Please Help

I rarely bother to read anything that looks like a "chain email." The stuff is usually a waste of my time, time that is better spent pursuing more worthwhile pursuits in life, like checking out those sites with the naked Britney Spears photos. And I would certainly never subject YOU, my loyal readers, and I'm referring to both of you, to such asinine drivel.

This one, however, caught my eye and then went on touch me in a special place. No, no, not THERE. I meant it went on to touch my heart. It is truly moving, and has caused me to rethink my cynical attitude towards my fellow man. I urge all of you to take a minute to read it. And if it is at all within your means, please donate to this worthy cause.

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My name is Billy Evans.

I am a very sick little boy. My mother is typing this for me, because I can't. She is crying. The reason she is so sad is because I'm so sick. I was born without a body. It doesn't hurt, except when I try to breathe.

The doctors gave me an artificial body. It is a burlap bag filled with leaves. The doctors said that was the best they could do on account of us having no money or insurance. I would like to have a body transplant, but we need more money.

Mommy doesn't work because she said nobody hires crying people. I said, "Don't cry, Mommy," and she hugged my burlap bag. Mommy always gives me hugs, even though she' s allergic to burlap and it makes her sneeze and chafes her real bad.

I hope you will help me. You can help me if you forward this email to everyone you know. Forward it to people you don't know, too. Dr. Johansen said that for every person you forward this email to, Bill Gates will team up with AOL and send a nickel to NASA. With that funding, NASA will collect prayers from schoolchildren all over America and have the astronauts take them up into space so that the angels can hear them better. Then they will come back to earth and go to the Pope, and he will take up a collection in church and send all the money to the doctors. The doctors could help me get better then.

Maybe one day I will be able to play baseball. Right now I can only be third base. Every time you forward this letter, the astronauts can take more prayers to the angels and my dream will be closer to coming true.

Please help me. Mommy is s-o-o sad, and I want a body. I don't want my leaves to rot before I turn 10.

If you don't forward this email, that's okay. Mommy says you're a mean and heartless bastard who doesn't care about a poor little boy with only a head. She says that if you don't stew in the raw pit of your own guilt-ridden stomach, she hopes you die a long slow horrible death and then burn forever in hell. What kind of cruel person are you that you can't take five freakin' minutes to forward this to all your friends so that they can feel guilt and shame about ignoring a poor, bodiless nine-year-old boy?

Please help me. I try to be happy, but it's hard. I wish I had a kitty. I wish I could hold a kitty. I wish I could hold a kitty that wouldn't chew on me and try to bury it's turds in the leaves of my burlap body. I wish that very much.

Thank You,
Billy "Smiley" Evans