Every so often, a spammer’s name stands out from the myriad. “Bosket Simeona” is particularly evocative. Presumably there’s a name generator similar to the Project Gutenberg masher. I wonder where they get the names to feed into it. Anyway, the aforementioned Bosket Simeona sent an email entitled “bedlamite”, which contained the following random text passage:
With a bit of Spam Story tweaking, it became the story of Adam, a railwayman, and his lover Simeona.
To Bosket
“You’re acting like a bedlamite!” Simeona giggled, as Adam swung her around in his arms.
“I’m mad indeed!” said Adam, laughing. “Mad about you!” As always, he turned the back of his hands to Simeona’s face tenderly.
Simeona said to herself: “It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t!“
With an effort, she pulled away from him, whispering “Should we really be doing this?”
“I understood so,” he answered, somewhat perplexed at her rejection.
Simeona sighed inspite of herself. Adam was magnificent on that railway. She could think of little else – his skill in the engine room, his mastery of the vehicle. Trying to stop herself falling into temptation, she ran through all of his faults in her head. It was no good. Having gone through them again and again, Adam’s good points were worth them all!
“Come with me to Bosket,” Adam said into her ear.
“Bosket?”
“A small village on the coast. It used to be just like how Normanstand was,” Adam told her. “Now, however, it is a quiet seaside retreat – perfect for lovers,”
Simeona closed her eyes and shook her head.
“It isn’t proper for us to go away together,” she said. “We aren’t married, and your dear wife died only a month ago!”
“Nobody will know!” Adam urged.
“People would find out!” Simeona protested. “It would doubtless all come back – the amount of telegrams I’ve sent you,”
“It wouldn’t indeed,” Adam was growing impatient. The truth was that he had been to Bosket once before, with his late wife, and the village had rather fallen short of their expectation. Adam thought of the dead woman and buried his head in his hands. There, in Bosket, whatever pleasant new customs they might have had would always be tarnished with the memory of his wife.
“Besides, I oughtn’t leave Normanstand,” Simeona was saying. “You see, my father has come down with rather an unusual form of measles,”
“He’s a healthy man, your father,” Adam insisted. “He will recover.”
“I just mention it because my desire to see Bosket would be higher were it not that my father’s sermons have become rather odd…” Simeona confided.
“Odd? How so?”
“Odd in that everything has a connection with riding or horses, and-”
Adam cut her off abruptly. “Listen,” he snapped. Simeona was shocked into silence. “You think this isn’t hard for me too?” Adam blustered.
“I-”
“My dear Simeona, I have called myself a great many hard names,” he said sternly. Meantime, he withdrew a blade from his pocket. Simeone gasped, and watched as Adam raised it to his breast. “To be this knife!” he swooned.
“No!” she struck at him in order to make him stop. “I will come to Bosket! I don’t care what anyone thinks!”
Adam lowered the knife and smiled.
“We’ll have a marvellous time, I promise,”
