The Viral Witness

It was a simple deal. The reporter needed a ratings boost, and the young woman wanted a little internet fame. She’d seen how idiotic viral moments had been parlayed into dollars and deals by people savvy enough to play the game. From the Hide Yo Kids guy to Hawk Tua girl, both oddly from Alabama, it didn’t take any special talent. So when she saw the fire, she saw her moment. She could be boring and use good grammar and a normal accent and tell the reporter that she’d seen the fire, saw someone running from it, and called 911… or she could ham it up and get her ten seconds of fame. The camera man dropped his fingers to count down 3-2-1, then pointed to the reporter. “We’re here at the site of the Fairview Apartments, which has completely been engulfed in flames. Tell me, ma’am, what did you see?”

“OH LAWD, hunny! It was like right out a movie! I pulled up, and the whole building just like ‘sploded! I almost peed my britches! Lawd, it scared me so bad! Ever’thang was on fire and people running and screaming e’rrywhere! I called 911 and tolt ‘em ‘Come on down here, shit’s got real!’ and they done a good job getting’ here fast! I hope nobody’s trapped inside or dead! Woo, boy! I gotta go change my pants!”

The reporter acted completely professional and didn’t act like he know the witness was going to act like a clown. “Has there been any indication that there were people trapped?”

“Naw, baby. One dude ran out when there was just smoke, before it ‘sploded, and some others were on their balconies pretty quick-like. But it IS the middle of the day. Folks SHOULD be at WORK.” The sass dripped from the last statement. The reporter ignored the fact that the witness was not at work, either, and thanked her. She responded, “Anything for you, baby,” and tossed him a flirty wink and smile.

Of course it was absurd. She meant for it to be. She hoped people would laugh, remix it into a viral video, and she could turn it into some fast cash. She strode to her car, repeating the interview in her head, trying to think of ways she could add to it (if asked) as the reporter waited impatiently for the fire chief to come give an official statement.

Her pants were clean. Her grammar was impeccable. But she could turn on the hillbilly accent at will and chuckled to herself at her quick wit on camera. She wondered how the story would be edited and if her little interview would even be broadcast. She sat in her sensible used Pruis and watched the firefighters put out the flames and repeated the interview in her head again.

Only then did she wonder why that one guy drove away before the explosion.

The reporter spoke to the fire chief then pointed at her still sitting in her car. The chief ambled across the parking lot and waved as he approached. She rightly assumed he wanted an actual account of what she saw, which would be repeated several more times that afternoon for police and arson investigators.

Her story didn’t change, but they were able to get better details from her with their questions. She had pulled into the apartment complex just after lunch, saw smoke at the door of a bottom floor apartment, and noticed a young man in pink shorts and a blue sweatshirt hustle to his car and drive away just as that apartment exploded. She couldn’t say which direction he turned out of the exit, and she didn’t see his face when they drove past each other. She couldn’t say for sure that he had even left THAT apartment, either.

But he didn’t know that. He watched the local news app all afternoon for breaking news coverage. All the app posted was that there was a massive apartment fire, and he tried to settle his still-racing heart, to tell himself that he’d gotten away with it. When he tuned into the 6:00 Report, however, he knew his plan hadn’t worked. He had been seen. By an idiot girl making a spectacle of her interview. He hoped no one would replay it. The people who might connect him to the fire didn’t typically watch the news. He hoped they didn't watch tonight.

Again, he was wrong. It was a slow news day, so the clip was repeated on the 10:00 Report and the next morning’s early show. By afternoon, it was viral. In 24 hours, the young lady’s interview had indeed been picked up by Tiktokers remixing it into trap, rap, and country songs. “It used to take longer, before AI,” he mused. He expected police to come knocking. She’d seen him. She’d seen his car. Surely she could have given a good description to the police – he looked straight at her as they drove by one another. She could pick him out of a line up. Couldn’t she? She could! His adrenaline still hadn’t come down, he hadn’t eaten or slept, and as he paced and paced, he became more and more convinced that she saw him and would be the person to put him in jail. And he couldn’t go to jail for this. He had been so careful to set it off when no one was home so no one would die. But the blast was bigger than intended and several neighbors ended up in the hospital. He was going to jail for arson and maybe attempted murder and he just COULDN’T GO TO PRISON. He had to find her. Convince her to not say anything. Not ID him. He had to! He couldn’t go to jail for this! He took a deep breath and decided he’d do whatever it took. He tried hard to stop spiraling, but the fear and adrenaline and desperation was so extreme and unexpected, he didn’t have a plan for how to overcome it.

She got invited to a local radio morning show and a podcast almost immediately and decided the best way to get this money train going was to plug her Etsy shop. The night of the fire, she designed some print-to-order shirts that said, “Oh Lawd, I almost peed my britches!” in a hot pink scribble font and added them to her shop. The image could be put on any cut and color of shirt imaginable. But she knew she had to stay relevant to milk this for all it was worth. She told the over-the-top redneck comedy morning show host and the salacious but serious podcaster that she had in fact seen the arsonist – it was well known pretty quickly that the fire was not accidental – and that she was working with police to help bring him to justice. She was lying, of course. The only thing she actually knew was his mismatched outfit, and she really had no details on that beyond the color.

But he didn’t know that. He set a google alert for the Oh Lawd girl and one for the Fairview fire, and he saw that she’d be giving another interview the next morning. His friends were calling him, asking if he’d seen that his old apartment had blown up. His mother called to check on him because she knew he wasn’t over his ex who still lived there. His cousin called and told him he should come over and smoke one with him because "Yo, that's craaazy, man!" The local news kept running updates because they had nothing more interesting to report on in their podunk city. It was the talk of the town.

It felt like all eyes were on him and he was on the brink of getting caught, and he had to shut this girl up.

In truth, that was the first thing he’d gotten right. His friends and family didn’t suspect him at first. They had called out of genuine concern, but man, was he acting weird. Two of them called the police to suggest they look at him. The police cruiser pulled up on him, ready to just bring him in for some questions, when they saw him following the young lady out of her interview with a knife in his hand. They tackled him to the ground and arrested him as she strolled to her car, excited about how well the interview went, checking her Etsy shop on her phone, earbuds drowning out the sounds of the scuffle mere feet behind her. The Prius left with its driver completely oblivious to the threat that almost caught up to her, smiling at the tee shirt sales already pouring in.