A day in the life, part the second

The door closes behind the departing tech writer. I smile. This will be an easy job. Due at the end of the week or he can't take his scheduled vacation...a Carribean cruise. For singles. I daresay he fell behind on this project because of spending too much work time on the net looking at, well, "inappropriate" sites. Not the first time one of my work-at-home clients has had that problem.

He's left me with two CDs (Note: CDs!). One contains the manual he's almost completed, all his background information, and an actual project plan. The other contains recorded demos. Oh, I do love tech writers. All I have to do is finish his PowerPoint training presentations. All in a day's work. I smile in satisfaction.

Then my eye catches the floppy disk left by Humbar. My good mood dissipates. I might as well read the manuscript now; putting it off won't make it any better.

Chapter One

My mother was committed to a psychiatric hospital for a few days when she was 18.

Oh, dear god in heaven. Humbar is getting worse! Has he started drinking? What kind of first sentence is that? I read on.

But her father had her released. Something about insurance not paying for it. Then she met my dad and they ran off and got married. I was born in 1973, the oldest child. Then my brothers came along in 1975 and 1978. Mom and Dad loved them more. They were boys. Mom and Dad kept me in a cage. I don’t know why.

I sigh and wonder what it is, after all, that attracts me to this job. I should keep reading, get acquainted with the whole story, but I can't help it: I open a new file, this one formatted correctly (unlike Humbar's) and start typing.

I sat pressed against the bars of my cage, as near to the Christmas tree as I could get. Mom had just turned on the lights, and the sparkles of the bright colours from the tinsel made me smile. I hid that smile behind my hand. If Mom saw that I was happy, She would throw the cover back over the cage, and I wouldn’t be able to watch my brothers open their gifts.

They were still young enough to believe in Santa Claus, but I knew better. There couldn’t be a Santa Claus, because if there was, I wouldn’t live in this cage; I’d live in a fairy castle somewhere far, far away.

All right. Certainly not the final product, but good enough to be getting on with for now. Fearing my eyes will be bleeding long before I finish, I read on.