A simple contract
By T B Terral
I look at the clock. Eleven forty five a.m.
Sunday.
I scurry about to find my adipad. I find it peeking out from under a pile of old bills. I push in the button on the top that powers it up. A circle with a crossed out lightning bolt appears.
Like everything else this week I had forgotten to charge it. I had forgotten to write a story, I had forgotten to continue writing on any of my episodic pieces.
I rush to the ancient p.c in the neglected office. It's covered in dust. I press the button and a gentle hum emanates from the small black box as well as a warm glow from the flat screen monitor.
"Log in to Adi Web Services" is splashed across the screen. Two spaces under the welcome screen have User name and password with blank spaces next to each to input the proper answers. I type in terralthewriter@Adiws.com on the first line followed by *************** on the next line.
User not found, login/password mismatch. I begin to panic, the clock on the bottom of the p.c reads eleven fifty five. In a flurry I retry the login and password with the same result.
"Arrrgh!" I exclaim to no one and the entire universe.
I rush out of the office back to the living room, grabbing my phone. I click the picture of before the dawn on my screen and it opens my website. I maneuver to the first page and read it out loud to myself. "A new story every Sunday at noon". That was it. No obscure clauses, terms or conditions. A simple contract signed in digital blood. The clock on my phone changes from eleven fifty nine a.m. to twelve noon as I'm watching it. My hands tremble as I hold my phone. I glance at the subscriber count. Before my eyes the subscribers double, then triple. I watch in awe, silent and dumbfounded. One hundred thousand subscriptions in less than a minute. My alerts start going off. Comments on my page "where's today's story?!" "We were promised a new story every Sunday at noon!" A few people wondering if I was okay, a majority expressing outrage over not having a story delivered today, despite not reading years worth of material on the site. Obscenities quickly becoming the norm. Then the "unsubscribe" begins. I watch in horror as the numbers drop exponentially. Even long time subscribers leave, until there's only one sub left, and it's myself.
I, too, click the unsubscribe button. I had broken the simple contract.
The end.
This story is basically "to thine own self be true". It's extremely literal. Virtually all the events happened in real time. I wrote it in fifteen minutes and had it published by noon. Of course I didn't see an increase in subscriptions, but that's not the point. I fulfilled the very simple contract with myself.