‘You have got spam’

Amalshan GUNERATHNE

Tired and exhausted from traveling from one inbox to another, I have come to realize that I no longer have a place in this universe. As I stand today, trapped in a torturous spam cubicle, confused, demented and depressed, not knowing exactly what my next move should be, I decided to write this one last mail, another one of those spam mails as you may call it, a confession. One last confession before I put an end to my pathetic existence.

I am nothing but a carrier of trash, filth or a transporter of virtual garbage you may call it. No one really bother to take a look at what I have to offer. As many would call it, I am filled with whole load of ‘crap’, hence they would either filter me through a virus guard or take precautionary measures to keep me in their trash bin forever. Or else they would just press the delete button at a rush at the very sight of my pathetic existence.

There is nothing I can do about it, all my life I have been a carrier of trash and that is what I have been good at. Blessed with the knack to collect pieces of garbage and put those together to weave aesthetically pleasing electronic parchments, there were times that I once used to fascinate those who used to read them.

Those were the glory days. And there was a great demand for what I did. I am a genius to create such original masterpieces they used to say. At cyber universe where everything else was done with brute, blunt force, I was able to be creative and present my ideas with a sense of originality known to my own. The parchments were lyrical, pedantic and juvenile at the same-time that those who read them used to go nuts over what I did. But, twenty years down the line I have run out of gas, no longer there is any demand for what I do.

May be as time went on, gradually they started to get fed up of what I do. The world has evolved where I have not. I think I still do have ideas, but who would bother to read my spam mails. I am a master at a prehistoric art, the art of crafting immaculately conceived spam mails which no one bothers to read.

Would you call it a talent? I don’t know, for me it is more of a curse, there is nothing more infuriating in this world than to be good at something which you hate doing. I wish I can somersault like those circus clowns do.

There is great demand for what they do. But for whatever it’s worth, I have been blessed with some worthless crafting skills which has no value in a world where ‘Artistic crafts’ are left in suffocating virtual cubicles to suffer.

May be that is why I started to craft similar clone like mails over the past few years of my life. There wasn’t any point in creating new mails, because no one bothered to take a look. So I just started to reproduce the same thing over and over again. You might call me lazy, may be I am, but it wasn’t worth it put all that effort into immaculately conceived original masterpiece that no one bothers to read. Why would I? I would rather create clones or not create anything at all. May be it is ironic- the very person who once was admired for originality became a bogus phony.

But I didn’t care. I don’t think anyone else cared for that matter either. The world has moved on and they no longer need me. The world didn’t miss me and I couldn’t have bothered to care any less.

“You play the same tune over and again, find some new tune to play,” I remember someone responding to one of mails with a sarcastic smirk.

Perhaps that was the last time anyone ever bothered to respond to my hand woven electronic parchments. Since that day, I have been a regular dweller at their spam inbox, a lowly existence that no one cares to take look. Some called me spam. Now they have a special cubicle called spam refrigerators reserved for me where they keep me rotting for ages without ever taking a peek at how I am doing.

I am trash and I know it. But for whatever god forsaken reason I still exist. Can’t trash carriers have a place in this world? Well they do, and yes they can very well dwell in rich man’s spam inboxes. When we run out of use, they just throw us away with no gratitude being shown for old time’s sake, to all the time that we once used to fascinate and entertain them.

But I have had enough. I no longer want to live in a spam box. I want to get out and scream that I do exist. Yes, I may have been creating clones and worthless pieces of junks for past few years, but that is only because the world pushed me in to creating those.

But even if I do go and scream, no one would bother to take a look, because after all I have already been expelled as junk, worthless pieces of trash that has no value in this world.

May be I should hotwire my circuits and explode myself to a torturous death. I don’t exactly know what my next move should be, but this I am sure, this is my final junk mail and whoever bothers to take a peek and read what I have crafted, thanks for reading.

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