Untitled Document - WordPad

A Supplement Story to 'Writer's Block' by Paperclippe

Based on a true story. (BASED? WHAT THE HELL? THIS IS ALL TRUE! ALL TRUE!) Once again, names have not been changed to protect the innocent, because there, frankly, are no innocent appearing in this story. No gerbils or rodents were harmed in the making of this work. Because we didn't use any gerbils or rodents, that's why.

~*~

Finally. Finally finally finally!

Paperclippe threw back the covers and dashed out of bed. Today would be a marvelous day. Yessirrie. Today was the day that Paperclippe (call me PC, to her friends) got her new computer. It would be everything she'd hoped for!

You see, the situation was, her previous computer blew a gasket, or whatever it is that previous computers do, and PC had been stuck out in the offline cold for nearly a month and a week. Now, you may not think that this is a life-threatening situation, but to a 14-year-old girl who's had a computer for 10 years? It's a big deal. A very big deal.

And, for that past month and a week, PC had been going through something called PC withdrawal...Heehee...PC PC. Anyhow. She'd been isolated from her pixels and MP3s and MIDIs and HTML and BLOGs and good ol' .docs for what seemed to her an eternity. But today, glorious today, she would have her salvation.

Or not.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?"

What presented itself before her, attached to the monitor, plugged into the wall, right beside the desk...was NOT a computer. Not a computer Paperclippe could make use of, anyway.

The inanimate working of boards and chips and wires in front of Paperclippe was so obselete it was...Well, it was really obselete. It was as old as the wheel! The SQUARE wheel, that is. And we all know they used square wheels first. What morons. A square wheel. Like that's gonna go anywhere. Oh. Story.

Anyweezel. PC stared in amazement. Did this thing actually compute? Could it possibly process? There was only one way to find out - and Paperclippe sure hoped it wasn't detrimental to her health.

She pushed a small, square, faded, off-white button (which were apparently very cool in the early 90s), and the computer lurched to life. It made a swooshing noise, beeped, and then grrrrrooouuunddd...grrrrrinnnndddeeddd...beeped again. A monochrome IBM copyright screen displayed itself and PC had the sudden urge to faint.

Copyright 1981-1996.

"Oh. Kay."

Paperclippe blinked a few times, just to make sure that the sleepies in her eyes weren't effecting her vision, and then she screamed. Long and loud she screamed. Well, alright. Maybe not. But wouldn't that be cool?

So she continued to gaze helplessly at the monitor, which was now displaying exactly how much memory the hardrive held within its ancient self. The numbers on the screen flashed much too fast for her to actually comprehend just how much memory it was, and before Paperclippe could get a really good look, a different display met her eyes.

Starting Windows 98.

"NINETY EIGHT! YES!"

Okay, so maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Windows 98 wasn't so bad. PC'd used it before, and it was simplistic, yes, but it served it's 98 purpose. And plus, at least it wasn't 3.1. She shuddered at the thought of Word Perfect. And then shuddered some more. But no, she would have Word. Just Word. Wurd. Wouldn't she?

Apparently not. As she glided the oval mouse from Start to Programs, she scanned the list that was given to her. Accessories, Internet Explorer, Start Up, MS-DOS prompt (MS-DOS? That should have told her something right there.) (RIGHT there.), but no. There WAS no Word, here.

No Word. Just what is a writer with out words? Well, that's a stupid question. If this writer didn't have words, this document would look a whole lot like this.
But you get the picture. So the writer was stripped of her words. The author separated from something that starts with 'a'.

Paperclippe cocked her head to the side, for no though entered her head, no synapses fired, no neural wave pattern would have made the needle jump, here. Take of the electrodes, doctor, this one's brain dead. It was a frightening moment for PC, the first time she had been rendered thoughtless since her editor was afraid to hurt her feelings (but that's a story for another day - and it SHALL BE, AS WELL!).

Mindlessly, she moved the mouse to that familliar tab we call Accessories, to be used only when you have no other choice. Now was one of those times; like a bad Jackie Chan movie, there was only one way out - the stupid blonde guy.

WordPad.

Paperclippe sighed. This was what she had been reduced to. Jigga. The blank, featureless WordPad screen with minimal toolbars and no way to insert symbols was her only resource to post fiction, now.

Today was a dark day. A bloody day. Sunday, bloody Sund...oh, wait, it's Wednesday, isn't it? Anyway, you get what I mean. This was the Holocaust to Paperclippe, except that no one died, so I guess it wasn't really a holocaust after all.

WordPad.

The Untitled Document.

A large breath entered, then exited PC - a sigh. She slid off of her cushy, butt-ugly maroon chair and onto the floor and stared at the CPU as if to say, "Why do you torment me like this? Was I not good to you?" but then she looked away, for sadly she realized that she had never known the computer in it's better years, back way when in 1996, this was top-of-the- line material, the computer in it's prime. Back when every buisness in the world would want this sad little computer. But now this lonely IBM was no more than a reject, a junker, and Paperclippe felt sorry. Sorry that she had insulted it before she even remembered that she should be proud that this CPU had even survived so long as to be insulted about it's age.

She held the whirring machinery and cried.

And then she got up, kicked it, and walked away from the stupid piece of junk, cursing that she couldn't even get a half-decent stinking computer to write on.

THE END.