The Message

A college student keeps getting scary e-mails from an anonymous source.

    Melissa had just finished writing a paper for her English class, and now she was ready to enjoy her time on the internet. First, she decided to check her e-mail. She logged on to the website, and signed in. She looked at the list of messages she had received. At first it just like the normal list of e-mails. She had one from one of her professors, because she had asked him a question the day before. She also had a whole long list of junk mail that she just looked past as usual. Then, she noticed something a little odd. She saw a message from an anonymous person. She could tell by the format though, that it was real, and not just another spam message. The subject line said only “You are a loser.” Melissa thought it was weird, but she didn’t care enough to open it. She simply deleted the message, and then went on with the process of checking her e-mails.
    About a week had gone by, and it was just a normal week. She had completely forgotten about the message. This was until she got another similar e-mail. This one was also by an anonymous source, and the subject line said, “The world is laughing at you right now.” She got a little concerned now, because she knew these messages were coming from someone, and this person cared enough to send a second message a week later. She debated opening it for a few seconds, before deciding it was better to just delete it.
    The next message came only after a couple of days. The subject line read, “You are nothing.” Now, Melissa was starting to get really concerned. She decided that ignoring it wasn’t going to make it go away anymore. It was clear that this person was targeting her specifically, and that she would have to do something about it in order to put an end to it. She decided to open the message, and read it.
    “You are a loser. The world is laughing at you right now. You are nothing. You do not have my permission to be happy. Disregard the positive people in your life, because they are only being polite. I will tell you the truth. You are nothing. Know that. Remember that.”
    Melissa read these words and actually started to become offended by them. She knew that someone believed these things about her. Then she realized it was probably someone whose opinion of her did not matter at all, and so it made no sense to dwell on it. She decided to block the e-mail address, so that she wouldn’t have to see the messages again. After that, she was able to move on.
    It only took a few hours after that for another message to appear. It said, “You don’t get to move on that easily.” She read this message, just like she did the last one. The difference was that this time she didn’t even think about it. She just opened it, like she was expecting it. She was already invested.
    “I won’t let you get away that easily. I told you that you don’t have my permission to move on. Stop thinking that you do. You are a loser. You are nothing.”
    She read the message five times in a row, then took a break for a few seconds, and read it again. Then when she clicked out of the screen to go back to her list of e-mails, another message was already there. Weeks went on with messages like these. Sometimes there would be several in the span of a few minutes, sometimes there would be three or four in one day, and sometimes there would be a break for a few days with no messages, before the messages would start up again.
    Melissa kept convincing herself that each message would be the last. First, she was mad at herself, for causing the sender to think those things about her. She believed they were right, and she felt guilty about it. Then, she saw herself as the victim, and felt sorry for herself. Then, after several months of these messages, she decided she couldn’t feel sorry for herself, because she knew it was her fault that she kept paying attention to these messages, when she should have just ignored them in the first place. She knew that she had the power to simply delete the message every time she got one, and just move on, and not think of it again. It seemed so easy, and yet it wasn’t. Something was drawing her back to these messages. Finally, after almost a year, she decided to write back.
    “I don’t know who this is, but I don’t care. You dont have the right to control my life. You weren’t controlling my life. I was. I was the one who was letting you do this to me. It wasn’t you. I realize that now. Now that I know that, I get to decide not to live with it anymore. These messages will no longer control me.” She sent it, and then immediately felt like a huge weight was lifted from her shoulders. A day later, she got a message from a girl named Becky. She vaguely recognized the name, and knew that it was someone from high school, but she couldn’t place it. She read the message.
    “Becky is out of the office for the week. She is on vacation, but will be back next week for the new year.”
    This was weird to Melissa, because it was the middle of the summer. Clearly this was not a recent message. Yet this was the address that just sent her a message, and had been doing so consistently for a year.
    The next day at school, Melissa asked her friend Alex about Becky, just because she was curious. Alex was the only one at Melissa’s college who was in the same high school class as she was, so she figured he might know.
    “Yeah, she was the girl who committed suicide about six months ago.” Melissa was shocked by this.
    “What happened?” She asked.
    “Apparently, because she was picked on so much in high school, she developed symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder and depression. She would get flashbacks of the bullying over and over again in her head, and she couldn’t block them or ignore them, so eventually she just shot herself in the head.”
    Melissa was so confused. It didn’t seem like Alex knew anything about the messages, so he must not have received any. So Melissa didn’t know why she was receiving them, especially since this was a girl who Melissa barely even remembered. Melissa just sat there for over an hour, trying to figure all of this out.