It began with a simple email message. I could have never imagined that such an impersonal and distant medium would lead to so much. I communicate everyday via email with friends from all over the world and yet, these lengthy messages never amounted to what happened from as a result of a series of short email messages that started arriving one lazy Friday afternoon. The first message came when I had nothing to do except sit at my computer and wait for some kind of contact with the outside world. My friends were all out at various functions for which they had prior commitments, leaving me at home alone with my computer. The first message seemed simple enough:
That was the extent of the message, nothing more. In the weeks before, I had recieved messages from people wanting to know if I was a James McDuffie they knew. In fact, I received one message that said that my sister was looking for me. I attributed these confusions of person with the fact I had about five email addresses listed in search engines. Each time before I replied that I was not that certain James McDuffie. For some reason this time I decided to play along as if I really was their James, so I sent back a message that read:
This reponse was a simple message. I did not lie to the person, since I did not actually admit that I was James F. McDuffie. Actually, my middle name is Lester. I received nothing more that day, and the next day this little event was the furthest from my mind. It was not until that afternoon that I received a reply to my message, it read:
This person seemed really anxious to talk to James F. McDuffie since they thought nothing of the fact that I had sent back such an impersonal email message to them. I was now excited that I might actually get the information from this person, so I sent back the first thing that came to my mind: “Fitzgerald”. That was the entire content of message, the name Fitzgerald. It was a one in a million chance that I had actually gotten the name correct. Somehow I beat the odds and the next day, I received the following message:
This is the point where I threw caution to the wind. I figured by this point that it was my duty to help out in spite of the fact that I was not the correct person. It seemed like this person actually knew James F. first hand and would instantly recognize him if he was seen in person. I decided to play along some more and actually meet the person, so that I could explain what was going on and still offer to help. At the worst I would have someone pissed at me, while if they did not get pissed I would probably meet an interesting new person. So, I sent back a very short message just as I had before:
Sending such short and to the point messages felt kind of exhilarating. It was as if I was a spy sending information to my contacts back home. In time the usual sound file played announcing new email: “I have a special delivery for you big boy, ooohh I see your flag is up, do you have something for me too?” I opened my mail reader and there, as I thought was an email from Odo:
It was at this moment that I realized I may be costing someone a lot of money just to find out that I was playing a trick on them. I sent a message back telling him how I was not the real James F. McDuffie. After I sent the message, I felt assured that this was the end of it. Five minutes later my new mail alarm went off and upon inspection of my inbox I discovered that my last message to Odo had bounced because the username did not exist. I checked to make sure I had sent the message to the same address I had in the past and discovered everything I was correct. This was very odd, so I called up the service provider that hosted the email address. I asked them what had happened to Odo Femi. The woman on the other end of the phone looked through their database of users and told me that they did not have a person with that name in their records as ever having an account.
This is the point where it all got strange.
Despite the strangeness of Odo disappearing I made a decision to go to the airport Wednesday. I planned on telling Odo that it was all a misunderstanding, that I had not meant for things to go this far and that I would pay for expenses of his trip. Wednesday finally rolled around and I hopped aboard public transportation to go to the airport. I arrived early, around 11:30, then sat down on a bench near the ticket counter. I watched as people walked in both directions in front of me. As I was waiting there it occurred to me that there was no way that Odo would be able to find me. For one thing I probably did not look like the real James F. McDuffie and Odo would not be holding a sign up since he knew what James looked like. Because of this, I got up and started to walk past the ticket counter towards the exit. Just to make sure I could not identify Odo I turned around when I was directly in front of the ticket counter. I looked for people who appeared to be searching for someone. Just as my glance had focused on the bench where I had been sitting I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Ah, James, glad to see that you came. We must hurry, Dana is in trouble.” I looked at my watch, it was precisely noon. I was startled by the fact that I had not seen anybody in the opposite direction before I turned around. But here was, a tall muscular man with dark skin, black hair and wire rimmed glasses. His voice was soothing to the ears and caused me to follow him as he walked towards the exit. At this point I was not even wondering how he knew I was James.
After we were outside the airport, I expected him to heads towards the parking lot. Instead, he turned in a direction where there appeared to be nothing but an open field of uncut grass. We walked until we reached a fence that told me this was the end of airport property. We climbed over the fence and I noticed that the whole field must be what was left of the dirt they had moved to level off the landing strips. The fence marked the end of where the dirt had been piled and on the other side the ground descended down a hill to its normal level. About ten feet from the bottom of the hill were railroad tracks. On the other side of the tracks, ten feet away was the beginning of a wooded area that stretched for as far as I could see to the left and to the right. It seemed like I had stepped into a secret world because of the way these tracks were hidden from everything else.
Once we reached the bottom, Odo stopped and acted as if he was listening for something. I began to listen around me and thought that I heard a woman crying off in the distance. Odo turned in the direction of the noise and we walked around a curve in the hill that obstructed from view what lay ahead. As we were coming around the curve I noticed that it was indeed a woman sobbing. She was sitting on the tracks balled up and rocking herself. When we had walked even closer I heard another noise. It was the sound of an oncoming train. The sound was not the whistle that conductors usually blow to let people know they are coming, it was the clatter of the monster upon the tracks. The conductor did not blow the whistle because this was not a place where people were expected to be. Odo stopped walking, looked at the woman and simply said the words: “Save her.”
The train was in sight down the tracks, this part of the secret area being ominously straight. I managed to get ahold of the woman, but she did not want to be moved. She fought me as I dragged her from her seat to the side of the tracks opposite from where Odo stood. He did nothing but stand there staring as I helped the woman. With a little effort I managed to get her sufficiently away from the tracks so that I would have some lee-way if she managed to break free of my grasp before the train came. When the train finally started to pass in front of us she gave up her resistance, sat down and began to cry some more.
The train was only about twenty cars long, but it seemed much longer at that time. To me the train seemed to go on forever with the only sound coming from the person whom I guessed was Dana. After the train passed, I noticed that Odo was gone. There was no one in sight but Dana and I. It was only after the train had passed that she spoke, “Why did you save me? I came here to die alone, how did you know I was here.” I then recounted to her how I had been put in these circumstances.
It turned out that she had just lost her husband in a car accident and was on her way to spend time with her family. Over come with sadness during while driving she decided to kill herself. The mystery behind what had happened and my selfless actions to save her touched her heart. We exited the secret place and I took her back into the airport to sit and talk over coffee. We ended up spending that whole day together. The next day I took her to her family and was invited to stay. We grew really close in the months that followed. Eventually we ended up falling in love and getting married, which brought joy to both us, our friends and family. It has been several years since that first message and I still do not understood what happened. I am greatful that it did happen. Because of a simple message I now have more in my life than ever before.
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