The Text

Smartphones do not really guarantee smart users. I mean sometimes we send the wrong message or picture to the wrong person, or worse the wrong group. We can well imagine the embarrassment of such an incident all the more if we have made such a blunder. And that blunder is on us, not the phone. I for one cannot forget how the request for a passport sized photo ended up in the message group I shared with my colleagues. Each of them now proudly owns a passport photo of me in all seriousness. 

The other experience is to see a fully-correct message sent with a or multiple "typos" and the mad rush to either "unsend" it, if that option is available, or to "delete for everyone." Yes, smartphones do not really ensure smart users. But, here is the but, smartphone too sometimes tend to want to go beyond its limit, to act "smarter than us" (or rather "oversmart") by deciding to auto-correct some of our words in certain instances. My smartphone will never know the embarrassing situations it has landed me owing to its distinct "auto-correct" ability, especially in those moments when typing in a hurry. Smartphones do not look too smart either in such instances irrespective of the many intelligent features it proudly boast of. But then blaming your phone does not help even in this case.

So imagine how a wrong text might be perceived and how it might come back to you? It could turn funny and nothing serious to be bothered with or it could also create misunderstanding and create tension that needs to be diffused slowly and coolly. So when an angry young woman at the end of her day sends her boyfriend a text to complain about her boss, but unintentionally forwards it to the wrong group-her colleagues at work, it becomes the starting of the unfolding of events that will change her life. Emily is unhappy with her boss, who is described as a control freak and apparently dominates his subordinates by shaming them publicly. That is an unhappy situation to be in, but Emily is more angered by the fact that her boss will not grant her the weekend off, which means cancelled weekend plans to visit Edinburgh. With this anger, Emily texts her boyfriend to vent her anger and also receive sympathy but then there is one word, the last word in the message to be precise around which the whole events unfold- dies. It looks like Emily wishes for her boss to die and later we learn that the boss does die, that very night, murdered in his house. Everyone is stunned especially the other three friends who are in message group and had received Emily's text. 

To add to the misery of Emily she receives a note at her home which states that in accordance to her wish, her boss is dead. The issue of who might have sent this note to her eventually lead to a big fight between Emily and her boyfriend. We also get to see that there is something strange about her boyfriend through the little encounters and description we get of him. Eventually there is a second note found which Emily takes to the police again (the first note is already in police custody) and there a discovery is made. The murder is solved already and the notes are no longer needed to solve the case. But these notes come into play as Emily solves the mystery behind who wrote them and why.

The Text by Claire Douglas is a short, very short story. The whole story unfolds from the perspective of Emily, the main character. We get to see shades of suspicion, jealousy, domestic violence, romance in the most unlikely place as the story unfolds. But the story is really about Emily, of the trap that she finds herself in, not so much in relation to the murder that has taken place but more in her current station in life. As we read through, we get to understand that the murder of her boss is not the main plot, it is actually about her being set free. I love how the story ends like how it started but with different results-Emily sending her boyfriend a text. In the first text, there is an unintentional whiff of death, in the second text, there is an intentional breath of life. And there is more to be read and understood.

I got this book on Amazon in the kindle book section for free. In that version, the whole story is just about 8 pages and that is very very short for a novel and yet beautifully crafted with details.