It seems…brighter? No, clearer. It looks like a reflection of the moon, a pale sphere with cratered shadows. There’s only one window in this room, though, and it’s behind the camera with apermanently closed blackout blind to avoid light cast by passing cars.
I read the comments.
schrodingers_cow:
I see a face in the orb. Don’t you?
jazzhands1999:
Uh, no. I see the reflection of a light bulb.
kalebsmom:
That’s not a light bulb. It’s an orb. And I see a face, too. Zoom in. Eyes. Mouth. Nose. It’s all there.
I blow the video up to full screen. Yes, there are dark blotches approximately where you’d find eyes and a mouth, but it’s like spotting dragon-shaped clouds. People see what they want, and apparently, they want ghosts.
I keep scrolling through comments. Some are about our episode, but more and more are about the orb, people new to our channel tuning in just for that.
I won’t argue with a little publicity, though I’d rather it were for the actual show. As our marketing team at Webizode says, it doesn’t matter why people come—just get them there, present a good product, and some will stay. Which is probably why Webizode hasn’t argued about the high heating bills that keep Trinity in tank tops year-round.
I’m popping two aspirin when Trinity comes downstairs as fresh and bright eyed as ever.
“Your ghost has returned,” I say as I swivel the keyboard her way. “Sorry,ourghost. According to the comments, it now has a face.”
“What?” She seems genuinely startled, and I chastise myself for joking around. She believes in this stuff. I hurry on to tell her that I do not see a face in what is obviously a lighting glitch.
As she skims the comments, I say, “So the question is whether we investigate the anomaly or not.”
She pales. “Investigate a ghost? I hope you’re kidding, Hannah. You don’t mess with that sort of thing.”
“I mean investigate therealcause of the light. What’s causing the reflection. Do we embrace our scientist credo and conduct a ghost-busting investigation…or do we let people keep thinking it’s a ghost if that bumps our stats.”
She doesn’t answer. She’s stopped on a section of comments. When I turn to head into the kitchen, she says, “I thought you went through these.”
“I did.”
“And you weren’t going to mention this?” Her nail stabs the screen, making the image shudder.
I read the comments.
gonegirl5:
You see me, don’t you? I know you do.
gonegirl5:
Did you really think you’d get away with it?
“Yeah,” I say. “I read that. Random bullshit. I don’t know how it got through moderation. Sometimes I wonder whether there’s a real person monitoring it or just a bot looking for key words.”
“Webizode said it’s a real person. They guaranteed that in our contract.”
“Then it’s an intern looking for key words, and since those comments don’t have any, they ignored them. I’ll mention it to them.”
Afterthe next episode, I wake to Trinity shaking me hard enough that I jolt upright with an uncharacteristic snarl.
“Could you not do that?” I mutter as I sit up, rubbing my eyes.
