u/jwynnseer

An ex client of mine told me that they have created and even named their AI assistant after me and given it my “personality”.

I was…horrified. I asked how that was even possible, and they told me that they had given it dozens of my emails, files that I had created, graphics that I had designed, and then topped it all off with personal anecdotes about me. 

“I tell her, “NAME REDACTED, create x” and sometimes it even gives me a hard time! Just like you!”

I am at a loss. I worked with this person for over four years in a very prominent industry.  I obviously have no legal recourse, I just feel…weird about it. 

Like, if you liked me that much, you could have just… renewed our contract? 😑🥲



The bodies that washed up were warm. That was the oddest part, Frank said, that they weren’t cold. Or bloated. Usually bodies that been in the water blow up a little. Their eyes bulge a bit, Frank said. But these bodies, they were warm like someone just pulled ‘em out of bed. Except they were wet, havin’ just rolled up onto the beach from the ocean. Waves that spat ‘em out like cherry pits in the summer time, red runnin’ down your chin. But these ones weren’t red with cherry juice. Somethin’ else. Blood, Frank said, but my Pa said it was rust. Like the bodies been tied up with some kinda chain under the water. But that don’t make any sense, Frank said, cos the bodies ain’t cold and they ain’t bloated so it can’t be rust from chains. That don’t make no sense at all. 

But nothin’ about the dead kids on the beach makes sense. Frank don’t know what to say about that.
Floaters is what Pa calls the bodies. They must be off doin’ somethin’ else all night and then just float to the shore in the morning. For what, we don’t know. The first body is named Johnny Doe. The next one is Janey Doe. After that, there was Jimmy Doe and Susie Doe, but then they ran outta names, I guess, cos now they just got numbers. We’re on number 18 today. I seen the boy they pulled out with my own eyes. I ran down to the mechanic shop to tell Frank, but he already knew. Frank knew everything about what went on in town, even if he wasn’t there to see it himself. Maybe Frank floats, too.

*

I wish that fat Jeremy Green would quit comin’ down here every time his shit Pa pulled another one off the beach. I seen it for myself every time. Elmer Green and his big yappin’ retriever — dumb as rocks, the both of ‘em — always in the middle of everything while the sheriff pokes around like a boy with a crick stick. Only this ain’t no crick stick. No long, thin branch pulled from the gnarled orchard. The one with the dead trees. Nah, this was some pointed metal pole with a nasty hook on the end. For scoopin’ out the Floaters. But then there’s shitass Elmer, shoutin’ after that piss yellow dog, “Come ‘ere, Hatch! Come on boy!” And countin’. Always countin’ the kids as they come up in a little black notebook he keeps in his shirt pocket.

I knew when the first one floated up there’d be more. Aunt Tess got all upset when the news broke, tellin’ me that her daddy told her all about this a long time ago. When she was knee high, she said. So, what? Four? Five? I don’t care for kids too much, don’t know how big they are by age or none of that, but the way Aunt Tess was talkin’, she was real small when her daddy told her and my daddy about the Floaters.
“Before your Pa died, he ain’t never tell you about ‘em?” she’d asked, fannin’ herself. “Shit, I don’t want to, either.”

But then she did.

When my grandaddy was a young man — before he married, before the mine — a little boy’s body washed up on the beach. He was perfect except for he was dead. And been dead, my grandaddy told my Aunt Tess. Been dead a long time. But he wasn’t rotted, and nobody knew who he belonged to. No one claimed him. So they buried him nice in the church yard and went about their business. But then, a few days later, another one.

And another.

“They ever figure out where they was comin’ from?” I’d asked her.

“Guess so,” she’d muttered. Crossin’ herself now. Not meetin’ my eyes. “Cos they stopped.”

She’d not come back by our house since that day. Not even seen her drive past the mechanic shop, actually, now that I think about it.

I wonder where she went.

*

I shouldn’t have come out tonight, but shit, I can’t sleep. I keep dreamin’ about bobbin’ things in black water.

The crash of the waves on the beach is a nice sound. Figured I’d wander down here, take a stroll, head home. Smoke a couple cigarettes. Maybe crack a beer.

Then, I thought I must be dreamin’. Right now, I must be asleep in my bed, just thinkin’ about the crash of the waves. Surely, it’s a dream cos there’s that bobbin’ thing.

Small.

I can’t tell by how big it is the age.

I never been good at that.

Two men are by the water, wadin’ in. Sheriff has that long hook pole again.

Surely it’s a dream.

“That’ll be the last one for now,” the sheriff is sayin’ to Elmer, whose just noddin’ numbly. Piss yellow dog at his side. No notebook this time. He reaches out and takes hold of Jeremy’s warm body, red flakes fallin’ off him into the wet sand.

Elmer’s holdin’ him like he’s sleeping and for a second, I pretend he is.

*

My son’s son is a real piece of work. he rides a fast bike, one with a motor in it and it’s loud as a penny in a tin can. I hear it first, roarin’ up outside my little apartment. I live above what used to be the mechanic shop. I hear the sound of Ted on the steps, bangin’ up ‘em like I have any desire for company these days. I don’t.

“Grandad Frank!” he runs breathlessly into my livingroom. I look up from my paper, only for a second before Ted’s white face makes me forget what I was about to curse him out for. “Grandad,” he says again, walkin’ toward me. And for one moment I see fat Jeremy Green stumbling towards me. I push myself back in my chair, tryin’ to avoid those wet, warm hands.

“Grandad, there’s a body on the beach.”