[Rhodes22-list] Please unsubscribe me

[Brad Haslett]

This came in on one of my other lists.  Perhaps we can modify it for future
use.  Brad

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"The Unsubscribed"

The cold fog thickened noticeably as the newcomer hurried towards his
destination. He pulled his heavy overcoat around his neck a little more
tightly.  This part  of the city was not a place to tarry.  Thieves and
whores were the only permanent residents here.  Even the cops rolled
through these streets with a nervousness and an edge to heir normal
macho banter. Trouble and misery closed around everyone who ventured into
this pustule of urban blight like a leech on a warm vein.

"Damn!", he hissed under his breath as he stepped on something soft
that squealed and skittered off into the darkness and dankness of the
mist.  It can't be much farther he thought.  It mustn't be much
farther. The sickly yellow flicker of light from a street lamp shone
dimly through
the fog as he quickened his pace.

There it was.  The doorway seemed to be just blackness without
 definition.

As he got closer, two winos eyed him suspiciously through bloodshot and

yellowed eyes.  He hustled past them, their breath leaving a rank
scent that lingered on his clothes.  The door pushed inward and the
 newcomer was inside.

The room was smoky and dim.  The bar stank of liquor and broken dreams.

Several tables decorated the periphery.  The man he had come to see was
sitting at one of those tables and beckoned him over to sit.  The man
 was
darkly clothed and utterly shapeless.  He might have weighed three
hundred pounds... or he may have been only bone.  His shape was
indecipherable.  The dark mans eyes were gazing down at the dirty glass
 in his hand, half filled with cheap margaritas.  He had been reading a
 glossy magazine filled with lurid and obscene images.  He folded it tenderly
 and stuffed it quickly into his coat pocket like a vulture gobbling a
rotten piece of flesh.

"What is it you want of me?", the dark man asked, not lifting his eyes
 from the glass.  His voice rumbled deep in his belly like a toad.

"I need you to tell me how to unsubscribe", said the newcomer in as
 even a tone as he could muster.

The dark man looked up from his glass slowly to gaze at the newcomer.
His eyes were a pale watery blue.  And his gaze lingered on the
newcomer.

"You wish to unsubscribe?", he said, with a hint of amusement in his
voice but no trace of a smile on his thick pasty lips.  "You come to me with
a need to unsubscribe?", he said, his voice getting louder now and any
hint of amusement gone.  He sucked in his breath and hissed through his
teeth spraying the newcomer with a repulsive mist of spittle, "Why?
Tell me why it is that you wish to unsubscribe."

The newcomer felt fear now creeping up his spine.  "I don't have the
time to sort through all the posts", he mumbled.

The dark man sat unmoved, his eyes stared at the newcomer without emotion.
His eyes were cold and amphibian.

"And I sold the Bonanza and bought a Cirrus", added the newcomer. He
realized in a heart beat that he should not have said that.  The
dark man had him by the throat with a quickness that seemed
otherworldly. And the dark man squeezed that throat as the newcomer wriggled and
squirmed in a voiceless scream.  The dark man pulled the newcomers
face to his own
until they nearly touched noses.  He breathed his fetid breath on the
newcomer and a trickle of drool escaped his mouth to plop loudly on the table
between them.

"Go!", he rumbled.  "Go now you fool!", he bellowed.  "Run if you can.  It
shall do you no good!  Once you have subscribed, all hope of ever
unsubscribing is gone!  We will find you.  Your email is now ours to
control.  Your email box will fill to bursting with our messages.
And there is no hope for you.  There is no good deed you can do to
change what you have done.  The List will not be denied!"

And with that he released the newcomer who reeled and staggered towards
the door, gagging and stumbling.  The dark man began to laugh, a low
rumbling laugh that grew louder.  The newcomer fled up the streets as
he had come with the croaking bellowing laughter chasing him.  He was
doomed...and he knew it.

The dark man sat back at the table in the dimly lit bar and sipped at
his drink.

"I guess I could have just told him to go to
http://lists.aviating.com/mailman/listinfo/beech-owners and use the one

click unsubscribe URL at the end of page", he muttered under his
breath. No, he smiled to himself.  That would have been all too easy.  Still
chuckling to himself, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the
magazine he had been reading before the newcomer interrupted him.  He
quickly thumbed through the slick and edge worn pages until he found
his place. He never missed a single word of each and every issue of
Martha Stewart
Living...

Anonymous