Amanda Winters
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Beyond Text
Laying in bed, Laurie flipped through the television channels. My God there’s nothing on, she thought pausing at a program that had a scantily clad witch and dog dancing around a campfire. She resumed her channel surfing when her phone rang.
“Hey,” Laurie said apprehensively. It wasn’t like her brother to call in the afternoon.
“Hi,” Kyle said gruffly. “So, want to tell me anything.”
“What,” Laurie balked, laughing. Who says that besides cops on tv?
“Look, we’re honest with each other. I tell you my shit, you tell me yours. You told me when you went on spring break last year everything was cool, nothing happened.”
“Yyyyeah. Nothing did happen.” Why’s he asking me about spring break? Laurie began to think about everything she did during spring break. Nothing happened, nothing I remember.
“Ok, then explain this,” Kyle replied as though he had just solved a game of CLUE.
“Explain what?” What the hell’s going on?
“Hold on, hold on.” Laurie could hear the keyboard clicking in the background.
“Soooo….how’s work,” Laurie said trying to lighten the mood.
“How’s work,” Kyle repeated spitefully. “Great, just fucking wonderful, thanks. Enjoying your day off of classes?”
“Um, yeah,” Laurie replied nervously. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Here. Look in your e-mail, I sent it,” Kyle said as though he was vindicated.
“Ok,” Laurie replied as she went into her e-mail. Opening up her e-mail she saw some undecipherable link. “What’d you send me,” she asked, clicking on the link. Suddenly a blog appeared. “ ‘Live it Up’? Why the hell did you send me this for?”
“Scroll down.”
“Ok.” Pictures of parties, beer bottles, red plastic cups stacked in various forms, girls sunbathing by the beach, girls dancing on bars, and… “OH SHIT!” Although Laurie’s jaw was dropped to the floor she wasn’t breathing. When the hell did this happen? How did this happen? Why can’t I remember this? OH MY GOD. “Kyle, I, I, I…how’d you find this blog?”
“Me? Greg in accounting found it and forwarded it to everyone.”
Laurie’s heart dropped. “Everyone,” she asked meekly.
“Yeah. Everyone.”
“Including dad?” Please no, tell me he didn’t.
“Well dad hasn’t been to the office yet, but when he does…”
“No, no, you have to go into his office and delete the e-mail,” Laurie panicked.
“Why?”
“WHY? Are you insane? He’ll kill me! You’re there; you have a key to his office! Just say you needed to check up on a file or something,” Laurie screamed, pacing around her room.
“Even if I did delete it, dad’s going to hear about it anyway. You know what Jack did? He actually came up to my office and started talking about the picture, as though I wanted to hear that shit. I almost killed him.”
“Ugh, there’s NOTHING you can do? Nothing,” Laurie started wracking her brain. Who else has seen it? How many other people were clicking on that blog as we speak? How many of my classmates have seen it? What if one day my coworkers or boss sees it? How do I explain this?
“Maybe you shouldn’t have taken off your shirt, how about that?”
“Thanks for the information Kyle, I didn’t know that. Do you think it was some sort of plan? One night, just one night during spring break and it comes back to bite me in the ass. You’ve done some stupid shit too Kyle; can’t you just delete the e-mail so he doesn’t see it?”
Kyle laughed, “Yeah, I guess. It’s going to cost you though.”
“Fine, whatever,” Laurie replied. She didn’t have time to worry about such things now. If he sees it, I’m dead! Laurie scanned up and down the blog page. She looked at the comments and wanted to throw up and punch out the creator of the webpage. “How do I delete this picture?”
“Huh? Sorry, I was just finishing an e-mail. You can’t.”
“What do you mean, I can’t? It’s me! It’s my picture! I never gave my consent! Can’t I charge deformation of character or something?” He can’t get away with this! I mean, this is America!
“I mean…if you find a way to contact him directly I guess, but there doesn’t seem to be a way. You’re over 18 anyway so, I hate to say it, but there’s not much you can do.”
“Um, ok, just because you watch Law & Order doesn’t make you a lawyer,” Laurie was getting agitated. How can someone just use my image without my permission? And it’s going to be there forever! FOREVER! And there’s nothing I can do about it? Oh no, no, no. “What’re you waiting for? Go delete the e-mail now! Why did whatever-his-name send the e-mail out to everyone anyway?”
“Because he’s an asshole and technology impaired. He really just wanted to send it to someone in his department but pressed the wrong key and it spread like crazy. You’re the boss’s daughter, this is the epitome of office gossip…I just…I can’t believe you Laur.”
“You can’t believe me? You, King of the Kegs can’t believe me? I was just having a good time, I wasn’t expecting some perv to do something like this. For all of those stupid videos they need consent forms, why would I think people would post pictures like this on their blog of people they didn’t know? This sort of shit only happens in Lifetime movies!”
“You really don’t know this guy?”
“No Kyle, I really don’t know this guy! Thanks for your support though. Nice. Nice to know what type of person you think I am and that you’re doing something. I mean, shouldn’t you be threatening people or something? You stare down people who even look my way at bars.”
“What do you expect me to do Laur? Go kick ass and take names? I have to work here; I have a job to do. I’ll take care of it, trust me.”
“You’re the bosses son Kyle, spare me!”
“You think it’s easy? You…you have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, and after these pics Laur…I don’t know. I seriously don’t know,” Kyle said tersely. “I’m going to go delete the e-mail now. We’ll talk later,” he slammed the phone down.
“Oh my god,” Laurie groaned. I’m done, I’m just done! I hate the Internet! Laurie crawled back into bed, becoming entranced by the blog. This is unbelievable! I’m going to kill this kid! As she began to take notice of the commentators’ names, she saw that the world-wide-web did in fact live up to its name. For the first time she began to hate the global community.