well, today of all days, I’m busy ordering some bits from Amazon, when a ping comes in: Michael Fisher has swiped right on you – see your match. So, with a trembling finger, I click.

There he is. Looking much like he probably would have if he’d lived, rather than dying fifty years ago.

Ours was a story for the ages. You know the one, girl meets boy, boy turns out to be a twat.

So, I spent my twenties making his dinner and trying to placate him.

“Fancy a cuppa, Mike?”

“Let me get that for you dear.”

“No, you weren’t being unreasonable shouting at the postman.”

“I’m sure it didn’t hurt when you kicked the dog.”

Then came my thirties, and I’d tried it all. So, I left him. Caught two busses to my Mam’s.

“I’m not going back,” I said, throwing my hold-all on the kitchen table and flopping into the rocking chair that was older than me. She listened, nodded in the appropriate places, made cups of tea and then told me to get home to my husband because I’d made my bed.

My forties brought some light relief as he spent much of that with his girlfriend. I wanted to seek her out and tell her a thousand times thank you and please please please take him. Instead, I inhaled her perfume, washed the dried semen off his pants and prayed.

Fifty was the final straw. His girlfriend dumped him, and he became more unbearable than ever. So, in a fix as I was, I killed him. Like any sane person would. Made it look like a tragic accident of course. Funny thing is, if he’d ever got off his ever-expanding behind and made his own tea, he would still be alive.

We had a lovely funeral. I made sandwiches cut into little triangles and the priest talked about a loving and kind soul who I had never met.

The next day, I packed his belongings off to the British Heart Foundation and carried on with my life – much improved.

That was, until this Tinder nonsense brought his face to my phone screen, staring at me with his accusatory mud-coloured eyes.

I look at the clock: 1 pm on my hundredth birthday. Anastasia will be here soon. She’ll know what to do. Probably some sick joke or one of those deep fakes like on that mirror show on Netflix. Aye, nothing to worry about. Anastasia will have it sorted in a jiffy.

My heart lurches as the phone lets out a banshee cry.

Oh, bloody hell.

He’s Face Timing me.