LIFE IMITATES TOOBWORLD

According to the Register, Frank Jones of Great Britain has been getting text messages from his wife Sadie. Nothing odd in that...

Except for the fact that she's been dead for five years.

Dun dun DUNH!

Sadie Jones was buried with her cell phone, which apparently was quite dear to her.

There must be something about Jones' house that makes reception quite good from beyond the grave, as a spirit dubbed "The Thing" used to haunt the place until an exorcism by the Fleetwood Spiritualist Church released it from being "trapped between two worlds."

This is a great example of Life Imitating Toobworld.....

"Miss Elva Keene lives alone on the outskirts of London Flats, a tiny rural community in Maine. Up until now, the pattern of Miss Keene's existence has been that of lying in her bed or sitting in her wheelchair reading books, listening to a radio, eating, napping, taking medication—and waiting for something different to happen. Miss Keene doesn't know it yet, but her period of waiting has just ended, for something different is about to happen to her, has in fact already begun to happen, via two most unaccountable telephone calls in the middle of a stormy night, telephone calls routed directly through—the Twilight Zone."

From Wikipedia:

An elderly, wheelchair-bound lady named Elva Keene receives strange anonymous phone calls. At first the caller says nothing, and all that can be heard is static. In subsequent calls, he can be heard moaning. After several calls, Elva says repeatedly, "Hello? Hello?" The caller finally says slowly, garbled, and weakly, "Hello?". Elva demands to know who is calling, but the only response is "Hello?" Finally the caller manages to get out the words, “Where are you? I want to talk to you.”

Elva has had enough and screams at the man to leave her alone. There are no more calls and the phone company traces the source to a fallen telephone line.

Elva and her housekeeper visit the location of the line given by the telephone operator. To the astonishment of both, they find themselves at a cemetery, and they find that the line is resting on the grave of Elva’s fiancé, Brian Douglas. Elva says that she always insisted upon having her own way, and Brian always did what she said. A week before they were to be married, she insisted upon driving, and lost control of the car. The accident left Brian dead, and she, a lonely cripple. Now she can talk to him again, she won't have to be alone.

At home, she picks up the phone and calls out to Brian. She pleads with him to answer so that she can talk to him. He replies that she has told him to leave her alone, and that he always does what she says. Then the line goes dead, leaving Elva alone and crying in her bed.

In the original short story by Richard Matheson, the operator gave away Elva's address to the caller. Later, Brian calls Eva to tell her that he's coming right over........

I'm glad they changed it. As a little kid watching this, I was scared enough by the concept without thinking the Undead were coming!

"According to the Bible, God created the heavens and the Earth. It is man's perogative—and woman's—to create their own particular and private hell. Case in point, Miss Elva Keene, who in every sense has made her own bed and now must lie in it; sadder, but wiser, by dint of a rather painful lesson in responsibility, transmitted from the Twilight Zone."

BCnU!
Toby OB
[My thanks to NYMarky for the info!]