January 26, 2023

Ray Delaney, newspaperman—well, newspaper ‘emerging trends and social media champion,’ at least—was on his way back to the office from a Tim’s run when his phone’s notifications began exploding. The orca had just passed the Dairy Queen, his employer’s building in sight at the next cross-street, when he began one-handedly thumbing through the comments; there certainly was a lot more activity on the annual Heartwood memorial posts, on every platform, than he’d seen in the past three years at this job. Suddenly, the phone rang, startling him into choking on his double-double. It was his boss, calling from the publisher’s head office in Toronto.

The orca tapped to answer it, coughing to clear his throat. “Uh, Hi, Mark; what’s up…?”

“RAY. THAT VIDEO. WHAT THE FUCK?”

“The video of—”

“Your dead local superhero guy! Heartwood!”

“The memorial post? It’s just from the morgue files, like usual…?”

A truck passed by, honking at an inattentive pedestrian, and Mark paused for a moment. “...Ray? Are you out of the office right now?”

“Almost back from coffee, be at my desk in just a minute,” the orca panted, beginning to lumber in a jog up 100 Street.

“Okay. Okay. Look at the video, pull all the Heartwood posts, and I’ll call you back in ten. Jesus, man, where did that footage even come from?” The phone beeped dully to indicate Ray’s boss had hung up.

He sprinted the rest of the way back to his cubicle. He faintly heard Jessica from Sales shouting something at his back about local advertisers threatening to boycott the paper, but the orca didn’t stop until he was sitting at his desk, throwing his thick parka aside; taking a gulp of hot coffee, he pulled up Twitter first. He anxiously clicked on the video from the post he’d uploaded twenty minutes prior.

It was supposed to be a video from Canada Day, 2002 of the late local superhero, ‘The Pride of Grande Prairie,’ giving a patriotic speech in Muskoseepi Park about civic duty and vigilance. That was what he had posted every year on Heartwood’s birthday. It was what his predecessor Dinesh had posted every year on Heartwood’s birthday. As far as he knew, it was what Dinesh’s predecessor had posted every year on Heartwood’s birthday. After the mysterious disappearance of the Hero’s monument in the park a few months prior, there’d been local debate over whether to install a replacement, and he’d linked to a yea-or-nay reader poll alongside the video.

The clip in the post, however, was… decidedly not that speech. It was instead a compilation of what appeared to be raw cable news footage from the early aughts, and Ray scrubbed through it, horrified. The burly bear in the red-and-white uniform was screaming himself hoarse in most of the clips, and none made him look particularly heroic, to say the least.

“—NO COWARDLY GOD-DAMNED TREE-HUGGERS—”

“—DIRTY FUCKING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS—”

“—SHARIA LAW, IN OUR SCHOOLS—”

“—IF MY SON TURNED OUT TO BE A FAGGOT, I’D—”

“—THE GLOBALIST BANKERS’ CABAL—”

Panicked, Ray deleted every one of the Heartwood posts, but it was too late; scanning through trending topics, he found dozens of reposts. Briefly clicking over to YouTube, it seemed as though several copies were already posted there too.

The orca removed his hand from the mouse and leaned back, staring at the wall. He took a deep breath, sipped his coffee, and waited for the phone to ring.