My Short Short for the Day

Roger had just graduated from charm school, his mother insisted he be “properly educated in the art of charm”.  It had been an interesting experience, learning how to charm people out of pretty much anything.  He had become quite good at it, in fact.  He enjoyed the power he had over people when he worked his magic.  It had all become quite easy for him.  Now, with school done, it was time for him to sit down and focus his attention on his novel.  All of this charm would certainly come in handy finding a top notch publisher for his amazing masterpiece of literature.  He wasn’t worried in the least.

It was a beautiful day.  Roger was ready to begin.  The words flowed through his fingers and onto the screen.  He smiled as page after page filled with the wonderous things he wanted to say.  By quitting time, he had completed the first two chapters.  Roger clicked save and went to bed.

The next day was just as beautiful as the one before.  Roger settled down at his desk, ready to complete many more chapters.  He opened the document and it was empty.  How could it be?  He closed it and reopened, still blank.  He searched his computer but not other copies were on it.  He restarted the computer, still blank. 

“No!”  Roger shouted slamming his fists on the desk.

“Heh Heh Heh!”  A strange voice seemed to drift on the air around him.

“What?  Who’s there?”  Roger’s eyes darted around the room.  “Show yourself.”

“No!”

“Did you delete my novel?”  Roger searched the room.

“Yes!”

“Why?”  Roger stopped in the middle of the room trying to locate any sign of the owner of the voice.

“Because!”

“Because why?”  Roger struggled to keep calm but his anger threatened to boil over.

“I didn’t like it!”

“What do you mean you didn’t like it?”  Roger yelled.

“It sucked!”

“No it didn’t.  That was only the beginning of the next #1 bestselling novel of all time!”  Roger puffed out his chest and put his hands on his hips.

“It sucked!”

“Then don’t read it.”  Roger stood still.

“No one will ever read it!”

“I’ m going to write this novel and publish it and sell millions of copies.”  Roger stated.

“No!”

“Yes. I will.”  Roger sat down in his chair.  “And you can’t stop me.”

“Wanna bet.”

Roger ignored the voice and started typing again.  He set the document to auto-save just to be safe.  Just as he put a period at the end of the sentence, it disappeared.

“Stop that!”  He demanded.

“No!”

Roger typed it again, and again the sentence disappeared.  He typed and re-typed but as soon as one sentence was complete it would disappear.  No matter how fast he typed he could never get more than the one sentence on the page before it disappeared.  After hours of battling, Roger finally slumped over onto his laptop.

“I give up.”  Roger cried.

“Good!”

“Will you leave now?”  Roger begged.

“Ok, but if you try to write a novel, I’ll be back.”

“Fine.”  Roger dragged himself off to bed and slept.