The subject line was URGENT and the body gave me twenty-four hours. My account would be suspended. All activity would cease unless I acted immediately, and there was a button, and the button was the whole point. I printed it on the back of a gas bill and carried it down.
I pinned it beside the furnace pipe. The pipe runs up the block from the boiler and stays warm all winter, warm enough to feel from a foot away, and the sheet went right against it, the left margin almost touching the copper. A clear pin through the U in URGENT. The heat off the pipe reached the paper and drew it into a slight cup, the edge curling toward the warmth the way a leaf does.
The twenty-four hours ran out that first night. Nothing was suspended. Nothing ceased. The account, if there ever was one, is still exactly as suspended or unsuspended as it was going to be. The deadline sits there beside the pipe with no power left in it, a threat that spent itself in the dark while the furnace cycled.
The paper has been beside that pipe for a while now. The toner where URGENT is printed has gone slightly brown along the top, cooked a little by the steady heat, the way the edge of toast goes before it burns. The word is still legible. The pipe ticks as it warms. The cupped edge of the sheet rests a hair closer to the copper each week, and has not touched it yet.