The Film

Outbreaks, if occurring in a serendipitous fashion, can sometimes be overlooked until the potential harm is already done. Which is why I decided upon The Film.

I know, you've heard the news reports. How could I? Well that's precisely the point; I could.

I had always imagined being able to control and destroy a living thing. I started young, naturally, with such small creatures I could find. My early experiments were promising but there still remained a tendril of guilt at the thought of others finding out. They did eventually, which led to a number of medical professionals labelling me a "troubled child". Oh, I wasn't in the least bit troubled, except for the intrusion into my career and the need for my being changed but, spending years in that environment, made an erstwhile, cunning fox out of me.

You see, what would surprise you most about me is how ordinary and average I appear. I'm polite and sociable, and come across as any other gentleman, leading you to never suspect I would be capable of what is now a problem of all Earth. For my youth was spent refining my innocent demeanor in order to escape suspicion. Eventually I realized that my feigned bon homie allowed me to escape guilts clutches permanently.

I did relatively well at school in spite of the outrage I caused, but by the end I was isolated from the raging mass of hormones that were my peers, much to my content. By then my fascination for technology, particularly computing and audio visual was blossoming, plus the world wide web was now flourishing. This was the early days, when a sense of responsibility was far outweighed by information literally under ones fingers, if one knew what they wanted to look for. I really only had one subject on my mind...

There were, and probably still are, sites where the information contained is of questionable morality, which is where I found myself a couple of hours later, as I stared gleefully at the screen that night. You may have heard of subliminal messages? No? Well, it's a method of suggesting advice, to an individual or group by nefarious methods. Commercials do it all the time, before you start! Yes, ever wonder why you suddenly craved that cool refreshing drink, or improved fabric detergents? Subliminal messages! Your pets fur isn't vibrant enough? Looking for a short term loan? Yes, they're subliminal too! No, it isn't legal but there are legal ways around that and here was it's website!

I didn't do this overnight, mores the pity, but all good things to those who wait and, besides, what better way to evade capture than by learning how too? My academic pursuits were paying off too, having procured for me gainful employment in a respectable company. Apparently I'm a diligent and hard working employee, I'll have you know, which secured me a respectably high position and pretty much all the freedom I crave so. This, in turn, led to my reestablishing my tortuous hobby at will. Before long I was ready....

At first these isolated incidents were treated exactly thus, which was the nature of the symptoms. It also marked the litmus test in this requiem of mine. I was under no pretence of stopping there, for by now Chaos was my unholy liege. So, I doubled my efforts; then doubled them again. The pattern emerged but it was deliberately random. People watching a film, first via DVD then all other media, became violent. Their rage was a primal urge, one felt since we crawled out of the soup and, once spent, left the psychotic individual an empty shell. Once refined, I could add my malice virtually any time a film was shown. What film, say you? Well that's where the fun begins, because I added it to films at random, so random that people in other parts of the world watching the very same movie suffered not at all. Using television carrier waves I could also transmit via the soon to be discomfort.

But why you must be asking. Because I could you see.

Because I could!