Phone Screen Reflection Reveals a Fake Obituary Online Under the Glow of a Shocked Face
It started on a Tuesday. I remember because it was laundry day, and I was sitting on the floor of my apartment folding towels while the news hummed low in the background. My phone buzzed—some email notification. I didn’t check it right away. I folded the last towel, stacked it on the shelf, then went to the kitchen to make tea. I live alone in a small one-bedroom in Tacoma, Washington. I’ve lived there for almost five years now. Nothing fancy—just mine. I keep it clean, mostly quiet. I don’t have many visitors.
When I finally sat down at the kitchen table with my mug, I opened my phone to check the email. It was one line from a name I didn’t recognize, no subject line: “Is this true?” There was a link below it. I almost deleted it. I thought it was spam. But something about it made me tap. Maybe it was the timing—how silent the apartment felt just then, how the steam from my tea curled right in front of my face like a question.
The link opened to a local newspaper’s website. It had a black-and-white header, like most obituaries. And then I saw it—my name. My full name. Age 41. Died “peacefully at home” on August 14th. That date was three days ago. I stared at my own face, reflected faintly in the screen. The photo they used was one I hadn’t seen in years—it must have been pulled from an old social media account I don’t use anymore. My heart started pounding. I read it again, slower. It said I had no surviving family. That there would be no public service. That I had been “a quiet, private man who will be missed by few but remembered kindly.”
I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there, clutching the phone, reading it over and over. I looked around my apartment. Everything looked the same—the same worn couch, the same stack of mail on the counter, the same fridge magnets slowly sliding downward. But something had shifted. I felt like I was outside myself, watching someone else live my life. Someone who was already dead.
At first, I thought it must be some horrible mistake. A mix-up. Maybe someone with the same name. But the photo proved otherwise. I clicked through the site, looking for contact information. I called the newspaper’s office. The woman who answered sounded tired, like she’d had a long day. I told her what had happened, and she went quiet. She asked me to hold. I waited. When she came back, she said the obituary had been submitted online, paid for with a credit card. She couldn’t tell me the name on the card without a subpoena. But she offered to take it down immediately, and she apologized. I could hear the discomfort in her voice.
After I hung up, I sat there for a long time. I didn’t move. I didn’t drink my tea. I just kept thinking—who would do this? And why?
I don’t have much family. My parents died when I was in my twenties. I have a younger sister, but we haven’t spoken in over ten years. The fight was stupid, but it grew over time—small things became big things. The last time we talked, she told me I was selfish. I told her she was manipulative. We both said things we couldn’t take back. I never married. Had a few relationships, none that lasted. Most of my friends drifted away with time. I’m not close with anyone at work. I keep to myself.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept checking the website, refreshing it, watching the obituary disappear like it had never happened. But I knew it had. Someone had wanted the world to believe I was gone. Someone had paid money to make that happen. I went through my contacts, tried to think of anyone who might have a reason to do it—to get revenge, to play a cruel joke. But there was no one left. I didn’t have enemies. I barely had people.
The next morning, I called my sister. I hadn’t spoken to her in over a decade, and I didn’t even know if the number still worked. It did. She picked up, but didn’t say anything at first. I said her name. I said mine. There was a long pause. Then she asked if I was okay. Her voice cracked, like she’d been crying. I asked if she had seen it. She said yes. She had. She’d found it a day before I did, through a friend of a friend. She thought it was real. She said she sat on her bathroom floor and wept. Said she’d been about to call the newspaper herself when I called.
I asked if she had anything to do with it. She didn’t answer right away. Then she said no. She didn’t know who would. But she said something else, something that stayed with me. She said maybe it had happened for a reason. Maybe it was the only thing strong enough to make me call her again.
We didn’t say much else. I could tell we were both overwhelmed. But we agreed to talk more. To try, at least. After I hung up, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years. Not relief exactly. Not joy. Just something that wasn’t numbness.
Over the next few weeks, I changed some passwords, locked down old accounts. I filed a police report, but they said it would be hard to trace without more information. I got a call from a distant cousin I hadn’t heard from in years. She had seen the obituary too. She sounded shaken. I told her I was alive. She laughed, then cried. We talked for an hour. Then another old friend reached out. Then someone from college. It was like the news traveled faster than the correction ever could. I had to keep repeating myself—I’m alive. I’m okay. I don’t know who did it.
Some people were kind. Some were confused. One person asked if I had faked it myself for attention. That one hurt more than I expected. But I couldn’t blame them. The whole thing didn’t make sense.
Weeks passed. I started talking to my sister regularly. We didn’t dive into the past right away. We talked about little things—weather, food, work. She has two kids now. I didn’t even know. She sent me a photo. My niece has my eyes. That hit harder than I thought it would.
Eventually, the shock wore off. Life settled back into its usual rhythm. But something inside me had shifted. I kept thinking about what it meant—for someone to erase you, even temporarily. To declare you gone when you’re still here. It made me realize how fragile presence is. How easy it is to disappear quietly, even while breathing.
In a strange way, that fake obituary gave me something real. It forced me to reach out. It reminded people I existed. And it reminded me, too. I had been drifting for so long—keeping quiet, keeping to myself. Not because I wanted to be alone, but because I didn’t know how to come back. That fake death pulled me out of hiding.
I still don’t know who did it. Maybe I never will. Maybe it was a cruel prank. Maybe someone thought they were doing me a favor, ending a life I wasn’t really living. I’ve stopped trying to understand their reason. Instead, I’ve focused on what came after.
Because now, when I sit at my kitchen table, I don’t just drink tea in silence. I call my sister. I send photos. I get photos back. I answer emails I would’ve ignored. I say yes to things I used to avoid. I’ve started walking more, nodding at neighbors, asking their names. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
The truth is, being mistaken for dead taught me what it means to be alive. Not breathing, not surviving. But being seen. Being known. And choosing, every day, to show up—no matter how late, no matter how small the step.
