Sunday 16 January 2011

January 16- Classified

Like most people, I often feel I have failed in life, so was delighted when I saw a company had sprung up offering to tell me if I had or not. Because of the power of the internet, they said, they already had all my relevant personal details- all I would have to do was send them a cheque for them to be able to tell, once and for all, if I was truly a loser.

The next twenty eight days were agonising, of course. I quickly realised that I'd never really thought I was a loser, and that when people had criticised my lifestyle there was always a part of me who thought they just hadn't understood why I'd spent so much time accomplishing so little. If the envelope I got back begged to differ I imagined I would have to accept a number of uncomfortable things about my life, which I knew I'd spent a very long time just running from. These thoughts were still in my mind on the day when the tiny, sand-brown envelope clinked through my letterbox, and rushed through me for the last time as I read what it said:

Subject 82345025601: LIFE HAS NOT FAILED

Well, I was stunned at that, and (I confess) a little disbelieving. When I showed it to the people I knew they were surprised as well, and in no uncertain terms told me exactly what they thought of the company. But before long thousands of people were sending cheques to their address in Utah, and the unparalleled accuracy of its algorithms became the topic of conversation for every magazine and dinner table. In desperation I wrote to them asking how it could possibly be that I was a successful man, but all I got back was a terse reply stating that their methods were a closely guarded secret, and that in any case I should probably be happy about their findings about me. I couldn't really argue with that, but deep down I was not happy at all.

So eventually I forged a new note, explained that the one I'd shown everyone was a lie and said that I had in fact been branded a loser all along. People were shocked at first, but later accepting, and said to themselves that (after all) what I had done was the kind of thing only a true failure at life would do. Once again I could talk about my mistakes and laugh about them, and only occasionally would feel worried about what I had done.

Eventually, I met a woman who laughed that bit louder when I spoke and smiled slightly more when I told her of my failures. After we had been dating for three months or so, she produced her own letter declaring her a loser, and said that it was a relief to meet someone who had accepted their sentence quite so lightly. I tensed at this, but she smiled, and I tried to put my guilt out of my mind.

The day before my wedding, it got too much. I took her to one side to the room we would keep the presents, and told her I had forged the letter that said I was not a success. Her eyes widened, and she laughed and said God, she'd done just the same thing, but behind the eyes and laughter were tears, and by the end 0f the day we would no longer be married after all.

In the coming months, I recieved the stack of bills and angry letters that comes when you do something as stupid as cancel a wedding the day before you go through with it. Tucked away within it was a tiny, sand-brown envelope, explaining that there had been a mix-up, and the letter I had recieved was intended for someone who was much more special than me. They would get compensation for being falsely branded a loser, but the company thought that getting to believe in my own success for as long as I had was reward in itself. I laughed to myself, and thought of how the successful never really understood these matters, before I went back to my mess of a life feeling liberated, a free man once again.

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