Who is on the other side of your red thread?

“Hi, sir.  Would you like to try?”

It’s a lukewarm April evening.  John D. was walking down a minor back road on his way home.  When he turned a corner of the street, he heard someone called to him. It’s a small, thin, middle-aged man sitting on a crate. 

“Sir, young man, you should try this.”

John looked at the man and his belongings.  The man have a black brief case on his side, and opened it to take out a bunch of papers.  There are some books on the other side of him.  Those books looked old and weird signs and images on them.  John frowned. 

“No, I don’t need any help of a fortune teller.”

“Oh, no!  I am not a fortune teller.”

The man looked for something in a hurry from a pile of papers, and pull up a flyer. 

“Sir, this is science, not a fortune telling!  You can manage your future, your future beautiful girl by yourself, in a systematic way!”

The man put the flyer over to the tip of John’s nose.  John took it and looked at it.  There are a diagram and descriptions.  On the diagram, some girls’ faces were illustrated.  John read through the description.

“See, sir.  As you know, everybody’s leg is tied with a red thread.  And the other end of the thread is tied to someone else – your future wife.  It’s supposed to be destiny.  You are not supposed to control it...  until recently.”

“Until recently?” 

“Yes, yes.  Not anymore.  Now is 21 century, the time of technology, innovation.  You should be able to control who the girl on the other end of your red thread is. 

John frowned again, and was about to turn his back and leave. 

“Oh, sir.  I am serious!  Please try it.  You will see what I mean.  It won’t hurt to try!” 

The man scurried to John with a small card.  It’s a card about the size of a credit card.  The man gave it to John and said,

“Just go to the Website, and follow the instruction.  When you are satisfied, go further.  Until you are satisfied, you won’t have to pay.” 

The man walked away. 

John came home, sat at the dining table, tossed the small card on the table.  The greenish blue color of the card kept disturbing him.  John pick it up and was about to tear off, but stopped.  Instead, he opened his laptop. 

John opened the URL written on the card.  The welcome screen popped up, and prompted him to enter his personal information like his name, the birth date, birth place and so on.  After he entered the info and clicked “Submit” button, a new screen appeared.  It’s a character diagram like he saw on the flyer.  But, now it’s John’s diagram.  His face – how and where did they get his image?  - is in the middle of the diagram.  Numerous thin red threads radiate out from John’s face, and the end of each thread is connected to a girl’s face, which he doesn’t know about.  Interestingly, each thread is different size, some are thin, some are very thin, and some are much thick… 

John was a little horrified to look at the girl’s face that’s connected by the thickest red thread.  Her face was…  kind of homely from his point of view. 

He looked up the screen and found the telephone number of the customer service, then punched the number on his cell phone. 

“Your call is very important to us.  Your call may be monitored.  If you want to talk to a customer representative, press one now..”

He punched the number one, and a machine-like female voice came in. 

“Hello sir, how may I help you today?”

“Hi, I am looking at my diagram, and found that there’s a girl one at the end of my biggest thread..”

“Congratulations”

“What?!”

He said angrily, and obviously, the tone of his voice was transmitted to the other end of the line. 

“Oh, I am sorry sir.  How may I help you?”

“Cut off that dxxn thread, right now, OK?  And then, there’s another thread… that’s connected to the girl number 14.  Could you make the thread bigger?  Much bigger.”

John found a nice and cute girl on the diagram.  That’s the girl number 14.  The red thread between John and the girl was very thin, and it looks to break down anytime now. 

“I see.  Please wait for a moment, sir.”

There’s a silence and then, a lukewarm music started.  John waited nervously.  After a while, the customer service came back to the phone. 

“Thank you for waiting sir.  We set up an option board for you.  Please click “Edit” button on the top right corner of the page.” 

When John clicked the button, the screen quickly changed.  The diagram drop down a little bit, and each thread has an “edit/delete” button on it.  Above the diagram is a “price table”.He clicked the “edit/delete” button on the thread of “girl number one”.  Part of the price table flickered and indicated the price – the price so high that he would never be able to afford…. 

John said feebly,

“So… what would happen if I could afford this amount and successfully cut off this girl?” 

“You won’t be connected to this girl any further.”

“Then, what happens?”

“Then, Your thickest connection would be with another girl, number 27.”

“What should I do to make the connection to number 14 the thickest?”

“Please look at the price list.  Maybe I can help you…”

“Oh, no, never mind”

He interrupted the customer service. 

“Are you sure, sir?”

The customer service said monotonously. 

“Yes, I am sure… don’t worry.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“That’s all, thank you.”

He hang up. 

John stood up, and walked to the window.  He opened and looked out the window.  The night sky is the same as yesterday and nothing special there is. 

“That plain face girl..”

He inhaled the cool wind and talked to himself,

“Well, if it’s my destiny…”