Page 141 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Word Game

If only he hadn’t saved the story on disk, George thought,
as he turned the computer on. He could have been done with
it. But now he had to decide whether writing precisely 1500
words was significant since, if he retained the original version
of the story, he would have to somehow write less than he had
originally planned (though it wouldn’t be measurable) because
he had extended (or reduced) his original story to accommo-
date the first ending. Perhaps, he thought, he should back up
to the point where the power went out and delete his original
closing paragraphs? But that would destroy the irony of it all.
(1174 words)
At this point, George was beginning to feel a certain anx-
iety about submitting his story, so he poured himself a drink
(brandy). It took several minutes for the alcohol to take effect,
but soon George felt himself leaning (literally) into the com-
puter at the story he had written. What, he asked himself, was
his original intent? Fair enough, he thought. His original idea
was to produce a short short story of exactly 1500 words to
submit to a magazine competition. Through no fault of his
own, he was thwarted in his attempt and produced instead a
manuscript of 780 words that was well within the limits of the
rules, and perhaps succeeded even better than he had originally
anticipated at focusing on the problems of writing a successful
short short story. (1307 words)
At this point, in George’s mind, there was only one thing
he could do: forgo the competition and eliminate every shred
of evidence that his story ever existed. Destroy the printed ver-
sion. Erase the file from the computer’s hard drive (not with
just an ordinary delete, but a complete erase). But even that
wouldn’t do. In order to really get rid of every trace of the

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