Drama

[webofevil]

Not for the first time, by trying to use a short cut to get to someone’s LJ page I missed a bit off the name and ended up somewhere completely different. I fumbled my attempt to reach cornfedpig and ended up instead at corn.

corn’s page begins in November 2000. Like most journals, it begins pretty inauspiciously:

Wed 8 November 2000 11:51 pm - Introduction

Well, this is my first entry in my new journal. It is time to get my crazy thoughts down on paper.. uh, I mean ... you know what I mean.

He posts four updates the next day. He’s Canadian, he’s at work and he’s bored:

Thu 9 November 2000 3:44 pm - Bored

So .. here I sit at my desk. My boss just told me not to do anything else today. Sounds good to me! I wish I heard that more often! haha

If you are reading this, please leave me a quick comment. I really wanna know if anyone out there is reading this yet...

Current mood: Bored

Then! The following day, an innocuous announcement:

10:39 am - Woohoo!

I have a new friend! Go check it out.

His name is big_fat_presto ... and from the look of his picture ... he's not someone you wanna fuck with.

The next few days, nothing much happens—it’s all reading comics and guzzling chicken wings (“The wings are sitting nice in my stomach. It turns out we killed 30 chickens last night. But.. were they EVER worth it!!”).

Things are going well on the big_fat_presto front—they've already formed a band:

“big_fat_presto and I are jamming tonight .. gotta work on new songs for the newly formed band. If you have a good name for a band .. just post a comment on this thread.. and we will consider it!”.

A few days later, on 22 November:

“Damn. I have to go Christmas shopping tonight .. i HATE that (Current mood: Angry)”

Four days later:

“I finished my X-mas shopping. 100%. All done. Complete. Phew. I rule. I rock.”

I didn’t realise Christmas shopping was quite such a major endeavour in Canada. So early, too. Boy, their laws are strict.

The next post, on Wednesday 29 November 2000, is also the last, and is the reason I bring this sorry tale to your attention:

9:43 am - Well

It looks like big_fat_presto and I are heading to Lethbridge for the weekend. Should be a fun time! I love road trips!

Current mood: anxious
Current music: dead silence

Was corn really as cheery and optimistic as his chosen tone in this post? Or are his choices of mood and music meant to convey a different, coded message? The latter option is tempting, as he was NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN.

big_fat_presto’s short-lived journal also ends around this time, so it’s possible they both met with an accident on their “road trip”. But corn’s apparent sense of foreboding leads me to think that big_fat_presto had turned out to be a far more sinister “new friend” than he had ever suspected.

If indeed something unmentionable has happened to corn, it’s fitting that Livejournal has managed to memorialise him in the best way it knows: in the ‘Comments’ section for that final post someone has touchingly posted, in enormous letters, “UPDATE YOUR FUCKING JOURNAL, BITCH, OR DELETE IT”.

Comments

I'll have $7 worth of haiku please.

[lowlowprices.livejournal.com]

Did you read his "poem"? It's called "Fish" and goes like this:

It lingers among us. The smell never dissipates. It's over.

An eerie premonition of his fate at the hands of big fat presto? Or a laughably misjudged attempt to rustle up some cash? I give you:

(for more poetry by the mentioned author, please send $7 in a self-addressed stamped envelope to 364 Queen St. West, Toronto, ON, Canada M5W 1E6)

Perhaps we should all go round and check out his wings.