Writer Unblocked

Hacked

By Rachel H Grant

The computer screen winked quietly, but there was no one to see.

*

Larry opened his laptop, plugged in his password and smiled slyly. His grey eyes shone as he stroked his ash blond beard. Let the game begin …

*

Annabel’s fingers paused, resting on the keyboard as her head caught up, panting, with her imagination. She had found the golden password to unleashing creativity. At times she felt as if she were turning in to the old woman, the narrator of her novel. In her sleep, she dreamt with the subconscious of another.

Annabel fingered her fiery auburn hair and sighed. Tears formed in her green eyes, doors to a writer’s mind, simple and profound married to a mix of future plots.

The fictional Francis had achieved a worthwhile life; of course, like Annabel, a teacher, rising to headmistress and gently inspiring generation after generation. However Francis’ job was merely a futile flirtation at meaning to life. All she wanted was to fill the void left by her dead husband.

Annabel lifted her fingers and began to type. She owed it to Francis, an invisible debt to an imaginary friend who lived only within the stark black times new roman characters on her screen. She owed it to herself, for the heart that cried inside for something more. She owed it to no one.

The laptop purred beneath her fingers, a hidden world behind its screen, a mutating mind on standby.

*

Larry laughed out loud. The three other Web Unweaved members joined him, evil in empathy.

“It shouldn’t be so easy. So many idiots, they lock their front door every day when they go to work, but have no idea how to protect their computer, inviting burglary in the virtual world by nothing more than sheer stupidity.”

Alec joined in. “Imagine using the same password for ALL your accounts. The children of the world have been let out after dark. Idiots!”

Alec’s ginger unkempt hair swayed in time to his chuckles, a halo of glee.

“What’s the target tonight?” Larry was serious again. He loved this game. He was in it to win. Redundancy had been the joker card for him, leading to a tomorrow of crime, a dark tunnel to virtual pennies and victorious punishment.

He smiled once more. Revenge on the world, so sweet, his heart coding in time to his thief’s fingers. For some things, there was Mastercard. For everything else, the rich spoils of cybercrime. A game with no end square; he would just keep on going round the board, clutching his get out of jail card. It shouldn’t be this easy.

The ipad came alive to the crunch of crime, an innocent accomplice within an invisible net.

*

Francis knew sleep would evade her tonight, an elusive criminal that could not be caught. She was in a game with no rules, designed by a madman. The password to peace deleted.

His name was James. A fleeting romance swept aside by a fierce Mother Fate. He never returned from the Second World War. She had known him so little, a mere shadow, a cobweb of dusty memory stitched in to fantasy, a character in an unread novel.

She had started to write a romance, their lives as they could have been. So much fun at the end of her biro pen. She could be who she wanted to be, believe her own fantasy, breathe its lies and hide from the biggest lie of all: that she was dying.

Annabel stopped typing, a smile dying on her lips at the thought of writing Francis’ romance. She herself had never married, but her first love was still there, a prisoner in the stone dungeon of her heart. One day she would remember, but not now.

The laptop waited for her fingers to connect again, purring with hidden promise, silent witness to the story.

*

Larry smiled. Life should not be this fun. Effortlessly he unlocked online accounts, entered another’s virtual world and, invisible, invincible, stole their banking details. So easy, so much fun.

A click of his mouse and he was there. Behind the badly locked door, its flimsy password falling off as he knocked. Words appeared, another world, espionage uncovering an enigma.

Francis held the notepad to her heart as if it could save it from breaking. Invisible, inside lived James. Their love raged through its pages, a fire uniting the past and present, fantasy and reality. Her cancer, her impending death, all burned to ashes by the hungry flames. A love that would burn forever, through all time and no time, alive in the written word.

Larry gulped. He had not seen this before. An unborn novel before his eyes. This could be interesting. He read on.

Francis continued to write, words dancing like deranged ballerinas, pirouetting their way in to the plot and choreographing a better ending. The story had taken over from real life.

Perhaps this was where she would go when she died, the heaven of her story, her own little world.

Pain shot up her middle, and she groaned. But the story did not stop, words forming a river, running through her body and drowning the pain.

Annabel paused. Was her story making sense? Thank goodness no one was looking over her shoulder, reading the infant book as it birthed from somewhere deep in her mind, a labour of literary fire.

Larry watched as the words halted. This was fun no more.

Annabel recommenced typing. This would not be fun much longer. The story could not have a happy ending.

It would stop like her own life: at a dead end. The difference was that Francis’ story really would stop, a tragedy and romance intertwined. Perhaps she should attempt the ending now, before she changed her mind.

She opened a new Word document and saved it as “the end.”

Francis lay still as stone. She could feel her fantasy world, so close. Sometimes she wondered if she had died already, but then she would wake to shooting pain, a grim reminder of the ugliness of reality. But her heart was already somewhere else, beating in her make believe world.

She had written the ending to her romance two days before. “James and Francis sat on the riverside together, arms intertwined. A tangible silence spoke of all the words unsaid. The mute words of a phantom future, the dream beating in their hearts. They watched the river winding towards its future, towards an ending that never came, time that looped and looped as the river just went on going. Perhaps this could be their future, an infinity that just drifted slowly on, healing waters of a tomorrow that would never be born. Perhaps this was all that is, that ever would be. Perhaps their river would never dry, a story that would sing forever from the pages of a long lost romance. They could feel their forever, it was now, it was here. Love would vanquish all tomorrows and turn them in to this perfect today, a day that danced in an eternity where the stars wait for a tomorrow that never comes.”

Francis closed her eyes. Her body pulsed with pain, an unruly teenager that would not allow peace. She breathed deeply and calmly as she fell asleep. Then she was there, with James on the riverbank. Her body was young, the twenty year old she had been when he went to war. She laughed at the absurdity of being there, after all these years reunited, even if it were only a dream. And as her sleeping self laughed, her body relaxed, taking its last breath. Peace painted her face with indelible make-up. In the fantasy world, she continued to laugh. And then she was really there, looking at a river, wondering where it was going – where she was going. “Francis.” She turned. It was James, just as he had looked last time she had seen him. She smiled, and in her dreams eternity bloomed, a flower that would never die.

The still face of the old lady did not stir, as the clock in the room seemed to tick louder. It was all time, it was no time, it was her time. It was the ending that comes to us all.

Annabel stopped typing, a smile on her face. Invisible eyes read her words, as a hidden heart began to beat with love.

Weeks went by. Finally, the novel was finished. But was it any good? She was so glad that no one else had seen it so far.

She would leave it for a week and then let the editing begin. A sense of accomplishment enfolded her. She had actually written a novel!

*

She had actually written a novel! Larry could not stop thinking of this unseen woman he had so relentlessly spied upon. Slowly, an idea formed in his head. His laptop confronted him, proclaiming hidden possibilities. He laughed.

He opened “the end” and began to type.

Francis lay still as stone. She could feel her fantasy world, so close. But she must get up. Today was the beginning of her new experimental treatment. A new cancer drug trial, and she had been only too happy to sign up. What harm could it do? She was dying after all.

She attended the clinic and was given the bright orange pills, the colour of mini suns. Perhaps they would burn her cancer cells.

As the weeks went by she began to feel better. Then came the tests. It really was a miracle! The cancer was in remission.

Six months later, she was free of cancer.

She had also finished her novel. It went on to become a best-seller. Her memories of James receded. Perhaps one day she would see him. But not yet. There was still too much of life left to enjoy.

A happy ever after beckoned.

Larry laughed, stroking his beard. He was in this to win. He checked Annabel’s letters folder, and googled all the literary agencies there to find out which was the most prestigious. Hopefully they would be easy to hack.

*

Annabel submitted a final query email with a smile on her face. Her manuscript was en route to several literary agencies! She should don the rejection-warming jacket, she knew, but she could not resist daring, just daring, to hope.

She walked home with a spring in her step. Let the writer’s game begin, please let her win the password to publication!

*

Julie glanced through “A War Romance” with slowly dimming interest, and then chucked it on to the slush pile. “Next!”

Two days later, she was surprised to receive an email from the author, apparently delighted to work with the Writers and Wonders agency. She checked her sent emails. It was there, clear as writer’s block and just as annoying. She had emailed an acceptance, obviously by mistake. Oh dear. She retrieved the novel from the slush pile. They would make this work, with a bit of re-editing.

*

The police van slid up to Larry’s house. He had been waiting for it; he had dropped his get out of jail card some time ago.

*

Annabel jumped up and down. She was going to be published! Francis had won in the end, her story would be known.

*

The laptop hummed its quiet lullaby, but there was no one to hear. Code cracked silently behind its screen. A novel published that a world wanted to hear; a computer career that died with a decisive good deed. Inside a book flicked its pages to a new ending, but there was no one to see. The invisible web breathed, and distant dreams were born.