The Netflix Employees Who Refused to Stop Mailing DVDs for 30 Years After the War
The island is just forty-five square miles and only has one runway. But no planes ever land, at least not in the last thirty years. Sometimes flyover missions drop supplies, but even those happen less than they once did. The last few care packages were without red envelopes. We don’t know what happened to the DVD exchange program.
We’ve started to update the queues manually. Fight the good fight and all that. But mostly we play solitaire and minesweeper.
Out of kindness and a solemn belief in Tom Hanks, we still ship bonus DVDs, just to say, hey, maybe you want to return Repo Man already.
We storm down the hillside and burst from the tree line. Armed with swords, we duck and cover our way to what was once a fishing village and is now a five-star resort. We probably don’t need weapons, but an old man in military garb insisted. Sometimes we’re not sure if we recruited him to our cause or vice versa. We leave red envelopes on windowsills. We knock on doors, drop DVDs, and head for the hills.
We stuff Finding Nemo in a Ziploc bag and strap it to a sea turtle. We assume it’ll get to where it’s going. Tom knows some kid deserves it. They track endangered animals, you know, so there’s a chance the movie gets picked up. That’s all we can hope for in times like these. We know the tides are against us, but we persist.
We check the wind direction first thing every morning. As our ally who provided the swords performs a flag-raising ritual, we look for flashes of red in the jungle canopy and wonder if anyone will ever get to experience Terrence Malick’s wartime meditations ever again. We scratch a tic tac toe board’s thin lines in the packed dirt of our campsite.
When we send out films, we mostly send a lot of older ones. Think The Revenant is the newest we’ve got. But we also used it to gut a fish. That was before we met the World War Two veteran with the stockpile of swords and hand grenades. And who knows if a Blu-Ray player can even read the thing anymore?
A woman arrives in camp. She says her name is Meg Ryan and that Netflix’s corporate office has sent her. She says we can go home now, adding that we are no longer employed by the company. But we have heard the A.I. rumors, and we have seen the real Meg Ryan’s face on our tv screens. Mam, you are no Meg Ryan, we say to this interloper. And the war goes on.
We notch the days without seeing any incoming red on a coconut trunk. I’m not at liberty to speak in detail, but there’s a mutual understanding among all of us at the D.C. (short for Delivery Center) that we may have to be more aggressive. We’ve seen The Postman and The Book of Eli more times than anyone really should — we know the old mail routes are the backbone in times like these, and we’re thinking we might have to build a canoe armada.
If it comes to Operation South Pacific, we are ready to the last man on this Tom-forsaken island. Roger that, Damon. Copy, Matt. Those are just code names in case we ever need saving.
Our latest run to the resort did not go so well. We’re starting to think the swords might make us look threatening. We worry we awoke a sleeping giant, or at least Peter Gallagher. One of the women on the beach may have been Sandra Bullock, but how did she find this strategic location?
Okay, morale is low. Without the borrowed DVDs flowing in or out, we don’t have much of a purpose here. We stare at the maps and charts and wonder what role in the company’s plan for territorial expansion are we fulfilling. We ate seagulls last night for the second time.
We start a fire. We start a fire every night. Oh! and we lost our bloodstained volleyball, which means we are without a mediator. We have to speak with Tom directly. We worry he can’t hear us. We raise our voices. We joke about burning the excess envelopes. Maybe we’re not joking. But that would be giving up the cause. We are not quitters. We are loyal. Have been for decades. Seagull can grow on you after a while.
One of our coworkers got drunk and claimed a series of pamphlets were dropped from the sky. No one else heard so much as the faintest whisper of a propeller blade.
He shows us the pamphlets. They all feature cartoons suggesting Netflix no longer delivers. These messages are clearly propaganda.
Our old military friend suggests this is treason and punishable by death. We agree on the crime, but not the punishment. We watch Martin Scorsese’s Silence before holding court. We figure a movie that’s too long is right for determining a man’s sentence.
We ship the traitor out to sea. No volleyball spoke on his behalf. And no Sandra came out of nowhere to rescue him.We are the Seven Samurai even if only three of us are left.
The tide comes in. The raft too. Our co-worker is back in our arms, but some questions still need answering. Are we Ninja Turtles or are we men employed by Netflix? Is there even a difference? We cannot allow each other to keep secrets in the ooze. His rations will have to be cut until he earns back our trust. No retreat. Not now. Not ever. We will hold this island in the name of the company we keep.
The sun sets. Maybe there’s a green flash, but tomorrow will be just another day looking for red envelopes among the seashells. Tonight, we will sleep in the mountains. We sleep every night in the mountains, beside a quiet, gurgling stream. And for that we give thanks to Tom Hanks, knowing that one day we will have mail again. Until then, NO SURRENDER!
Do you copy, Ben? It’s me Damon.
