She furtively looked to the left… nobody there. To the right… no, no one there either. Maybe just a little one would be ok. Just enough to stop the shakes. It needn’t take long, she thought guiltily. I can get back to work later, it’ll wait a bit. And besides, I’ll probably work better if I can settle my mind on it…
She knew she was just making excuses, like she always had. She knew she should do something about her addiction, but… it felt so good. And it wasn’t like she did it _all_ the time. She could stop anytime she wanted, really. If she wanted…
Hunching closer to the keyboard, she opened Word and typed a sentence. She quickly looked around again. No. No one had seen. Feeling emboldened, she typed two sentences in a row. Her eyes slid left, right… still clear.
She hunched again. The jones had her now. Feverishly, she began to construct whole paragraphs, lost herself in the flow of the words until a sound behind her brought her up short…ALT-TAB!! The FreeCell screen replaced the MS Word program on the monitor. She tried to appear nonchalant, casual, as she looked around. That had been close! Her husband walked by on his way to the coffeepot.
“Whatcha doin?”
“Oh, just taking a little break. You know, just a quick game.” She was proud of the way she’d kept the tremor out of her voice, the naked need to get back to the words from her face. “You?”
“Oh, just working a bit, reading a bit. You know.”
“Oh, ok.” She waited while he filled his cup, and headed back to his upstairs office. ‘Well, see ya.” She waited a few more minutes, just to be sure, then ALT-TABbed back to the Word document. She read what she’d typed, getting her mind back to that state of altered consciousness she needed to satisfy her craving.
She began typing again, faster now, desperate to finish before another interruption made her stop. Made her wait. She typed, and typed. Lost in the words, the sentences, the Story.
The fix was close, now. A few more sentences.
“The End,” she typed.
She read what she’d written. She felt the rush begin, and sat back in her chair, waiting, waiting, for it to flow over her, to nourish her, to complete the experience, to make it real, and good.
Sometime later, she looked at the clock.
_Damn!_ Another day lost to Story.
