The Globe

WARNING: PLEASE READ:

I am not sure what good I am doing writing this. Most likely you will assume its just a chain letter or spam and just delete it anyway. But I have to try and warn people anyway. What would you do if this was the last week you had to live?

Well, whether you believe me or not, that’s the case. Now before you assume I have lost it and delete, hear me out. I know what I am talking about. The fact is, its my fault. My name is Roger Martin, and it all started a year ago when a special package arrived at my house.

It appeared that an uncle that I did not know I had recently died and bequeathed to me the a very unusual item. I opened the package and discovered that it was a globe, a beautiful crystal-like representation of the world, and a stand for it to sit on. There was also a short note to me from my uncle who said that the globe had an “amazing” history and that it was up to me to bear the “responsibility of looking after it.

There was also a note from a lawyer who said that my uncle had seemed to have had a breakdown and committed suicide not long after arranging for the globe to come to me. A internet search on the globe lead me to the discovery that the globe was at least 150 years old, made of an unknown material like glass, and had been fought over by treasure hunters , wealthy collectors, and even British royalty.

It also had a history of being associated with suicides, madness, and murder, and had disappeared from recorded history about 50 years ago. How my uncle had found it, or how he came to know I existed when my family had never mentioned him were mysteries I could not solve.

I place the globe on its stand and discovered something that caused me to jump - the globe began to rotate on its base. Calming down, I checked the base and discovered a clockwork system that made the globe turn. For many months, the globe sat on my kitchen table and spun, and I paid it little heed.

Then one day, a friend of mine cursed with the name Harry Edison, came over and together we discovered the globe had other properties I had not been aware of. Harry was fascinated by the globe’s slow, relentless spin, and suddenly took a pencil and touched the globe at a spot with the tip.

The tip broke, and he looked at the globe, and told me what he had done. We both looked at the globe for a few moments, but could see nothing wrong , and we both soon forgot about what had happened. However, a week later, the news reported a freak meteor storm had struck the city of New Delhi.

Harry happened to be with me when I heard the news, and went over to the globe and found India on it. He called me over, and with a magnifying glass showed me that there was a black mark on the globe through the little circle that the globe used to represent the city of New Delhi. Harry became distraught , and obsessed with the idea that he had caused the disaster.

I told him to go home and get a good night’s rest. He came back over the next day with a handful of snow in his hand. “I’ll prove it to you”, he said. “I’ll put this snow on the Gobi desert on the globe, and if in a week it snows there, we will know I am right. If it doesn’t, the we’ll know that I didn’t kill all those people, fair?”

I was a little worried, but I agreed, hoping to calm him down. I assumed that it wouldn’t snow in the Gobi, and then Harry would let go of this guilt and go on with his life. For the next 7 days he was obsessed . He watched all the news shows he could for any mention of a blizzard in the desert.

He called the weather office at least once a day to make sure no snow had fallen there. They must have thought he was as crazy as I was beginning to. Seven days after the “experiment” had began, he was watching the news at my house. I pleaded with him to give it up. Just when it seemed like he was ready to relax, the news broadcast showed a “breaking news” bulletin from the Gobi desert.

As impossible as it must have seen to the announcer, there was a freak storm that had brought with it snow to that arid land. Harry ran out of my house, screaming “You see! Its all my fault!” I never saw my friend alive again.

Two days latter I heard that he had committed suicide, jumping into the local river and drowning. I found myself with little choice but to be a believer. I ran no more tests.

For a short while, I considered the power the globe represented. If I were to pick the globe up, I would be literally be holding the whole world in my hands. I could solve the problems of the world - all I had to figure out what any area needed, do that to the globe on a small scale, and presto!

But I soon sobered from that bout of megalomania, and I decided to donate the globe to a museum as soon as possible. I went to bed that night, and when I woke up the whole thing seemed silly. A couple of days later I had the company of a cute neighbour with whom I was trying to establish something beyond a casual friendship.

After the date was over, I escorted her to the door, and somehow in my joy bumped into the table the globe sat on. It fell off, and smashed into a thousand pieces. It is now 2 days later, and I am trying desperately to believe that nothing will happen. I was never a very responsible person before, and “sorry” just doesn’t seem enough under the circumstances.

I had wanted to use the globe to solve our problems, and instead I solved our population problem - permanently . I am sending this out to everyone I know. At least people should have a chance to decide how to spend their final days. I have decided to take as many pills and as much booze as I can.

I hope you spend this last week well. Forward this please to everyone.

May God have mercy on my soul.