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Al Queda Delivers Tape with Hostage Footage and Unrealistic Demands, Presumably

BAGHDAD - Arabic news organization Al-Jazeera reports the receipt of a VHS tape early Wednesday morning from an anonymous Al Queda courier. According to newsroom sources, the tape likely contains footage of one or more kidnap victims and the subsequent threats of his or her captors. Analysts are struggling to verify the message content, however, as the media format requires equipment virtually extinct in the twenty-first century.

To display the VHS tape, technicians require a VCR device -- or Videocassette Recorder -- which translates the data from a spooled magnetic ribbon into synchronized video and audio data. As no such device is known to exist within the offices of Reuters, AP International, or the BBC, American authorities are undertaking a massive equipment search -- reaching even the antiquated newsrooms of the rural United States.

"We had a VCR until about a year ago," said Mulga, Alabama station engineer Darryl Logan. "Every summer, a group of punk junior high kids would come in here to learn how a newsroom works, and we'd let them do their own remotes using our old VHS-compatible gear. But even those clumsy little sh*ts have their own mini-DV cams nowadays, so we tossed it all. Have you guys maybe tried the community access channel with that Dungeons & Dragons guy?"

Government authorities acknowledge the urgency of the pursuit, but admit that few archiac technologies are withstanding the relentless march of progress.

"Who uses VHS nowadays? Digital video cameras go for maybe two hundred bucks on Iraq's black market," commented CIA foreign communications analyst Ted Guerro. "Listen, I'll give Al Queda two hundred bucks if it'll keep me from having to work weekends."

endurance

He was pulled from his rock-and-clay cell periodically only to receive the merciless beatings of his captors. This cycle continued for several months, until even the transition from dank, foreboding darkness to harsh desert sun cut deep squinting creases beside his still vibrant eyes. Another cut. Another bruise. Still, the information he would never provide.

Tiring of the ineffectiveness of physical assault, his torturers took a sinister psychological tack.

"You have thousand emails here," he would later recall them taunting, holding up a somewhat flattened cereal box hastily spraypainted gray, "No spam can! And this bandwidth has crazy processor. Bootup takes zero seconds!"

So he spent his daily battles, before other marines executed his extraction, through which he endured the anguish of ten lifetimes -- a total of two years and seven months in brutal captivity.

He claims that his salvation came only through the courage of his fellow corpsmen and the grace of God, for whom he offers the deepest thanks for providing him with inner strength.

He also apologizes for not responding to emails during this troubling period.

overheard at the local cinema

"Ben, I thought you said this was a f*cking cowboy movie ... oooooooh."