Chapter 3: Chain Letter by Stephen Simpson
In big bold letters across the top of the screen, the words
‘Do not delete this until you have read the entire mail’ appear.
Marlene scrolls down the page, past the many email addresses of those people it was sent to before it landed in her inbox. She decides impulsively to read the contents of the mail. Usually, she would delete it straight away without reading, but today she does not have much else going on.
Her irritating, bossy, and arrogant Manager is attending a meeting all day. Without him, peacefulness comes over the office. Her only purpose here is to dance to his tune. She has a business degree and twelve years’ experience in her field, but the company where she acquired the twelve years’ worth of experience had to close due to economic pressures and this was the only other job she could find.
Subject: FWD
DO NOT DELETE THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE ENTIRE MAIL...
The young man in this photo visited a historic site with
his friends and he asked them to take his photo while hiking.
While his friend took the photo, he screamed and fainted.
Then 2 days later, he died.
In the hospital, the doctors said he died from a heart
attack.
When the photos were developed, in the last photo there was
a woman standing next to the young man, even though his friends said there was
no one with him when the photo was taken.
Many people know of this rumour and the last photo is the
result of the blessings of technology.
Still, the photo is very mysterious and surely, when you
see it, you will feel the same.
An Army Officer was promoted after sending it to 13 people.
A labourer received this, forwarded it and within days was
promoted and all his problems resolved.
Be warned: If you do decide to delete this, great heartache will rise above you within 24 hours.
Shivers run down her spine. She feels the tiny hairs rise on her arms, a prickling in the nape of her neck as she looks at the photo. She is fascinated with the ghostly, pale white figure next to the boy. Standing half behind the boy her long black hair hangs down to her middle. The figure is naked except for a loincloth around her waist and a necklace of teeth around her neck.
Marlene notices she can only see the whites of the eyes of
the woman and that she is sneering malignantly. She finds it difficult to look
away from the photo.
She decides spontaneously to forward it. The way her life is
panning out, she feels she could do with a bit of good-luck, and she will take
it from wherever and from whomever. Consciously she does not consider deleting
the mail though, because deep down in her subconscious she has taken heed of
the warning.
She is just about to click on the forward button when she
notices that Adèle has already forwarded it to Lisa. There is nothing worse
than finding the same email in your inbox. Marlene moves the mail to her trash
folder automatically, without thinking, failing to remember the settings on her
trash folder are set to delete all the mail in the folder as soon as she signs
out.
Marlene closes her email account page and then opens the
page to her social networking site.
She enters her username and password. The page opens –
eventually. She reads all her virtual friends' recent activities.
It always amazes her how all the friends she went to school
with all those many years ago, never look a day older than they did on
graduation day. She uploaded a recent photo, so compared to all her friends she
looks like Metusalem, the biblical patriarch who lived to the age of 969,
mentioned in Genesis and remembered as the world's oldest human being.
She connects her digital camera to the computer and then she
uploads some photos of her recent holiday, a holiday she spent alone on the
Algarve in Portugal. The photos are of the beaches, the cliffs, old castles,
and the surrounding vistas of Portugal. None of them includes her.
She wonders why Lisa has never registered with this
particular social network. If she did, then Marlene would not have to wait for
Lisa to send her photos of her grandchildren. Once Lisa uploaded them, Marlene
could just look at them herself.
It is probably because this site is mostly for the elderly
folk, people only looking for companionship and friendship, looking for long
lost friends. There are no young girls parading across the screen with almost
next to nothing on.
Once her photos are visible on her site, she signs out. She
then does a bit of filing, tidies up the awful gremlin's desk and once again
organizes her files methodically.
It is a quiet, peaceful day. When the working part of her
sunlight hours is over, she feels relaxed and not at all harassed, most
certainly not the hair-on-end emotion that usually accompanies her home.
She shuts down her computer and takes hold of her bag. She
switches off the lights as she marches out of the office door.
She walks straight towards her car and becomes aware of the
dark and threatening clouds above her head. Looking up she sees they seem incredibly
low, close to the ground, heavy with rain. She feels that if she reached up,
she could touch them.
A nippy, forceful wind suddenly rushes past her, whirling
the leaves in her path and twirling them up into the sky, whipping her hair
around her face and into her eyes, blowing her breath away. The wind behind her
back shoves her towards her car.
She unlocks the door hurriedly. Sliding into the car, leaves
sweep in with her. She pulls with all her might to slam the door shut, leaving
the chaos outside.
Sitting back in her chair, sighing deeply, she fills her
lungs with air rapidly.
She was so busy organizing the office she never noticed the
swift change in weather. She remembers though, looking out the window only an
hour ago and thinking what a glorious day it has been.
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