The Writer

The Writer chortled, the evil sound ringing in his ears like stale frosting on a forty-year-old wedding cake. He had done it! All these months of struggle, the agony of dedication and desire, all coming together in the sweet triumph of victory.

Or was it the sweet victory of triumph? The Writer was suddenly unsure. He re-opened the document and scrolled to the end. Still two hundred pages, just like it was when he closed it, and not a hollow forgery foisted upon him by viral infection or the artifice of mischievous digital trolls. The Writer sighed and closed the document.

Though it was only one of many .doc files littered across the steel platters of his hard drive, this most recent one contained more than just binary. It contained months of sweat and tears and not a few swear words. He caressed the icon lovingly with his mouse pointer.

Abruptly, The Writer's nice desktop picture (a full-color image of the top of a desk) blinked out. It was replaced by a solid blue screen with white text.

"Salt water, the main ingredient of tears and sweat, is very bad for electronic components," it said. "Please start praying now and press CTRL, ALT and DELETE to restart."