Not literally. Her hands are clean, as far as I know. But she had a system, and when she explained it to me, I felt the way other people feel about spring cleaning.
The rules go a little like this:
When someone ghosts you, fades out, or hurts your feelings and quietly leaves, you don't block them. Blocking is for emergencies. Blocking says you mattered enough to be stopped.
Instead, you rename them 🪦.
Then you delete every message you've ever sent each other. The flirting. The logistics. The 1am voice notes. The "haha" you spent twenty minutes workshopping. Gone.
No eulogy. No casserole. No closure. Just a tiny grey headstone where a man used to be.
I didn't think I'd need one. I now need several.
A graveyard fills up faster than you'd think. Some residents broke my heart. One broke my bed. Most simply stopped replying, which somehow hurts more than a fight. At least a fight has dialogue, and is something I can workshop a response to in the shower.
Welcome to the tour. Please keep to the path.
🪦 The British Lawyer
On secondment, with an apartment over Darling Harbour. Secondment means temporary. I knew that. I'd just assumed the temporary part applied to his job, not me.
🪦 Steve
The ex. The only resident I was ever officially with, which makes him less a ghost and more a heritage listing.
🪦 The Guy Who Broke My Bed
Met at a club. Came home with me. Sadly instead of the cliche, he jumped on my bed and broke it. Still the most commitment any man in here has shown me if I'm being honest.
🪦 The Guys I Used to See
No epitaph. Some of the dead are just dead. May they rest in peace.
🪦 Bestie
Best friend in school, colleague at work. I lost them twice, which is either bad luck or a pattern. Friendships ghost you too. They just take the scenic route.
🪦 Jake
One date. One sleepover. One pair of Ray-Bans. He is survived by the sunglasses he left behind.
🪦 The Teacher
Three dates, starting at Smize (wouldn't recommend the hot ice cream). You'd think a teacher would know attendance matters, but I had to mark HIM absent.
My friend called it closure. It isn't. It's a filing system for feelings with a shredder built in.
Which raises the question: is it closure if you've just destroyed the evidence?
Deleting the messages doesn't delete the man. It deletes the details. I can tell you who's buried. I can't always tell you why. I remember how they made me feel, the way you remember a bad meal but not what you ordered.
And the dead don't stay dead.
Every so often, a 🪦 lights up my phone. No name. No history. No scrolling back to check whether I was the one who made it weird.
Sometimes I have to play detective, hunting for clues at a crime scene I helped stage.
Still, I'll be keeping the graveyard. Every new headstone reminds me that I'm the one holding the shovel.
And if anyone ever asks where the bodies are buried: under the hashtag at the very bottom of my contacts, where nobody ever scrolls.