He was at home, in his large, palatial house, looking out from his balcony over the swimming pool and over the bustling metropolis of San Diego. He sipped his long iced tea, glancing half-heartedly over the headlines of the paper. More people were dying far from him. He heard the silence echoing from the house behind him, and he shivered. He should have remembered to turn the radio on before he came out. Putting down his drink he walked swiftly through the house tuning on three TV’s and a radio before settling down in front of his computer.

Message after message flashed up, and he ignored most of them. He recognised the names as people who would be asking him for cheap representation, because of what they had done they clearly couldn’t get away with by paying. But one message, from someone calling themself Pixie caught his attention because of the lack of message. It just said "Hello." He frowned. He knew there were many wackos on the Internet, and it was best not to trust anything you read, much less something you get sent by someone you don’t know. But it’s simplicity intrigued him and he tried to find out more about Pixie. A string of N/A’s was all he received for his searching. Still, he wondered at the single word, but didn’t reply because he wanted to see if it was just a one off or if this Pixie would message him again. His beeper went off, and he realised that he should have been in his car on the way to the golf club for his game with the mayor. He went, and he went so quickly that he forgot to turn off all the TV’s and the radio, which were still blaring out when he returned home when the sky was purple and the clouds were pink. He unlocked his door and realised that for some reason he was panicking. His heart was pounding and he hands were almost shaking. It was when things like this happened that he wished he had a maid or a butler. He walked inside, feeling his stomach churn and tighten for no reason he could place. His breath came in shorter and shorter gasps as he tried to settle in front of the TV. He sat for a few minutes, fidgeting and looking around for something to do. The blue glow of the computer screen beckoned him, and with a shock something like going over a big dipper with your eyes closed he saw a small flashing icon which told him he had a message from someone. He fairly skipped over to the keyboard, reminding himself all the while that he got messages all the time and these were probably no different from any of the others. But still his shaking hand couldn’t click the mouse fast enough to see who had sent him something. With a horrible shock his twisted stomach turned to ice as he realised they were just messages from clients or the firm. Deflated, he returned to the TV, but he still couldn’t concentrate. He kept looking over to the computer every five minutes, hoping that the icon would beckon once more. He forgot to eat, forgot to drink and almost forgot to sleep until he realised that the clock said three and he had to be in a meeting at nine. He lay in bed, tossing and turning unable to get to sleep. He knew why, it was because he was waiting for a message from Pixie, but he also knew that one wouldn’t come at three in the morning. That didn’t help at all, and he got about 30 minutes sleep before he had to get up again. He walked groggily from his bedroom and got himself a drink of orange juice because he didn’t feel at all hungry. He purposefully didn’t look at the computer. He could feel the acidic tang in the bottom of his stomach which he couldn't ignore for long. After deliberately depositing his bowl in the kitchen he wandered nonchalantly into the room with the computer and looked casually. His act was for no ones benefit, and when he saw the flashing letter symbol he dove at the chair and his knees started shaking with excitement. "Hello. How are you?" said the message. A grin split Gerry’s face as his fingers hammered the keyboard in reply. He wrote too long, and when he finally sent the message the clock said nine thirty. Shrugging he went to work slowly, thinking all the way whether he would get a reply to his message. He knew he would.

The day passed quickly, and he was settled once more in front of his computer, reading the long reply. His heart was hammering again. He knew even as he read that he shouldn’t get so excited about an email, but the fact remained that he was. He replied in kind, longer this time. He found himself looking at the clock and mental measuring the time before he could expect a reply.

A week passed like this, with Gerry checking his email every half and hour, day and night. He got to know Pixie very well, and Pixie got to know him. He wrote everything he would have told a wife, had he had one. He wrote everything he ever thought about or wanted to say to people he met, no matter how irrelevant it was. He wrote everything, and he got replies that fuelled him to keep checking and writing. He got up one night at 1o’clock and wrote another message with his latest thoughts. He knew that he could expect a reply at six the next morning, so becalmed he returned to bed.

As the sunlight lanced through his house he walked confidently up to the computer and looked at the static symbol in the corner of the screen. There were no messages waiting. He sat heavily and didn’t move again for five minutes. When he finally got up he wandered around as if he was in a daze, and all the time he was saying to himself, ‘it’ll come after work.’ On this prophecy he went to work, but did nothing but think about that small symbol in the corner of the far off screen. He drove home recklessly, and scrambled at the lock of the door. Throwing down his briefcase and his coat he ran over to the computer, and was physically shocked to see there was still no reply. He felt hollow, empty. He spent three hours doing pointless things on his computer until he realised there would be no messages that day. Dejected, he went to bed without eating anything. He got no sleep, rehearsing each and every past message. He had no idea why there was no reply. The next morning he had resigned himself to the fact there would be none. But there, flashing like a heartbeat in the corner of the screen, was his saviour. He replied to the short message with a lengthy ramble on many things, his finger hardly stopping on the keys as he wrote for hours. He sent it, and swallowed hard on the lump in his throat.

He got home early expressly to check his messages, and there was a short letter apologising for the delay. He grinned, and replied once more with a long letter.

Then days passed without word. He became more and more agitated, looking longer to the screen every day until he realised and managed to clam himself enough to go from it. He knew no message would come, and none did, but tat didn’t stop his knees shaking whenever he saw the screen of the computer, a glowing reminder of the name who had listed to him.

He returned to work, but life after that never seemed to feel the way it had. To this day Gerry doesn’t know who Pixie was or why they stopped emailing him. He remembers, and reads over the old letters in the glow of his computer.