Project Backwards; Chapter Fourteen

A Chapter by Michael Stevens

Chapter Fourteen:

Steve swam towards the light, and found himself in a house full of outdated computers. He was sleeping on the floor; why? he didn’t have a clue. Just then, an pimple-faced youth Steve didn’t recognize came through the door.

“Up and at ‘em, Steve. Look, I’m glad you decided to spend the night, but my parents are both pissed. They think you’re the reason I’m so obsessed with computers; when in truth, it’s all I’ve been interested in for years; ever since I saw one at school. You and I need to finish working on our program that automatically formats a letter. We need to figure out what to call it.”

“Well, how about something simple, like Write?”

“Write? What are you, three? Come on, use that tiny brain of yours!”

Steve got angry, “What? It’s simple, so people will remember it, and that’s the most important thing.”

“People also remember the word ‘crayons’, but you would hardly expect a serious adult to use them, or a computer program called “Write”, Come on, Steve!”

Well, at least he’d tried. “Have it your way, but I still believe that name would be best.”

“Okay, there, Steve; I’ll think about calling it ‘Write’, okay? If I don’t think of something better, like ‘Automatically Formatting Letter Deal’, I’ll use ‘Write’.”

Steve saw the look on the guy’s face, and could tell what he thought of his idea.

The guy said, “You know, I wish someone would invent an easy way for me to access free porn. Keeping these magazines hidden from my parents is tough!”

“I predict, that one day soon, someone will invent an ‘information super-highway’ that let users access information about anything, not just porn.”

“Oh, you predict? No offense, but who the hell are you? A guy who sleeps on his friend’s bedroom floor because his friend’s parents give him food? Imagine, a way to access any information in the world; talk about a pipe dream! All I’d like is an easier way to get porn, and Steve here is thinking ‘encyclopedia’!”

A little while later, Steve was using the restroom, and when he came out, he heard talking coming from the kitchen. He thought he should stop by and say hello. Maybe he’d get some kind of clue who his friend was. As he approached the door of the kitchen, he heard,

“...freeloading b*****d! Why Skip is friends with that loser freak is beyond me!”

“Now Dave, you shouldn’t judge him that way, although I’ll admit, I just don’t get it either!”

Steve decided not to go in and say hello. He tiptoed back down the hall, and climbed the stairway to this Skip’s bedroom. He suddenly wished the upstairs bathroom wasn’t out of order.

He reentered Skip’s bedroom, and said, “You know Skip, I don’t think your parents like me very much.” He expected a denial, but heard,

“You can say that again; they view you as some sort of sponge, taking advantage of me!”

Well, they see me as a sponge, do they? I wish I knew who I was supposedly sponging off!

“Come on Steve, let’s just get to work. The sooner we get this program done, the sooner we can snort the last of the crank I invented!”

A little while later, Skip said, “Well, screw this fricking hunk of s**t! I can’t figure this thing out; I can’t make the cursor work! I say the hell with this; let’s get high! There’s a guy at my school who’s always working on computers too, but Bill seems to know what he’s doing, unlike me; I’ll leave computers to someone else, and stick to what I’m good at, crank!”

Steve knew he should get out of there. Suddenly, figuring out who this guy was wasn’t important. “Get me out of here!” he shouted, and he heard Skip reply,

“I’m sorry if I’m so fricking boring...” before everything went black.

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