Anniversary email 28

Congratulations, <NAME> and <NAME>! As you know, <COMPANY> recently went public. It was truly a momentous day for us all. Wall Street insiders tend to speak of the market as though it were a living, breathing thing. An uncontrollable, irrational beast that thrashes and hungers. This is because it is. Yes, Wall Street is positioned over a nexus of ancient ley lines, and within this swirling vortex of power an unspeakable monster lurks. When they ring the bell to open the market, they do, on occasion, awaken this ravening horror.

It will make demands of the traders, and those who do not acquiesce are thrown bodily into the thrashing hell mouth of an insidious nightmare the native people dared not to name. These natives did not sell us the island for glass beads and trinkets, they rid themselves of an incomprehensible evil that demanded worship and punished those it deemed insufficiently reverent. At times these requirements are as simple as request for four thousand extra large pepperoni pizzas and a side salad. At others, it demands payment in blood. Still others, it sends the supplicants on an insane quest to retrieve an ancient totem of power that corrupts flesh when they touch it and minds should they gaze upon it.

We have awoken the fiend, and as such we must pay its terrible price. Given your recent anniversaries, you have been selected to do the honors. We will fly you to New York City, where in a cavern carved from basalt, deep within the bowels of the earth, you will find it. The Market. In a pit dotted with ancient, vile sigils whipped into the stone by oily black tentacles, it will open a mouth that steams with the stench of a charnel house and brimstone, and in a voice that shakes the firmament of the earth, it will make its demands of you. We can only hope it will choose to do so in a language we can understand, and that it does not speak in Algonquin or the ancient tongue it used as it plied the stars looking for a planet teeming with life to dominate and corrupt. This is assuming, of course, it does not immediately, greedily shove your broken flesh into a fanged oblivion of ruin.

We will be along shortly for you. We hope you do not mind that we opted for coach. We might need the savings to pay for all those pizzas. Or life insurance policies. We have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders now.