Not a Fanfic
This is a short story I wrote to express my gratitude for an extraordinary act of kindness. I cannot post it on fanfic.net because it is not fanfiction, or based on any show. I was going through my old files and found it... so I figured, maybe I should post it. It's an example of my original writing, even though I wrote it a few years ago.
This is not femslash, the main character is married to a man but there isn't any sex at all in the story. It may be a little too much of a realistic situation, I dunno. But as much as it seems depressing, it is actually a story of hope renewed.
Nina typed quickly, pleased that the scene in her head was taking shape so well with just the words on the screen. It wasn't often she was able to do this so easily, the visions in her head often dissipated too quickly and she was left with only a vague sense of what the scene should have been. She sighed as she finished typing and sat back in the seat. Excellent. She thought and reached for her coffee. In reaching, she bumped her wrist into the corner of the laptop, shaking it slightly and in that fraction of a second three things happened. The computer shifted slightly, Nina squeezed her eyes tightly closed, knowing what was coming next, and the poor little laptop shut down with alarming speed.
“Dammit!” Nina felt like throwing something, or crying... or both. “Dammit!” She could feel her blood pressure rising, the blood pounding in her ears echoed the thrum in her chest. Closing her eyes again, Nina tried to calm herself down. The last thing she needed was another stroke. After a few deep breaths, she reached up and pushed the power button on the overused laptop once again hearing the rattling hum of the hard drive spinning up, and the cooling fans begin to whirl.
The scene she'd been working on was gone, no way to get it back and she knew it. Best not try, else the blood pressure jumped and the possible stroke became even more probable. As she waited for all the stupid startup stuff to load, she decided to check email first and go from there. Signing in to the email program, Nina shook her head at the contents of her inbox. Nothing. She laughed a little sarcastically as she remembered the stats for the site, nine damn thousand hits, over thirty two hundred visitors reading the friggin' story and not one comment for almost a month.
With a little sigh she brought up the comments five people had actually left her just after she'd posted the stories and read through them, again. They all loved the story and wanted more. A little puff of air escaped her lips. “They always want more, Bean.” Looking down at her more black than white cat she shrugged. “I try.” Bean yawned and resumed his nap, it was five in the morning after all, a cat has to get his rest.
Resolutely, Nina opened the word processor and began again. She saved the work about every other sentence. It was disruptive and slow, but at least it was there. She did that for a little while until the write, save, write, save, write, save thing got to be too much. With a final save she closed that program and reopened the email screen. She'd found lately that her little laptop couldn't handle both things at the same time, so she took it slow and just did one or the other now. In order to get over her frustration she sent a ranting email off to one of her friends, another writer, about her computer and its new and thrilling penchant for shutting down whenever it felt like it. She'd been unable to use the IM chat programs for some time, due to memory issues the little machine had, and now she'd noticed that the power cord, or the plug itself was loose, often not making contact enough to switch to battery power, which didn't always charge correctly. Damn, I need a new computer, she thought. That was usually a depressing line of thought though and she squelched it pretty quickly. Her husband was out of work and had been since three days after Christmas last year. Which sucked. Really, really sucked. We can barely pay the bills. There's no way I can justify buying a new computer for me, just so I can mess around online with silly fan fiction stuff. No way. She wished she was good enough to publish her stories. That would be cool, even if they didn't make much... She knew it probably wouldn't happen though.
She had been looking though, every time she went to Walmart she stopped in the electronics section and really almost drooled over the computer displays. Some of them were too small, the keyboard needed to be at least standard size not all scrunched so she'd get a cramp typing. Some were too much, way more machine than she'd ever need. But there was one... the one on the very end, she usually lingered there the longest, this machine was perfect for her. Every time she fit her fingers against the keyboard she knew, that was the one. It was also far more expensive than she'd be able to afford any time soon. So, as always, she'd give the computer a final caress and go about her business of stretching the few dollars they had in the budget that week to buy what they needed.
Shaking her head she returned to her living room and hit refresh on her email screen. Amazingly a new message appeared. It was from one of her friends, Elle, they'd never met, but they'd exchanged emails regularly for quite a while. Elle was her go-to gal for many research questions when she'd write certain fan fiction stories and Elle was often the final destination for one of her rants about the crappy computer and it's antics. Nina's eyebrows rose as she read the message.
Hey there, listen, I've got something here you might be interested in. Would you be okay with sending me your snail mail address?
Shrugging, Nina spoke to herself as she typed the reply. “Sure, I don't mind.” Typing in the address she chuckled. “It's not like you can't find it online anyway. You know my name and my husband's name.” Sending off the reply, she stood and stretched. Six am. Time to start the day.
Walking down the hall she opened the door to her daughter's room. “Rise and shine sweetie, time to get up, get ready for school.” She grinned at the little girl's normal protest but was proud that she kicked off her blankets and got up anyway. They went through their normal routine, hair brushed, breakfast ate, cartoons watched, clothes put on, all homework in the backpack, and pile in the car for the ride to school. It freaked Nina out a little that elementary school started so early now... she'd have been in trouble if she'd had to be at school by seven forty.
Nina hadn't taken a shower this morning so there was no trip to the store this morning. She liked to go early for the marked down items and also fewer people shopped then. But today, she just returned home and went back to the story she'd been working on before the sudden shutdown earlier. The scene did get rewritten, but it took forever with the write, save, write rhythm she always adopted after her computer acted up and wasn't, in her opinion, nearly as good as the one that had been lost, the one that had flowed so easily from her head to her fingers. This rewrite felt too forced. She heard the mail truck stopping and knew it was time to assess the damage for the day. She didn't want to, but she trudged out to the mailbox anyway. Luckily, today was nothing but crap. It was a complete roll of the dice as to what was going to show up these days. Medical bills were still rolling in from her unexpected stay in the hospital and each one made her feel sick, which was ironic in a way she didn't much appreciate.
She should do laundry, she should do dishes, both were piling up at an alarming rate. Instead she sat back down in front of her laptop that she couldn't move, which was also an irony she didn't appreciate, and refreshed her email again. Nothing... With a sigh she clicked the bookmark for her favorite fan fiction site and was pleasantly surprised when an update to one of her favorite stories appeared on the list. Cool! She read the update and left a comment, conscious of the lack of comments for her own stories. Switching screens she checked her email again, eyebrows raising and a small smile appearing as a new message arrived. Tee!
Hiya Sweetie...
How's your day going so far?
Nina sighed and began typing her adventures with her crappy computer's newest glitch, deciding to turn off whenever it felt like it. She did end the email on an upbeat note about how they were managing and how her health seemed to be somewhat stabilizing. It was depressing that all she had to pass along most of the time was whines about her computer, or her writing. Everyone seemed to like her fan fiction stories, everyone except her. Her friends, like Tee and Elle would always tell her she was being too hard on herself, but it just didn't seem that way most of the time.
Slumping back in her chair, Nina breathed deeply and hit refresh on her email. Nothing... She hadn't really expected anything. It would take several minutes for Tee to get the email, read it and respond to it. Switching back to the word processor screen, she stared at the blankness for a long moment, then scrolled back to begin re-reading the last part, to try and get back into the flow. Reaching the unfinished point of the story, she sighed and switched back to the email window. Refresh... nothing... sigh... switching back to the story, she managed to type a little. Halting that scene she checked her email again. Tee has responded! Opening the message, she smiled as she read the supportive message and responded to it, sending the next round of their long distance conversation on its way. And so it went, pretty much until her husband woke up, then there was a break to fix lunch, and it was back to writing or re-reading and tweaking what was already written, in between checking and replying to emails from Tee and Elle. She was not looking forward to this afternoon. Her husband had some errands to run and had plans to meet his friends, which she didn't mind, but Tee also had to work, so it would be a long afternoon without emails to exchange with her friends. Elle lived on the other side of the planet, so later in the evening she was often offline to actually sleep or have a life or whatever it was normal people did when they weren't in front of a computer. Nina wasn't exactly sure what that was, but it had to either be really important or extremely fun, because she couldn't think of anything that didn't fit those criteria that she would want to do instead of writing. At that moment the screen on her laptop decided to dim. “What now?!” She sighed as she noticed the little battery icon in the corner. “Oh...” She reached around the back of the little laptop and jiggled the power cord. Nodding to herself as the screen flickered and then stayed steadily bright as the power kicked back in. She suspected the cord itself was broken inside the insulated casing, her husband theorized it was the plug itself... either way, this computer was on it's last legs...and she was going to be up a shit creek without it. I'll go crazy. She knew. Without being able to work on the stories, I'll go completely insane. Not just the slightly insane I am now. The thought of her computer dying was depressing. Losing that one window she had to the almost real world wasn't something she really wanted to contemplate.
So this is my life. Nina stared at the blankness on her computer word processor screen and wondered what it would take to fill that void. With a deep breath she placed her hands on the keyboard and began to type... putting her favorite characters in crazy situations, getting them together, tearing them apart... it was all part and parcel to her imagination gone wild. At least, when she could, in between taking care of her daughter and minimally running her household.
Day after day it was nearly the same... on school days she'd get up at five am, take some time for herself, wake her daughter up at six am... have her to school by seven thirty... then the rest of the day just doing what she needed to do around the house while trying to work on her fan fiction and waiting for emails from her friends. On weekends, it was the same, wake up early and have uninterrupted time until the other members of the household woke and demanded various slices of her attention. It was how it had been for a long time... years even... so long there didn't seem to be anything else. And now, with her computer dying a slow death, what was she going to do? Go crazy, that's what. It wasn't just her computer that was dying though, she knew that along with it, her dreams were going to wither and die as well. Her dream, the one that she barely dared to hope for, the one she never ever spoke of, her dream of the day when she was good enough to write something publishable. Maybe even something, sellable. She knew in the back of her mind that was what all the fan fiction was for... practice. As she jiggled the power cord once again, she nearly cried, knowing her dream was fading just as fast as the battery in her laptop. Idly she checked it... Eighty one percent... She nodded to herself, her thought sounding depressed even to herself. Yep, that sounds about right.
So what does a girl do when nearly twenty percent of her dreams are gone... Nina chuckled. Check her email of course. Refreshing the page, a message from Elle popped up. A smile crossed her face as she opened the message.
Hey you,
Watch for the delivery van Monday or Tuesday, I've sent a little present...
Replying quickly Nina rolled her eyes wondering what Elle was up to this time. Last time she'd sent a 'little' something, three entire seasons of Facts of Life DVD's had shown up on Nina's doorstep.
“Okay, I'll watch for it.” Nina spoke as she typed. She was glad for the heads up though, because it was beyond freezing at the moment and no matter what the mysterious 'little present' was she didn't want it sitting out in the cold if she could help it. While she knew Elle was at her computer Nina also added some questions she had about her current story's character background... Elle actually lived in the country the character was supposedly from so who better to ask about various things from that culture?
They exchanged several emails back and forth. Nina was always amazed at the depth of knowledge her friend had about pretty much any subject. When she thought she had all the information she needed for the moment she promised Elle that she wouldn't bug her again, at least not until she got some rest. Of course, Elle was very gracious about answering each and every question thoroughly. Nina appreciated it beyond measure and apparently their discussion had inspired some writing inspiration of its own for Elle who claimed to now have an idea for a story of her own. Nina couldn't wait to read it. Elle and Tee were both fantastic writers.
As it turned out the next few days were, surprise, exactly like all the other days before them. Nina wondered if she would ever get her current story completed, it just didn't seem to be working at the moment. Depressing to say the least. It was the fourth in her series and it just wasn't moving along at all. She knew a lot of people were looking forward to it, and didn't want to disappoint them. She hoped it wouldn't be too full of suck once it was completed.
On Tuesday, Nina heard a truck and opened the door, it wasn't the delivery van, it was only the neighbors. Figures, she thought.
Her husband looked up from his computer. “Looking for something?”
“Yeah,” She took her usual seat and refreshed her email. “Elle said to watch for something yesterday or today...”
“Oh...” He smiled and nodded. “What?”
“She didn't say,” she shrugged, “I guess it's a surprise.”
He laughed, “Okay then.”
Glancing at her surprisingly bright computer screen, Nina grinned. “Speak of the devil.” Opening the message she nodded and relayed the new information to her husband. “Elle says tracking puts the package arriving in two days.”
“Cool.” He turned back to his computer screen once again absorbed in whatever it is he did.
Replying to the message, Nina thanked Elle again for the unknown item, because in all the emails Elle had always referred to the thing as singular. Again she was glad for the heads up because they had dinner with her mother-in-law scheduled and she didn't want the package sitting outside in the bitter cold and snow. Now she didn't have to worry about it. All she had to worry about was dealing with her mother-in-law, which was enough to give her another stroke, if she were to think about it too hard.
The rest of the day went as normal, trying to write, getting minimal housework done, picking up her daughter from school... then came preparation for mother-in-law's arrival. Frantic cleaning, on her husband's part, vacuuming, spraying air freshener, he even cleaned the litter box. Nina began unloading the clean dishes from the dishwasher and reloading it with the dirty ones that had been piled in the sink, knowing that was something that needed done anyway. As it turned out there was too much ice and snow packed on the driveway so Mother didn't even come inside, she just made her way around the car to the backseat, so that her son could drive and she could sit with the grand-daughter on the way to the restaurant. Nina was, as always, invisible.
Dinner wasn't a total disaster, the steak was good and the vegetables were cooked well, not too firm, not too mushy. Stress was kept to a minimum and Nina mostly just people watched and made up a few new characters to hold in check in her head until they were needed somewhere in a story. She did that a lot, she'd always done that, she guessed it was why there were so many voices in her head. Writing helped her make them quiet, putting them into a story helped. She tried not to think about what was going to happen when she wasn't able to do that anymore, when her computer finally just gave out.
Dinner was good, but after she returned home Nina wasn't feeling so well. She took her evening meds and barely looked at the story file before shutting down the computer. A quick goodnight to her daughter and husband was all it took and she was crawling into bed, hoping for dreams to use in a story or two or maybe she just wanted to hold on to the eighty percent she had left of THE dream. Closing her eyes, she thought of how great it would be to actually have a book with her name on it. Knowing that it was most likely not going to happen, but still, nights were for dreams, right? So she tried, closing her eyes, thinking about what it might possibly be like to be able to write legitimately, even though the next morning, she knew, would be exactly the same as always.
And she was right, waking at the same time she always did, she went through her morning rituals and made her way to the living room where her dying little computer rested on it's little table. Turning it on, she went to the kitchen to start the water for her coffee. Standing and waiting for the water to boil was not an option, her back wouldn't let her do that without causing her leg to go numb, so she went and sat in front of her computer, as always. Curious, she moved the cursor over the battery icon and nodded to herself. Sixty nine percent... yep, that sounds about right. Opening the story files, she looked at the blankness and sighed, scrolling back a few pages to read and try to get back into the story. When she got to the end, she realized the water was boiling and went to make her coffee. She didn't feel very well this morning either, her head was hurting slightly, probably from too much sleep. Going to bed early wasn't really a good thing to do. It meant she'd gotten almost eight hours of sleep in a row. Three or four hours more than normal. Odd that she still felt tired.
Sipping her coffee she stared at the blankness then carefully saved the file and opened a window for email. Three messages... Hmmm... let's see... It was a game she played with the loading page, trying to guess what the emails were. Sam's Club, Hallmark, I can enlarge my penis... The screen refreshed and she actually chuckled. “Ah, of course.” The local casino boat was advertising their schedule for the month, not that she had any interest in wasting money she didn't have. No gambling for her right now. She did like the one armed bandits but was realistic enough to know when not to throw her money away.
The other two were just junk, winning the English lottery was amazing seeing as how she didn't live there and to her knowledge had never bought a ticket. And oh wow, she could get Viagra super cheap online... she was just SO glad to know that. Not! And with three clicks her inbox was once again, empty. Ah well, it's time to wake the girl anyway... and the routine played itself out as always ending up with her back in her seat in front of her little dying laptop, staring at the blankness.
Laying her head back she closed her eyes for a moment, she was just so tired... Bean jumped up next to her and woke her, her mouth was amazingly dry and she glanced at the clock. Wow, over an hour nap! She heard shuffling movements from the other room and was surprised and not when her husband appeared. “Good morning.”
“Mmmhmm... Good morning.” He went straight for his computer, which she couldn't blame him for, she did the same thing. The only difference with him was when he got up and went to the kitchen, he made himself a glass of chocolate milk, instead of coffee like she did.
“I'm going to go take a shower.” Nina commented, she hadn't had a shower this morning and now after her nap felt quite icky.
“Okay.”
She loved the shower, the massaging shower head let the water beat down on her back just where it hurt the most and it felt so very good. As she was leaning against the shower wall she thought she heard the rumble of a big truck, a delivery truck maybe, she mused and laughed at herself. Elle had said she tracked it and whatever it was she sent wouldn't be here until tomorrow. It was just the neighbors again.
When she finished up in the shower, she dressed in her regular hole-filled t-shirt and sweats, then, hair still wet she went back out into the living room. Deciding to be a little goofy she detoured to the front door and opened it.
Her husband asked. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, just checking...” she laughed. Her laughter died when he whispered. “It's on your seat.”
“What!?” she laughed. “I was just kidding, it's not supposed to be here until tomorrow, whatever it is...”
He was wide eyed and his voice remained a whisper. “I think I know what it is...”
“Yeah?” Nina laughed as she walked across the room, her laughter faded when she saw the box. Much to large to be DVD's She got a knife from the kitchen and sliced open the packing tape. Opening one flap of the outer box her hand stopped. She could see the box inside, the writing on it, the Nightmare Before Christmas font that HP had begun using for their logo and... knew... Oh my god... Opening the rest of the box she pulled the slightly smaller one out and couldn't believe it. There was no way, no way... She felt her husband move up behind her, his strong arms wrapping around her for support. She asked him quietly. “There is something else inside this box, isn't there?”
“No Sweetie...” He squeezed her and felt her trembling. “Are you okay?”
“No!” She looked at the box again and decided there was only one way to find out...she sliced the packing tape on this box and opening the flaps with trembling hands, sure enough, inside was a brand new laptop.
“Holy crap.” she couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it. There's been some kind of mistake...
Her husband helped her, gathering the cords and the battery from their protected sections of the box. The machine was cold, from being in the delivery truck and Nina knew she couldn't turn it on yet, not until it had warmed up to the room temperature of the house. Holy crap!
“I'm glad you got one, Sweetie...I wanted you to have one so bad...” He hugged her again. “I've been looking online for sales, every day.”
She just nodded as tears came to her eyes. He knew that she loved writing, but she didn't think he knew exactly how much it meant to her. How lost she would be without it. Now she had a new one! Holy Crap! She hugged him and cried a little bit, and wondered just a little, exactly how insane her online friends were.
Her husband installed the battery and plugged it in so that it at least would be charging. Now she had things to do, lunch, go get the girl child from school, the store... and all she wanted to do was stay home and look at the new computer. Holy Crap!
By the time she got home it was dinnertime, she ate fairly quickly and finally it was time. Pulling the shiny new computer to her lap, Nina pushed the button. Holy Crap! It's so quiet, she fit her fingers to the keyboard, tears springing to her eyes as she realized this was almost exactly like the one she 'visited' when she went to Walmart. Holy Crap! It was perfect.
Nina went through all the steps her husband instructed her to do for setting up the machine. It was so beautiful, and quiet, and she still didn't quite believe it. It was one in the morning and finally admitting defeat Nina started to close down the computer when an icon in the corner of her screen caught her attention. Hesitating for a moment, she moved the cursor over the tiny image of a battery and tears sprang to her eyes again.
One Hundred Percent, fully charged..... Yep, that sounds about right.
This is not femslash, the main character is married to a man but there isn't any sex at all in the story. It may be a little too much of a realistic situation, I dunno. But as much as it seems depressing, it is actually a story of hope renewed.
Nina typed quickly, pleased that the scene in her head was taking shape so well with just the words on the screen. It wasn't often she was able to do this so easily, the visions in her head often dissipated too quickly and she was left with only a vague sense of what the scene should have been. She sighed as she finished typing and sat back in the seat. Excellent. She thought and reached for her coffee. In reaching, she bumped her wrist into the corner of the laptop, shaking it slightly and in that fraction of a second three things happened. The computer shifted slightly, Nina squeezed her eyes tightly closed, knowing what was coming next, and the poor little laptop shut down with alarming speed.
“Dammit!” Nina felt like throwing something, or crying... or both. “Dammit!” She could feel her blood pressure rising, the blood pounding in her ears echoed the thrum in her chest. Closing her eyes again, Nina tried to calm herself down. The last thing she needed was another stroke. After a few deep breaths, she reached up and pushed the power button on the overused laptop once again hearing the rattling hum of the hard drive spinning up, and the cooling fans begin to whirl.
The scene she'd been working on was gone, no way to get it back and she knew it. Best not try, else the blood pressure jumped and the possible stroke became even more probable. As she waited for all the stupid startup stuff to load, she decided to check email first and go from there. Signing in to the email program, Nina shook her head at the contents of her inbox. Nothing. She laughed a little sarcastically as she remembered the stats for the site, nine damn thousand hits, over thirty two hundred visitors reading the friggin' story and not one comment for almost a month.
With a little sigh she brought up the comments five people had actually left her just after she'd posted the stories and read through them, again. They all loved the story and wanted more. A little puff of air escaped her lips. “They always want more, Bean.” Looking down at her more black than white cat she shrugged. “I try.” Bean yawned and resumed his nap, it was five in the morning after all, a cat has to get his rest.
Resolutely, Nina opened the word processor and began again. She saved the work about every other sentence. It was disruptive and slow, but at least it was there. She did that for a little while until the write, save, write, save, write, save thing got to be too much. With a final save she closed that program and reopened the email screen. She'd found lately that her little laptop couldn't handle both things at the same time, so she took it slow and just did one or the other now. In order to get over her frustration she sent a ranting email off to one of her friends, another writer, about her computer and its new and thrilling penchant for shutting down whenever it felt like it. She'd been unable to use the IM chat programs for some time, due to memory issues the little machine had, and now she'd noticed that the power cord, or the plug itself was loose, often not making contact enough to switch to battery power, which didn't always charge correctly. Damn, I need a new computer, she thought. That was usually a depressing line of thought though and she squelched it pretty quickly. Her husband was out of work and had been since three days after Christmas last year. Which sucked. Really, really sucked. We can barely pay the bills. There's no way I can justify buying a new computer for me, just so I can mess around online with silly fan fiction stuff. No way. She wished she was good enough to publish her stories. That would be cool, even if they didn't make much... She knew it probably wouldn't happen though.
She had been looking though, every time she went to Walmart she stopped in the electronics section and really almost drooled over the computer displays. Some of them were too small, the keyboard needed to be at least standard size not all scrunched so she'd get a cramp typing. Some were too much, way more machine than she'd ever need. But there was one... the one on the very end, she usually lingered there the longest, this machine was perfect for her. Every time she fit her fingers against the keyboard she knew, that was the one. It was also far more expensive than she'd be able to afford any time soon. So, as always, she'd give the computer a final caress and go about her business of stretching the few dollars they had in the budget that week to buy what they needed.
Shaking her head she returned to her living room and hit refresh on her email screen. Amazingly a new message appeared. It was from one of her friends, Elle, they'd never met, but they'd exchanged emails regularly for quite a while. Elle was her go-to gal for many research questions when she'd write certain fan fiction stories and Elle was often the final destination for one of her rants about the crappy computer and it's antics. Nina's eyebrows rose as she read the message.
Hey there, listen, I've got something here you might be interested in. Would you be okay with sending me your snail mail address?
Shrugging, Nina spoke to herself as she typed the reply. “Sure, I don't mind.” Typing in the address she chuckled. “It's not like you can't find it online anyway. You know my name and my husband's name.” Sending off the reply, she stood and stretched. Six am. Time to start the day.
Walking down the hall she opened the door to her daughter's room. “Rise and shine sweetie, time to get up, get ready for school.” She grinned at the little girl's normal protest but was proud that she kicked off her blankets and got up anyway. They went through their normal routine, hair brushed, breakfast ate, cartoons watched, clothes put on, all homework in the backpack, and pile in the car for the ride to school. It freaked Nina out a little that elementary school started so early now... she'd have been in trouble if she'd had to be at school by seven forty.
Nina hadn't taken a shower this morning so there was no trip to the store this morning. She liked to go early for the marked down items and also fewer people shopped then. But today, she just returned home and went back to the story she'd been working on before the sudden shutdown earlier. The scene did get rewritten, but it took forever with the write, save, write rhythm she always adopted after her computer acted up and wasn't, in her opinion, nearly as good as the one that had been lost, the one that had flowed so easily from her head to her fingers. This rewrite felt too forced. She heard the mail truck stopping and knew it was time to assess the damage for the day. She didn't want to, but she trudged out to the mailbox anyway. Luckily, today was nothing but crap. It was a complete roll of the dice as to what was going to show up these days. Medical bills were still rolling in from her unexpected stay in the hospital and each one made her feel sick, which was ironic in a way she didn't much appreciate.
She should do laundry, she should do dishes, both were piling up at an alarming rate. Instead she sat back down in front of her laptop that she couldn't move, which was also an irony she didn't appreciate, and refreshed her email again. Nothing... With a sigh she clicked the bookmark for her favorite fan fiction site and was pleasantly surprised when an update to one of her favorite stories appeared on the list. Cool! She read the update and left a comment, conscious of the lack of comments for her own stories. Switching screens she checked her email again, eyebrows raising and a small smile appearing as a new message arrived. Tee!
Hiya Sweetie...
How's your day going so far?
Nina sighed and began typing her adventures with her crappy computer's newest glitch, deciding to turn off whenever it felt like it. She did end the email on an upbeat note about how they were managing and how her health seemed to be somewhat stabilizing. It was depressing that all she had to pass along most of the time was whines about her computer, or her writing. Everyone seemed to like her fan fiction stories, everyone except her. Her friends, like Tee and Elle would always tell her she was being too hard on herself, but it just didn't seem that way most of the time.
Slumping back in her chair, Nina breathed deeply and hit refresh on her email. Nothing... She hadn't really expected anything. It would take several minutes for Tee to get the email, read it and respond to it. Switching back to the word processor screen, she stared at the blankness for a long moment, then scrolled back to begin re-reading the last part, to try and get back into the flow. Reaching the unfinished point of the story, she sighed and switched back to the email window. Refresh... nothing... sigh... switching back to the story, she managed to type a little. Halting that scene she checked her email again. Tee has responded! Opening the message, she smiled as she read the supportive message and responded to it, sending the next round of their long distance conversation on its way. And so it went, pretty much until her husband woke up, then there was a break to fix lunch, and it was back to writing or re-reading and tweaking what was already written, in between checking and replying to emails from Tee and Elle. She was not looking forward to this afternoon. Her husband had some errands to run and had plans to meet his friends, which she didn't mind, but Tee also had to work, so it would be a long afternoon without emails to exchange with her friends. Elle lived on the other side of the planet, so later in the evening she was often offline to actually sleep or have a life or whatever it was normal people did when they weren't in front of a computer. Nina wasn't exactly sure what that was, but it had to either be really important or extremely fun, because she couldn't think of anything that didn't fit those criteria that she would want to do instead of writing. At that moment the screen on her laptop decided to dim. “What now?!” She sighed as she noticed the little battery icon in the corner. “Oh...” She reached around the back of the little laptop and jiggled the power cord. Nodding to herself as the screen flickered and then stayed steadily bright as the power kicked back in. She suspected the cord itself was broken inside the insulated casing, her husband theorized it was the plug itself... either way, this computer was on it's last legs...and she was going to be up a shit creek without it. I'll go crazy. She knew. Without being able to work on the stories, I'll go completely insane. Not just the slightly insane I am now. The thought of her computer dying was depressing. Losing that one window she had to the almost real world wasn't something she really wanted to contemplate.
So this is my life. Nina stared at the blankness on her computer word processor screen and wondered what it would take to fill that void. With a deep breath she placed her hands on the keyboard and began to type... putting her favorite characters in crazy situations, getting them together, tearing them apart... it was all part and parcel to her imagination gone wild. At least, when she could, in between taking care of her daughter and minimally running her household.
Day after day it was nearly the same... on school days she'd get up at five am, take some time for herself, wake her daughter up at six am... have her to school by seven thirty... then the rest of the day just doing what she needed to do around the house while trying to work on her fan fiction and waiting for emails from her friends. On weekends, it was the same, wake up early and have uninterrupted time until the other members of the household woke and demanded various slices of her attention. It was how it had been for a long time... years even... so long there didn't seem to be anything else. And now, with her computer dying a slow death, what was she going to do? Go crazy, that's what. It wasn't just her computer that was dying though, she knew that along with it, her dreams were going to wither and die as well. Her dream, the one that she barely dared to hope for, the one she never ever spoke of, her dream of the day when she was good enough to write something publishable. Maybe even something, sellable. She knew in the back of her mind that was what all the fan fiction was for... practice. As she jiggled the power cord once again, she nearly cried, knowing her dream was fading just as fast as the battery in her laptop. Idly she checked it... Eighty one percent... She nodded to herself, her thought sounding depressed even to herself. Yep, that sounds about right.
So what does a girl do when nearly twenty percent of her dreams are gone... Nina chuckled. Check her email of course. Refreshing the page, a message from Elle popped up. A smile crossed her face as she opened the message.
Hey you,
Watch for the delivery van Monday or Tuesday, I've sent a little present...
Replying quickly Nina rolled her eyes wondering what Elle was up to this time. Last time she'd sent a 'little' something, three entire seasons of Facts of Life DVD's had shown up on Nina's doorstep.
“Okay, I'll watch for it.” Nina spoke as she typed. She was glad for the heads up though, because it was beyond freezing at the moment and no matter what the mysterious 'little present' was she didn't want it sitting out in the cold if she could help it. While she knew Elle was at her computer Nina also added some questions she had about her current story's character background... Elle actually lived in the country the character was supposedly from so who better to ask about various things from that culture?
They exchanged several emails back and forth. Nina was always amazed at the depth of knowledge her friend had about pretty much any subject. When she thought she had all the information she needed for the moment she promised Elle that she wouldn't bug her again, at least not until she got some rest. Of course, Elle was very gracious about answering each and every question thoroughly. Nina appreciated it beyond measure and apparently their discussion had inspired some writing inspiration of its own for Elle who claimed to now have an idea for a story of her own. Nina couldn't wait to read it. Elle and Tee were both fantastic writers.
As it turned out the next few days were, surprise, exactly like all the other days before them. Nina wondered if she would ever get her current story completed, it just didn't seem to be working at the moment. Depressing to say the least. It was the fourth in her series and it just wasn't moving along at all. She knew a lot of people were looking forward to it, and didn't want to disappoint them. She hoped it wouldn't be too full of suck once it was completed.
On Tuesday, Nina heard a truck and opened the door, it wasn't the delivery van, it was only the neighbors. Figures, she thought.
Her husband looked up from his computer. “Looking for something?”
“Yeah,” She took her usual seat and refreshed her email. “Elle said to watch for something yesterday or today...”
“Oh...” He smiled and nodded. “What?”
“She didn't say,” she shrugged, “I guess it's a surprise.”
He laughed, “Okay then.”
Glancing at her surprisingly bright computer screen, Nina grinned. “Speak of the devil.” Opening the message she nodded and relayed the new information to her husband. “Elle says tracking puts the package arriving in two days.”
“Cool.” He turned back to his computer screen once again absorbed in whatever it is he did.
Replying to the message, Nina thanked Elle again for the unknown item, because in all the emails Elle had always referred to the thing as singular. Again she was glad for the heads up because they had dinner with her mother-in-law scheduled and she didn't want the package sitting outside in the bitter cold and snow. Now she didn't have to worry about it. All she had to worry about was dealing with her mother-in-law, which was enough to give her another stroke, if she were to think about it too hard.
The rest of the day went as normal, trying to write, getting minimal housework done, picking up her daughter from school... then came preparation for mother-in-law's arrival. Frantic cleaning, on her husband's part, vacuuming, spraying air freshener, he even cleaned the litter box. Nina began unloading the clean dishes from the dishwasher and reloading it with the dirty ones that had been piled in the sink, knowing that was something that needed done anyway. As it turned out there was too much ice and snow packed on the driveway so Mother didn't even come inside, she just made her way around the car to the backseat, so that her son could drive and she could sit with the grand-daughter on the way to the restaurant. Nina was, as always, invisible.
Dinner wasn't a total disaster, the steak was good and the vegetables were cooked well, not too firm, not too mushy. Stress was kept to a minimum and Nina mostly just people watched and made up a few new characters to hold in check in her head until they were needed somewhere in a story. She did that a lot, she'd always done that, she guessed it was why there were so many voices in her head. Writing helped her make them quiet, putting them into a story helped. She tried not to think about what was going to happen when she wasn't able to do that anymore, when her computer finally just gave out.
Dinner was good, but after she returned home Nina wasn't feeling so well. She took her evening meds and barely looked at the story file before shutting down the computer. A quick goodnight to her daughter and husband was all it took and she was crawling into bed, hoping for dreams to use in a story or two or maybe she just wanted to hold on to the eighty percent she had left of THE dream. Closing her eyes, she thought of how great it would be to actually have a book with her name on it. Knowing that it was most likely not going to happen, but still, nights were for dreams, right? So she tried, closing her eyes, thinking about what it might possibly be like to be able to write legitimately, even though the next morning, she knew, would be exactly the same as always.
And she was right, waking at the same time she always did, she went through her morning rituals and made her way to the living room where her dying little computer rested on it's little table. Turning it on, she went to the kitchen to start the water for her coffee. Standing and waiting for the water to boil was not an option, her back wouldn't let her do that without causing her leg to go numb, so she went and sat in front of her computer, as always. Curious, she moved the cursor over the battery icon and nodded to herself. Sixty nine percent... yep, that sounds about right. Opening the story files, she looked at the blankness and sighed, scrolling back a few pages to read and try to get back into the story. When she got to the end, she realized the water was boiling and went to make her coffee. She didn't feel very well this morning either, her head was hurting slightly, probably from too much sleep. Going to bed early wasn't really a good thing to do. It meant she'd gotten almost eight hours of sleep in a row. Three or four hours more than normal. Odd that she still felt tired.
Sipping her coffee she stared at the blankness then carefully saved the file and opened a window for email. Three messages... Hmmm... let's see... It was a game she played with the loading page, trying to guess what the emails were. Sam's Club, Hallmark, I can enlarge my penis... The screen refreshed and she actually chuckled. “Ah, of course.” The local casino boat was advertising their schedule for the month, not that she had any interest in wasting money she didn't have. No gambling for her right now. She did like the one armed bandits but was realistic enough to know when not to throw her money away.
The other two were just junk, winning the English lottery was amazing seeing as how she didn't live there and to her knowledge had never bought a ticket. And oh wow, she could get Viagra super cheap online... she was just SO glad to know that. Not! And with three clicks her inbox was once again, empty. Ah well, it's time to wake the girl anyway... and the routine played itself out as always ending up with her back in her seat in front of her little dying laptop, staring at the blankness.
Laying her head back she closed her eyes for a moment, she was just so tired... Bean jumped up next to her and woke her, her mouth was amazingly dry and she glanced at the clock. Wow, over an hour nap! She heard shuffling movements from the other room and was surprised and not when her husband appeared. “Good morning.”
“Mmmhmm... Good morning.” He went straight for his computer, which she couldn't blame him for, she did the same thing. The only difference with him was when he got up and went to the kitchen, he made himself a glass of chocolate milk, instead of coffee like she did.
“I'm going to go take a shower.” Nina commented, she hadn't had a shower this morning and now after her nap felt quite icky.
“Okay.”
She loved the shower, the massaging shower head let the water beat down on her back just where it hurt the most and it felt so very good. As she was leaning against the shower wall she thought she heard the rumble of a big truck, a delivery truck maybe, she mused and laughed at herself. Elle had said she tracked it and whatever it was she sent wouldn't be here until tomorrow. It was just the neighbors again.
When she finished up in the shower, she dressed in her regular hole-filled t-shirt and sweats, then, hair still wet she went back out into the living room. Deciding to be a little goofy she detoured to the front door and opened it.
Her husband asked. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, just checking...” she laughed. Her laughter died when he whispered. “It's on your seat.”
“What!?” she laughed. “I was just kidding, it's not supposed to be here until tomorrow, whatever it is...”
He was wide eyed and his voice remained a whisper. “I think I know what it is...”
“Yeah?” Nina laughed as she walked across the room, her laughter faded when she saw the box. Much to large to be DVD's She got a knife from the kitchen and sliced open the packing tape. Opening one flap of the outer box her hand stopped. She could see the box inside, the writing on it, the Nightmare Before Christmas font that HP had begun using for their logo and... knew... Oh my god... Opening the rest of the box she pulled the slightly smaller one out and couldn't believe it. There was no way, no way... She felt her husband move up behind her, his strong arms wrapping around her for support. She asked him quietly. “There is something else inside this box, isn't there?”
“No Sweetie...” He squeezed her and felt her trembling. “Are you okay?”
“No!” She looked at the box again and decided there was only one way to find out...she sliced the packing tape on this box and opening the flaps with trembling hands, sure enough, inside was a brand new laptop.
“Holy crap.” she couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it. There's been some kind of mistake...
Her husband helped her, gathering the cords and the battery from their protected sections of the box. The machine was cold, from being in the delivery truck and Nina knew she couldn't turn it on yet, not until it had warmed up to the room temperature of the house. Holy crap!
“I'm glad you got one, Sweetie...I wanted you to have one so bad...” He hugged her again. “I've been looking online for sales, every day.”
She just nodded as tears came to her eyes. He knew that she loved writing, but she didn't think he knew exactly how much it meant to her. How lost she would be without it. Now she had a new one! Holy Crap! She hugged him and cried a little bit, and wondered just a little, exactly how insane her online friends were.
Her husband installed the battery and plugged it in so that it at least would be charging. Now she had things to do, lunch, go get the girl child from school, the store... and all she wanted to do was stay home and look at the new computer. Holy Crap!
By the time she got home it was dinnertime, she ate fairly quickly and finally it was time. Pulling the shiny new computer to her lap, Nina pushed the button. Holy Crap! It's so quiet, she fit her fingers to the keyboard, tears springing to her eyes as she realized this was almost exactly like the one she 'visited' when she went to Walmart. Holy Crap! It was perfect.
Nina went through all the steps her husband instructed her to do for setting up the machine. It was so beautiful, and quiet, and she still didn't quite believe it. It was one in the morning and finally admitting defeat Nina started to close down the computer when an icon in the corner of her screen caught her attention. Hesitating for a moment, she moved the cursor over the tiny image of a battery and tears sprang to her eyes again.
One Hundred Percent, fully charged..... Yep, that sounds about right.