The Secret Lives of Emails.docx

by A. J. Ramsey

  “Innocent people, you stinking pirate,” Nancy said, pushing Emal onward. “Has anyone told you how bad you smell? What tubes have you been crawling through?”

  Emal decided not to answer that. Both because he didn’t think she expected an answer and because his feelings were starting to get hurt with people telling him he stank all the time.

  “At least tell us where you’re taking us,” Brittany demanded before they forced her forward to join the procession.

  “You’re going to Juvenile court. The ruling court of Internet justice. You’re going straight to trial where you have already been found guilty. That might not be the exact order, but I’m pretty sure it goes like that. I suppose we will execute you in whatever way is convenient. As I understand it, the lizard alien overlords are busy, so you’ll probably be drawn and quartered by a pack of unicorns.”

  Juvenile court

  ~

  A bruised, battered, and bloodied Emal was marched through the tubes by Joe. Brittany, who also had her share of bruising, was shoved along by Frank. Nancy led while the odd quintet made their way through various tubes. Emal stopped paying attention to anything but the next step, so he was taken by surprise when they stopped in front of two large wooden doors. Nancy strode forward and knocked roughly. The doors were opened quietly by a kangaroo.

  “Oh hello,” the kangaroo said in a sweet, docile voice. “What do we have here?” she asked in a tone that suggested she might like to squeeze Emal and Brittany to death. The kangaroo was a standard red kangaroo. Look it up yourself if you don’t know what they look like. The only difference is that this kangaroo was wearing a blue apron tied around her waist.

  “Hello, Judge Kelly,” Nancy said. “We apprehended a couple of rebels; they should be in your system. The smelly one is Emal, and, of course, we all know about Brittany.”

  Nancy and Brittany exchanged a heated look as Kelly the Kangaroo consulted some paper from her apron’s pouch. She nodded her head briskly, stuffing the papers back in their place.

  “Oh, how lovely,” Kelly said, clapping her paws together in excitement. “Of course, Brittany has been on our list for years.” Looking at Emal, she said, “Seems you didn’t even last a day. I’ll take them from here, Nancy.”

  Joe gave Emal one last shove toward the open door, and Frank helped Brittany along with a kick in the butt. Kelly, who had once been a boxing kangaroo before becoming a judge, had a quick fit of rage at her charges’ treatment. She threw a couple of jabs at Frank and Joe, causing them to hastily retreat.

  The two found themselves in a wide hallway with benches lining both sides. Kelly ushered them to the closest bench, removed their cuffs, and began to dote over them.

  “Oh, you poor dears. Let me help you clean yourselves up a bit. My oh my, one of you does have a terrible odor. Dear oh dear, how I wish I could give you a bath,” Kelly said while producing a washcloth from her apron. Kelly proceeded to wipe Emal’s and Brittany’s faces clean, moisturizing the washcloth with her tongue and tsk-tsking all the while. When she decided they were appropriately clean, she gave Emal a few spritzes from a perfume bottle to finish his cleansing process. She popped a carrot in her mouth and stuffed one in Emal’s and Brittany’s mouths as well.

  Placing a paw on each of them, she said gently, “There we go, kids. That’s the best I can do for you right now. Your execution doesn’t begin for a couple of hours yet, so . . . well, I suppose there will be your trial before your deletion, but anywho, my lovelies, it’s still a few hours away. We are just about to start an important meeting if you would like to sit inside and quietly wait your turn?”

  “What is the meeting about?” Brittany asked.

  “The Old White Men are meeting today; they’re able to do things so rarely these days.”

  “What old white men?” Emal asked, wondering what authority he was being brought to.

  “Well, The Old White Men, of course. Anyways, it’s about something or other. Something to do with tubes, or dump trucks, or personal Internets; I really pay no mind. I understand they have solicited experts in the field along with inviting the FCC. Bless their hearts for allowing the FCC out of the house.” Kelly leaned forward and in a conspiratorial tone added, “You have to let them out once in a while. You shouldn’t let them think that they are any different than the other kids. Even if you and I know they are “special,” she added with a wink.

  “Yes!” Brittany said a little too loudly. Noticing the raised eyebrows of Kelly, she calmly added, “We would very much like to be silent observers of this momentous occasion.”

  “Oh wonderful,” Kelly said clapping her hands again in excitement. “Just remember to be very, very quiet. They don’t usually let people watch these things. National security and all that. They certainly don’t want to hear your opinions on the matter; I mean, you’re just regular people, so keep quiet and your deletion will be happening before you know it,” she said pleasantly, patting their thighs.

  Kelly opened another set of doors and escorted Brittany and Emal into the room. She followed after them pointing to a bench right behind a wooden railing. The former boxing kangaroo turned judge pushed through a short swinging gate and made her way to a podium at the front of the room. The back half of the room was full of empty wooden benches that sat behind the waist high railing. The podium faced back toward Emal and Brittany, and it was in front of large auditorium style seating that filled the other half of the room. There were seats for hundreds of people, but only a few dozen had anyone actually sitting in them.

  Just on the other side of the railing in front of the benches stood two large tables. At the one on the right, sat six of the fattest cats Emal had ever seen. At the other table, sat five tiny mice. While watching the cats carefully out of one eye, the mice chatted back and forth to each other. The cat on the far left of the cats’ table kept taking playful swats at the closest mouse. Nothing that would actually hurt the mouse, just friendly reminders he was there.

  Emal and Brittany decided to slide down the bench toward the mice.

  “I thought she said this was a meeting about the Internet,” Emal whispered to Brittany.

  “It is. The Old White Men are the ones who make the Internet rules, supposedly on the recommendations from the FCC mice.”

  “I don’t care about mice and men. I want to know, what’s the deal with all these cats?”

  “Without them, people can’t access the Internet. We wouldn’t be here if people couldn’t access the Tubes. Those bastards! They’re the ones building the barriers. I’m sure of it. Trying to dictate traffic. No one else in the world would benefit from it except them,” Brittany whispered back.

  Kelly shot a dirty look in their direction, and Brittany imitated zipping her lips and throwing away a key. Judge Kelly cleared her throat into a microphone and addressed the assembly.

  “Hello, everyone. Thank you all so much for coming to this sure to be informative hearing on Net Neutrality.”

  One of the cats started to hack up a hairball, and Kelly quickly glanced at some notes at the podium.

  “Oh dear, excuse me. We are here to discuss how to make the Freedom Net more profitable for the fat cats.”

  Another cat coughed up a larger hairball and then swatted at it with his paw. It smacked the base of the podium with a wet thwack. Kelly looked closer at the notes and cleared her throat nervously.

  “Strike all that from the record,” she said gesturing at a bored looking transcriber in the corner of the room. They moved a little too slowly, and she added, “Even better, strike the transcriber from the room.”

  Frank and Joe burst back into the room from a door at the top of the auditorium seating. They rushed down, grabbed the transcriber, and dragged the barely aware old woman back out the door. The six cats all purred quietly and began licking their paws. Kelly gave them a quick little smile and went on.

  “We are here today to discuss how to make the Internet better for the people. A discussion that wouldn’t be p
ossible without the generous donations from these wonderful businessmen here. Let’s begin,” Kelly said, banging a gavel on the podium.

  There was movement in the stadium seats when an old man, a man that Emal had actually thought was dead, stirred and sat up.

  “I would like to start off with a story about my own personal Internet,” he began.

  “Can you have your own personal Internet?” Emal asked Brittany as quietly as possible.

  “Shut up,” she told him.

  “I was recently sent an Internet from a hot young staffer of mine. He was totally hired for his looks . . . but anyways . . . he sent it two days ago. Yet, I couldn’t find it on my personal tube viewer this morning. He was smart enough to find it in my inbox, where I hadn’t thought to look for my personal Internet . . . but the point of the story is that my personal Internet had been slowed down. You see, the Internet is a series of tubes. It’s not . . . well it’s not just something you can dump stuff on. I mean, it’s not like a pizza where you can pile toppings on willy nilly. There has to be some organization, some hierarchy, or the pizza, I mean the tubes, is just a mess. Some hippies, with their gluten free crust, might just pile toppings on without thought of organization, one right on top the other, but not me, no, not me. We must understand that the Internet . . . it’s a series of tubes, and as my plumber can attest, tubes get clogged when you try to flush women’s panties down them. You see, I mean that . . . when you put your personal Internet into the tubes, it simply gets in a line like everyone else’s personal Internets. If someone else is dumping stupid movies into the Internet and my personal Internet is behind them in line, I can’t flush any personally damaging things out the tubes. It’s just not fair that we all have the same access to these tubes—”

  The old man was interrupted by someone walking through the seating yelling about peanuts for sale. There was a brief pause as another old white man tried to pay with too little money and then accused the young minority of stealing his change. Once everything was finally settled, another old white man spoke before the first had a chance continue.

  “I think that’s probably enough of that story. You can go back to sleep now. I’ll start us off properly. I would like to make clear from the onset that I am a friend to my donors here,” he said, gesturing at the cats’ table. “We are not here to vilify them in anyway. However, in the interest of being prepared for questions that communists or socialist might ask, I thought we might use today to have a mock trial to determine if we should strike down Net Neutrality in favor of a new Freedom Net proposal. Judge Kelly will oversee the trial. We have brought the FCC here today to defend the Net Neutrality side. The fat cats will suggest their brilliant proposals for the new Freedom Net. Once the Freedom Net proposal is approved, we will vote it into law after allowing 120 days of public commenting.”

  The man had started giggling during his speech, and soon the entire place was roaring with tearful laughter. Dozens of old white men were leaned back in their seats, holding their bellies as they chuckled. The cats smiled at one another, sharing in the joke. Judge Kelly bounced up and down as she laughed. Even the mice were chittering from the idea of public commenting.

  “Oh my Gore, I’m so sorry. I barely even got the words out. Whew, let me pull myself together here. Public comments indeed. Anyway, is the FCC prepared to start us off with the current state of the Internet?”

  “Ummm . . . actually, we seem to have lost our notes. We are clueless without those,” one of the mice said as he looked around the table.

  One of the cats took another playful swat at the mouse with one paw while offering him a small notepad with the other.

  “We always enjoy working with the FCC,” the cat purred. “We are happy to provide notes to our former colleagues.”

  “That’s mighty gracious of you, friend,” the mouse said as it stepped onto the table, notepad in hand, and began reading the FCC’s opening statement.

  “The current state of the Internet is a disaster,” the mouse said.

  He flipped ahead a few pages, looking around at his fellow mice as if the notes didn’t seem quite right. The closest cat purred loudly, and the mouse quickly went back to reading the notes he had.

  “Our economic ideals are being crushed by the excessive regulations that are imposed on the innocent service providers. Almost all traffic on the Internet is currently treated without data discrimination. It’s first come first serve madness. This lunacy forces the pleasantly furry cats to simply sit back, allowing anyone who pays for their service, to do whatever they want on it. It is chaos and anarchy.

  Every day millions of packets are lost. No, that is too kind; they are murdered by brutal movie streaming services, music streaming services, and pornography. It is like the Wild West on the Internet. The Wild West with lolcats. These current oppressive regulations are preventing the great service providers from improving their service for select customers who would be willing to pay more.

  These grand service providers are unable to innovate their grand services because of the boring, and quite frankly poopy, restrictions imposed on them. They are being denied their rights to pursue capital. The pursuit of capital is a guaranteed right that the government shouldn’t interfere with. If the service providers aren’t providing good services, then the people have the right to choose other service providers who will.

  Also, remember that the courts have ruled time and again that these enormous cats are people. And since they are such large people, they should be afforded protections that ordinary people don’t get. Without protections instead of regulations, these service providers will not be able to innovate like they so want to.

  Have I mentioned that these are service providers? Some people are arguing that they are merely utility providers. The argument boggles the brain. Calling these great innovators utility providers would drown the cats in seventy-plus years of regulations. Ask yourself this. Do you want to drown cats?

  Making them utility providers would say they are no different than water or power providers. Classifying these magnificent beasts as such would deny the great services that they provide. They are not just simple access points for the Internet. They provide services such as free email accounts and virus protection. They are more than happy to let you know exactly how much data you have consumed. They have customized search pages, and they will sometimes even send people out to your house to fix your Internet. These are unique services that no one else could possibly provide.

  To continue, these great service providers are always on the lists of every customer satisfaction survey that rates customer satisfaction. They are ranked based on the splendid services provided, and if you flip that list upside down, they are always at the top in satisfaction of those said services.”

  Frustrated, Brittany muttered under her breath, “No one under seventy-years old uses those bullshit services. And the seventy-year olds only use it because they don’t understand how shitty it is.”

  The mouse continued.

  “Allowing Net Neutrality to become the law of the land will crush future innovation because . . . well, just because. Net Neutrality won’t work because of the limited bandwidth available. It isn’t fair that the fat cats should have to keep upgrading their networks to handle more traffic. Net Neutrality is simply not in the best interest of the people. We don’t even have to explain why that is the case. It just is.

  In conclusion, the Internet currently sucks. Making Net Neutrality the official law of the land will make it worse, and the only people with our best interests in mind are the service providers. As in the past, they will continue to always have the best interests of the people in mind. Just consider other fat cats that manufacture cars, food, clothing, and technology. Or the ones who run the banks and financial institutions. We bet you can’t find any examples in recent times where they acted in their own bests interests over the interest of their subjects, I mean their customers.”

  The mouse glanced through the notepad for anythin
g else to say, and finding nothing more, it sat down. The old white man who had been leading the discussion spoke up again.

  “That was quite wonderful. Let’s hear the proposals from the real job creators,” he said as he gestured to the cats. “Oh, ummm . . . there appears to be only five of you now. Did someone need to leave early?”

  Juvenile court gets surprisingly juvenile

  ~

  Emal and Brittany turned their attention to the table, and sure enough, there were now only five enormous cats instead of six. The largest cat spoke up for the group.

  “No problems. We just decided to have a merger. In the interest of the people, of course,” he said.

  “That’s wonderful. I am sure those two will be happy together. Just to play devil’s advocate here real quick, will their merging create any competition problems? Don’t get angry at me; I am just asking because the communists will,” the old white man said.

  “No problems there. We are very careful to keep out of each other’s territories. In fact, 96% of the country can only choose between two of us. We don’t want to confuse them with too many choices. It’s in their best interest,” the fat cat said.

  “Makes perfect sense to me. I understand drug cartels operate the same way, and we all know how successful they are. Please, what is your proposal to improve the Internet for the world?”

  “Thank you. Our proposal is quite simple. We are calling it Freedom Net because people really like the word ‘freedom.’”

  A dozen old white men started nodding in agreement, muttering the word “freedom” to themselves.

  “Firstly, our proposal keeps us classified as service providers, as opposed to utility providers; the reasons for which were aptly demonstrated by our former colleagues who now run the FCC. We provide unique, spectacular services that no one else could possibly accomplish. Therefore, we couldn’t possibly be a simple utility company. Our customers greatly appreciate the specialized services we provide and are strongly opposed to people crushing their freedoms. In fact, in survey after survey, an overwhelming majority say they do not want people crushing their freedoms.”