Written with the prompts: thank God none of this is real, write what first comes to mind, caffeine, cats and cuss words, false red lips, stop, I needed contact with those who would give me welcome, the night is young. Most prompts were massaged a bit here!
Theresa was under the impression that Facebook was a role-playing game. Every morning when she logged on, she’d choose from one of her seven personas to assume that day. Her first four personas were women: Laurie, a nurse; Meredith, a Chanel lipstick and nail polish sales executive; Randy, a stay-at-home mom/web designer; and a teenager who’d recently decided to call herself Califia. It was so fun. One loved caffeine, another loved cats and teenage Califia regularly let loose a steady stream of cuss words. Good times.
Eventually Theresa decided to up her game and she created Facebook pages for a few phony men. She was Albert, the light rail train driver, Stephen, the vice president of the Franklin Mint, and Tony, a well-connected young man who just left Uber for the more lucrative field of medical marijuana delivery.
Theresa enjoyed starting off each day with a few quick posts about the weather, the season or whatever fruit was available to slice onto her Cheerios. On a good morning, each of her people would make a quick comment, like a few posts, and wish everyone a happy day. In the evenings she would choose one character who would dive deep into the alternating angst and wonder of daily life. All of her people were generally optimistic and philosophical. Theresa liked them all. They were all people she would want to spend time with, you know, if they actually existed. She assumed all the other profiles on Facebook were equally fictional. She found the virtual world to be surreal and comedic. Thank God it wasn’t real.
One day she decided her people needed a little shaking up, so she invented a mysterious, dark personality named Twyla. As a profile photo she used a pair of fake-looking red lips like the ones from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. When she logged onto this Facebook page, she’d write the first thing that came to mind. Her posts were dog star trampoline red ink. Sometimes she’d add a smidgeon of iced tea granite pink eye. Other times she was in a blue rain mermaid blown leopard spots kind of mood.
Often she included photographs of reptiles and empty lots, dented car doors and burnt-out light bulbs. The list of Twyla’s followers exploded. Theresa set up Twyla’s account to run on Twitter and Instagram. Theresa and Twyla were a sensation migraine nectarine cougar chardonnay burglary Tuesday.
Theresa shut down the pages for her other personas. She became Twyla full time candy wrapper china bowl river reed journey. She began to spout off this way in business meetings and on phone calls with her uptight sister. She was Twyla, thrilled to have found a world that gave her welcome door stop paper plate spiritual quest moose drool.
“The night is young,” she posted every morning.
