Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 11:01:46 -0600 From: Robyn Herrington Organization: University of Calgary Subject: [WRITERS] SUB: CONTEST-HALLOWEEN: PROMPT Here's our second entry in the contest. COME ON YOU GUYS -- let's get the ball rolling! You only have until October 15th to send me your Halloween story submissions! Robyn --------------------------------------------- PROMPT Lori held her finger poised over the switch on her new computer, savoring the moment. Everything was hooked up, plugged in and ready to go. She could hardly believe her luck, finding such a wonderful computer, already loaded with software, at such a bargain price. Why, it was almost as if this computer had been waiting for her to come along! She switched it on, and listened to the hum as it powered up. The early screens came and went so quickly she could barely register them. New technology is certainly amazing, she thought. And isn t it funny how the mind struggles to process things it doesn t quite perceive. She thought there was some kind of face on one of those screens, looking at her, but of course there couldn t have been. Her brain undoubtedly tried to fit whatever icons or graphics had been on that screen into some recognizable pattern. Probably the real pattern bore no resemblance to a face at all. She decided to start with the internet. Her old computer s modem had been impossibly slow, and she had spent half her time being directed to the plug in center, where she would be told, again and again, that she couldn t view this particular page because there was something her computer didn t have. Always, the plug-in she needed took up more space than she had on her computer, so the internet had turned into a series of frustrations for Lori. That would all change now. She couldn t remember how much disk space this computer had, but it was a lot, almost infinite. Certainly infinite compared to her old machine. The home page was a strange one. The background was white, and the letters appeared as quickly as she could read. Hello, Lori Shea, it said. The prompt blinked. How did it know my name? she wondered, slightly chilled. Perhaps she d registered when she bought the computer, or they d done something in the computer store. I will show you what you need to see, the screen said, as the first words vanished. Lori reached for the mouse, but the screen had already darkened. Slowly an image began to appear. She recognized the setting with a start: her boyfriend s apartment. Had Paul set this up? It was the sort of thing he would do, she thought, and sagged in relief. She hadn t realized till that second that she d been scared by that initial screen. Now it was all right. The image blurred, and then sharpened again. Now it showed Paul s bedroom, slowly panning around the walls as if it were an establishing shot in a movie. The scene stopped right before his bed appeared, and the magnification increased. Now, instead of seeing a whole wall, she saw his nightstand. She still couldn t figure out why she was seeing this, but she recognized his clock radio, his coffee cup which he always left there, his wallet. The familiar images lulled her into a feeling of security, until the condom package jolted her. The open condom package. The focus sharpened, so that Lori could see every detail with unusual sharpness. She hadn t even asked why he would have an open condom package on his nightstand before the picture shifted again. This time the view was from a distance, the other end of the room, and this time she could see the bed, and the bodies in it. Lori sat before the computer, her heart stopping. No, it couldn t be, this couldn t be real, it had to be a joke, but what a sick, ugly joke it was. Who would go to all the trouble of setting up an image of Paul vigorously rutting with another woman? A woman Lori recognized: that red hair, that tattoo. It had to be Valerie, that little bitch who worked with Paul. Lori wheeled her chair away from the computer table, shaken. A joke. It had to be a joke, she told herself. There was one way to find out. She reached over blindly to the side table and punched in Paul s number. The phone rang in the image on her screen. The woman reached one arm out of the bed and picked up the phone. Hello? Lori hung up. That was Valerie s voice, all right. She watched, dumbfounded, as the woman on the screen repeated her greeting a few times and then, shrugging, hung up. Her hands shaking, Lori brought her cursor to the button at the top of the screen, to take her to the previous page. In a second, she had returned to the page with her name. Did that bother you? the words appeared. A little box opened for her response. She knew the box hadn t been there the last time she d seen that screen. She couldn t understand what was happening, but perhaps there was someone behind that page who could explain it to her. Numbly, she wrote her response: Yes, that bothered me. Who are you? What is this all about? She hit send. The reply was instantaneous. You needed to know. There is more you need to know. She started to type in the box, No! Don t show me anything else like that! but before she had finished typing it, the screen dissolved, and a new screen appeared. This screen showed a memo on her company s letterhead. She frowned; the company had strict policies about confidentiality. If the big bosses found out that someone had been disseminating internal documents over the internet, there would be hell to pay. She probably shouldn t even read it. She hit the button to go back to the previous page, but nothing happened. The memo remained on her screen. Curious and a little unnerved, she started to read it. She recognized the sender, Pete Shore, her immediate manager. The recipients, Al Hintz and Mark Antonelli, were high up in the company s hierarchy, and Lori couldn t remember ever meeting them. Per our discussions about downsizing, the memo began ominously, I believe the following members of my department could be eliminated without any damage to the efficiency of the department. Her name blinked bright red in the middle of the list. She glanced up at the date, which was the next day. It hadn t even been sent internally yet, and it was already on the internet? She wanted to disbelieve it, but then she remembered the way Pete had been avoiding her the last few days, and the authenticity of the memo suddenly seemed much more likely. She grabbed the mouse again, but the screen had already changed. She was back at the home page again. That s not all, Lori, said the legend in the middle of the page. She wanted to tell it to stop, but there was no place for her response. As the screen darkened again, she clicked on the x at the upper right hand corner of the screen, to close out the program. Nothing happened. She sent the cursor down to the bottom of the screen, to break her connection with the internet. Nothing happened. Fine, thought Lori, as the screen began to change again. There are other ways to deal with this. She switched off the monitor. The screen remained lit. She smashed the off switch on the computer itself. Nothing happened. She could still hear the hum of the central processor. This couldn t be happening, she thought, but now panic choked her. She dived under the table and wrestled the plug out of the outlet. That should shut this damn thing up, she thought. She climbed up and looked at the screen. To her horror, it remained lit. More than that, it now depicted another page, as if she had done nothing to interfere with it at all. The page was titled What I Think of Lori Shea. She stared at it for a few seconds, willing her vision to refocus and show her something normal, something that made sense to her. The letters were dark and blocky. They didn t change. A joke, she thought. But she couldn t convince herself. Nobody would do this much for a joke. Nobody hated her that much, she told herself frantically. Without entirely willing it, she started to read the page. There were several boxes, as if a group of e-mails had been posted on one page. She s such a hypocrite, said the first one. Lori caught her breath, shaken. She wants everybody to think she s so competent and clever, but she takes credit for whatever anyone else does that works, and she passes the blame as fast as she can when she does something wrong, which happens a lot more often than she ll admit. The note was signed Sylvia Pelleas. My office mate, thought Lori, staring at the name and seeing Sylvia smiling at her in what she d thought was a friendly way. She s fat and ugly, said the next one. And you wouldn t believe how bad she is in bed! She just lies there, and makes you do all the work, and god forbid you don t give her pleasure! She acts like it s all your responsibility. I m glad to be rid of the bitch. It was signed Lou Allmani. Lori pulled her chair back, her face burning, as if he d reached through the computer and slapped her in the face. He d never said anything like that to me when we were going out, she thought. She could hardly believe it now. She doesn t really care about anyone but herself. I can t remember the last time she called me, just to see how I am or what s going on. No, now that she s this hotshot corporate whiz, her family s nothing to her. Ungrateful, selfish girl. She didn t get that from my side of the family. No, Mom, don t, said Lori aloud, tears in her eyes. She kept telling herself it couldn t be for real, but the tone was too perfect. Nobody could imitate her mother, and her former boyfriend, and her coworker with such precision. But how would anyone get them to write such things? And why? Lori rocked back and forth in her chair, hugging herself. She scrolled down the page, and then stopped with a jolt at the bottom. There was a counter, showing the number of visitors to this page. Fairly standard stuff for a web page, in her experience. But this one struck her as horrible, obscene. It showed 6,843 visitors. The number rose as she clicked on it. She checked the cords to be sure that the computer was still unplugged. It shouldn t still be working, except that it was. I don t want to see any more, she thought. She lunged for the door of the room, but it wouldn t open. It wasn t locked, as far as she could tell, but when she turned the knob, nothing happened. She rattled the door in its frame, pounding it with her fists. She could feel the walls shaking, but she couldn t hear anyone outside in the hall. I could do this for days, she thought, and her heart slammed in her chest. The change of the screen caught her eye. She turned quickly to see what horrors it would display now. There was an image of her, slumped down by the door, sobbing, her clothes ragged, her hair ratty, as if she had been there for days. Oh, my God, thought Lori, hypnotized. That s what I was imagining just now. It s on the screen. My thoughts are on that screen. The words scrolled across the screen as she thought them. Lori took a step back. The screen showed violent images of Lori with an ax in her hand, smashing the computer with all her strength, shards of glass and pieces of plastic flying around the room. Then it showed itself, still displaying despite the destruction. No, thought Lori, and the word No appeared on the screen. There were voices coming out of the computer, voices she recognized. To think I d chosen this partly for its excellent sound system, she thought wildly, covering her ears against the voices. Did you see that site? Did you hear what she was thinking about when she was in that meeting? said Peter s voice. Man, I thought I was the only one who thought she was a loser in the sack, said Paul s voice. And she seemed like such a nice woman, too, said the voice of one of Lori s neighbors. But then I saw what was on that web page, and I couldn t believe such filth could come from such a normal looking person. Lori screamed to drown out the sounds. The screen started to display the faces of the people who were talking, their expressions shocked, horrified, angry. Just the way I picture them, she thought, just the way I know they would look if they really were seeing all this and hearing all this. Something caught her attention at the bottom of the screen. Despite her better judgment, she glanced at it. This counter of visitors to the site showed 21,976. She couldn t stand it anymore. She rattled the door and kicked it, to no avail. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw the image of the door rupturing on the screen. No, she thought, as the words scrolled across the screen. There has to be a way out, there has to be some escape. She tried every control on the computer, detaching all the parts from each other, but nothing made any difference. She couldn t get out of that page, even with the back button. Finally Lori didn t know whether she thought of it first or saw it first on the screen, but she thought of the window. The window opposite her computer. The window that looked down on the street eight stories below. The window wasn t locked. She couldn t lock the window. The lock was broken. She turned her back on the computer, and wrenched at the window sash with all her might, hearing the creak of the wood amplified by the computer. She threw the screen up, and then launched herself out the window. Though Lori never saw it, the computer screen went dark and silent after she hit. * * * * * Susan chortled to herself as she carried the box in from her car. She could hardly believe her luck, finding such a wonderful computer, already loaded with software, at such a bargain price. Why, it was almost as if this computer had been waiting for her to come along! THE END -- =====================***********======================= Robyn Herrington rmherrin@ucalgary.ca Editor: New Currents in Teaching and Learning/InfoServe University of Calgary Ph: 220-2561 Leadership lifts a person's vision to higher sites, raises a person's performance to higher standards, and builds a personality beyond its normal limitations - Peter Drucker =====================************======================