WE DID WHAT WAS NECESSARY
by Anthony Neil Smith

    We suspended your account.

    Which account? It doesn’t matter.

    Assume all of them.

    Because we did what was necessary.

    You have been very, very inappropriate.

    There have been complaints. We will not tell you how many or from whom.

    We have the proof.

    We control your camera. We saw everything.

    We control your speakers. We heard everything.

    And now, your account is suspended. All of your accounts. Suspended. Your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Prime, Snapchat, checking, savings, retirement, Pornhub.

    This is all on you.

    Who pays for porn anyway?

    We know your kinks. We don’t like them, pervert.

    We know your lies. They’re not that convincing.

    You don’t believe us?

    We can see it in your eyes. You think this is a hoax. You are toying with the idea of replying to us for the fun of it, thinking we’ll respond and give you something viral for your (now suspended) accounts.

    But no, see, we’ve cut you off from your files. The ones you hide from your wife. The ones you hide from your business partners. The ones your children have already hacked.

    The real bad stuff.

    We’re way beyond monetizing your clicks now.

    We changed all your passwords to “PASSWORD.”

    We deep-faked your TikToks so you confess to terrible, terrible things.

    Your laptop is now so full of viruses, it might even be contagious to touch.

    Your phone is an open book.

    Every card in your wallet is now a worthless piece of plastic.

    Your name is on every no-fly list, no-entry list, no-sell list, no-shoes-no-service list, and no-no list in the entire Western hemisphere.

    And India.

    Netflix will never let you binge again.

    Spotify? More like Not-ify for you.

    The police are coming.

    The fire department is coming.

    Your mom is coming.

    Fifty pizzas are coming.

    We did what was necessary.

    All best.

Anthony Neil Smith is a novelist (Yellow Medicine, Slow Bear, The Butcher’s Prayer, and others), and short story writer (Exquisite Corpse, Bellevue Literary Review, Cowboy Jamboree, HAD, and many others, plus forthcoming in Reckon Review and Tough). Formerly an editor with Mississippi Review Web, he’s now a professor of English at Southwest Minnesota State University. He likes Mexican food, British beer, and Italian crime flicks from the 70’s.

Image by Hands off my tags! Michael Gaida from Pixabay.