Her left hand curled around a tea mug while the right typed the story of her life. How does someone put down all that they are, all that they hope to be, into words? It seemed too simple, that a person could be broken down into these little marks on her screen. Gold rimmed glasses slid down her nose and she wrinkled it, trying to push them back up but only succeeding in making them slide further. She glanced at the clock and choked when she saw the numbers glowing at a much later hour then she thought. She set the mug on the table and resumed typing double-speed. Must finish, must finish…she chanted to herself. Sentence after sentence marched across the screen but the process was still too slow. Her eyes caught on the computer jack, coiled next to her wrist. She bit her lip and hesitated, but then shook her head as if to clear her thoughts and continued. She wouldn’t do it again. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t do it again. But… Her eyes flicked to the clock again. Damn it. She traced the lines of wiring along her computer with a contemplative finger, just this once. Just one more time wouldn’t hurt, and she really had to finish this book. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she pulled a knife from her pocket and flicked it open. With a grimace she dug it into her wrist, holding it away from her so the blood wouldn’t drip down her clothes. Gasping at the pain, she scooped up the jack and slipped it into the hole that the knife had left behind. When it connected, a small involuntary noise squeaked from her throat and she gripped the arms of her chair. It felt good to be alive again.
The information fizzed through her brain like a carbonated beverage and crackled on her tongue with miniature lightning. A million voices whispered, a million tastes, sights, and smells were all jammed into her neurons at once. Her back arched against the chair and she made a mewling sound deep in her throat. It had been far too long since the interwebs had whispered in her ears; it was like some kind of high, to be jacked into the motherboard. Words were spinning across the page at a rapid pace now; page upon page was sucked out of her mind with the ease of breathing. Unfortunately such easy work took a heavy tole on her body. With a titanic effort, she reluctantly pulled the chord from her flesh. It left with a dry sucking sound that made her shudder. With the information gone she felt like a dry husk of herself, swiveling weakly in her chair. She drew a shaky hand across her face and was startled to come away with blood. She had forgotten the terrible nosebleeds that she used to get when this was a daily occurrence. Staunching the flow with some tissues, she looked back at the screen to see what her mind suck had produced. She was surprised to see the story written in third person, as if it were a biography about some distant figure rather than her own autobiography. She read her childhood, smiling absently at the memories that came with the words. She flipped through her middle years to the ending, which was what she had been having trouble coming up with on her own. There was her work with the hospitals, the new developments in research, and… She frowned and leaned closer, sure that she had misread.
“The young scientist died early and tragically. Found in her apartment on the night of February 7, 3010, it was never determined whether she committed suicide, as many believed, or was murdered.”
She scowled at the screen, “Ha ha, very funny.” She muttered under her breathe.
She reached for the bloody jack and angrily stabbed it back into her arm. She swiped her gaze over her obituary passage to delete it, but nothing happened. She tried again, but still nothing. She bit her lip as more words began to flick across the screen, beginning to feel the bite of fear because she hadn’t told it to type anything. It wrote a note addressed to her editor. It begged for forgiveness and understanding, telling him that it was all for the best and he would someday understand. When it signed her name at the bottom of the note she gaped wordlessly as she started to get it.
“No. NO!” She croaked as she stood up, knocking her chair over, “DELETE!” She screamed at her computer, “DELETE!!!”
The bitter taste of metal filled her mouth and she put a hand to her face to find her nose bleeding freely again. She grabbed tissues to staunch it but they were soaked in seconds. She reached frantically for the chord in her arm but her fingers wouldn’t close on it, it had dug too far into her veins and the blood made it slick. She spotted her knife still lying open on her desk and reached desperately for it. Choking on the blood that ran down her face from her nose, she stabbed and dug at the jack in her arm, trying to get it out. With a wet popping noise, it fell from her wrist and she laughed in relief. But her laugh was weak and she felt so dizzy, she needed to sit down, to rest. She leaned back in her chair and stared back at the screen where a bloody handprint was smeared across the suicide letter that the computer had written for her.
“You’re out, it’s out.” She wheezed. The screen in front of her was getting blurry and dark.
“That was the last…time.” She said tiredly as her eyes slid shut.
-Meghan
1 comment:
I loves it. The Interwebs!
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