Unfriending Moira

A 1,000 word short story by Patsy Collins

“You’ll like this one,” Lynsey said showing me her phone.

I smiled at the picture of a sleepy looking owl and its caption of ‘soooo not a morning person’.

Lynsey is a nice kid. She lives next door and we get the same bus; me to work, her to college. She’s always tapping away on that phone of hers. Talking to her Facebook friends she says, but she chats to me at the same time and sometimes finishes off her homework as well. We often laugh at things her friends have ‘posted’. Although I rarely ‘LOL’ (Laugh Out Loud) I often chuckle.

“What do you think of this, Jean?” She showed me a picture of a lovely sweater her friend had made. As I admired it I wondered if the other girl could simultaneously knit and chat on Facebook.

“She has a real talent,” I said.

“Yeah, she’s brills at all kinds of craft stuff and starting up a small business making things to order.”

Then Lynsey got into an animated discussion about a television programme. She fired off replies so fast I couldn’t see her fingers move over the tiny keypad, until I nudged her to let her know we were close to her stop. She snapped her phone shut, so she wouldn’t get distracted and miss it again.

“It’s not like real life,” I told her. “Facebook friends aren’t like real friends.”

“Yeah they are, they’re real. Laters!” Then she was gone.

She was wrong, I thought. My friend Moira for example; I bet Lynsey’s Facebook friends aren’t like her. Gosh that woman is annoying! She has grandchildren and you’d think she was the only woman in the world who’d managed it. Everything is turned round to them. I ask how she is, she tells me about their teething or measles. Mention any kind of food and she tells me if they like it or not. I do understand her interest in them, I’d love some of my own but I don’t keep on about it.

“Argh! Give me a break!” Lynsey said a few days later.

“What’s up?”

“My friend who does the craftwork? She turns every conversation to it. If someone says there’s a birthday coming up she says she makes gift items. If she posts a picture she’s always wearing…

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