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UNDO
#WritcoStoryPrompt125
Write a short story about how much easier it is to fix mistakes on a word processor or computer than it is in real life.
I'm a writer. A struggling one, but a writer still. My name's Emilia Aurelia Duarté but everyone just calls me Emilie.
It's 3:40 in the morning and everyone in my apartment building is probably asleep but here I am trying to get in touch with my inner emotion and human depth and lest I forget empathy.
Total bull.
But Harold, my publisher who is also my editor and my friend, disagrees. I don't even know if I could call him my publisher; after all, he never once published any of my stories but he also never told me to rewrite any. So, I'll take it as a win, even if it a small and not to mention very tedious one. His words were; 'Emilie, oh you're so dark! I mean, one person could have been happy. Aren't you happy?'
That got to me. That's why I'm redoing it; for me not him.
Now I wish I hadn't agreed because I don't think Jeremy should be happy after getting a new life with his new woman after cheating on his ex who was a drug dealer who did cheat on him with his father's secretary, Tyrone, who had no money to pay for his sister's cancer treatment. Same sister who used him all his life because she hated he was the golden child.
So yeah. Jeremy should not be happy. But he needs to be for me to be.
The issue I now faced was whether or not to let Jeremy's daughter live or to give him triplets instead. Encanto style.
I highlighted the whole scene of the birth of his first child, determined to change it all. Leave it to computers to be confusing, I highlighted the whole thing, the whole story, thw whole book.
I don't know if it was the too much coffee I had or the fact that it was so late but trying to adjust how much I highlighted, I clicked the space bar.
Click...space...
The space bar.
The freaking space bar!
The next thing I knew my work was gone.
A whole six hundred and thirty four (634) pages of sadness and trauma and depth and pain and loss and cringe. All gone, it was my baby.
Sorry to my other works, no discrimination to my other children especially my first, but it was the first that Harold ever took a chance on.
I panicked, cried, listened to Juice Wurld for like 30 minutes straight then called Harold to cry and ask for another chance.
He picked up. I actually was hoping that He wouldn't. What would a 33-year old Irish male publisher be doing by - I checked my teacup clock hanging at the other side of the room - 4:02 am?
"What's up?", he answered, rather alert.
"You're awake?"
"Yup. Gotta get up, get going."
"Huh-uh."
"Don't you start work like around 9?"
"You called?", he replied, circling the question back to me.
"Promise not to be mad", I answered like a schoolgirl about to tell her mum why she failed American history.
I told him all about the story mishap and he laughed.
I was about as confused as a water pot being used to hold sand like a fire bucket.
"This is no joke", I said above his laughter fighting the irritation that I could feel cooking up despite it being my fault.
He kept on laughing and I knew he won't stop until he got it all out.
When he finally calmed, he asked me, "Have you clicked the undo button?"
"Undo?" I was confused.
"Yeah, undo. Like, uhm, Ctrl+Z?"
"Ctrl+Z, oh Ctrl+Z! Undo, redo all-do!"
I clicked it and it worked. 634 pages of talent brought back to my screen.
Woo-hoo!
"It's good you didn't close your word app 'cause then it wouldn't have worked. Although, I still don't get how you didn't know that about the undo button." He said whilst chuckles.
I knew about the undo button. I just forgot but I didn't bother to explain that to Harold the IT boss over here so I just ended the call.
As I stared back at my two years of hard work on my screen formerly washed away but brought back to life by a single click, I wondered why I didn't have such a tool for my life.
There was so many things I wanted to take back; things I wished I never said, or did or listened to or even felt. So much regret going on.
There is so much I want to turn back the hands of the clock for. So much much I want to change and undo and twist and switch and redo. From things like forgetting to check the stew until it burnt to checking up on my grandma everyday before she died to wishing I had said yes to Ralph when he proposed.
I want to undo all the wrong things and redo them to right, to perfect.
Ralph was the man of my dreams, the love of my life. We were polar opposites but yet we loved each other in an inexplicable way. He was going to move to South Africa and I wanted to stay in America. Not like there's much to show for it now. Our parents hated each other as well as us. His parents hated me and my parents and vice versa.
I wish I went with him, I wish I said yes. I wish I didn't let logic and fear cloud my heart and my parents cloud my judgement.
Now he's married to some South African chick called Bonolo. How can I compete with Bonolo and the three stunning children that she now has for him?
I can't. I can't go back in time to say yes and I certainly can't live in South Africa. I can't go running into his arms begging him to take me back, not 12 years after he gave me a chance and I was too scared to commit.
Let Bonolo have Ralph. I'll have Harold when I give Jeremy here, the happy life I should have allowed myself to lead.
© Olatona Fortune I.
Write a short story about how much easier it is to fix mistakes on a word processor or computer than it is in real life.
I'm a writer. A struggling one, but a writer still. My name's Emilia Aurelia Duarté but everyone just calls me Emilie.
It's 3:40 in the morning and everyone in my apartment building is probably asleep but here I am trying to get in touch with my inner emotion and human depth and lest I forget empathy.
Total bull.
But Harold, my publisher who is also my editor and my friend, disagrees. I don't even know if I could call him my publisher; after all, he never once published any of my stories but he also never told me to rewrite any. So, I'll take it as a win, even if it a small and not to mention very tedious one. His words were; 'Emilie, oh you're so dark! I mean, one person could have been happy. Aren't you happy?'
That got to me. That's why I'm redoing it; for me not him.
Now I wish I hadn't agreed because I don't think Jeremy should be happy after getting a new life with his new woman after cheating on his ex who was a drug dealer who did cheat on him with his father's secretary, Tyrone, who had no money to pay for his sister's cancer treatment. Same sister who used him all his life because she hated he was the golden child.
So yeah. Jeremy should not be happy. But he needs to be for me to be.
The issue I now faced was whether or not to let Jeremy's daughter live or to give him triplets instead. Encanto style.
I highlighted the whole scene of the birth of his first child, determined to change it all. Leave it to computers to be confusing, I highlighted the whole thing, the whole story, thw whole book.
I don't know if it was the too much coffee I had or the fact that it was so late but trying to adjust how much I highlighted, I clicked the space bar.
Click...space...
The space bar.
The freaking space bar!
The next thing I knew my work was gone.
A whole six hundred and thirty four (634) pages of sadness and trauma and depth and pain and loss and cringe. All gone, it was my baby.
Sorry to my other works, no discrimination to my other children especially my first, but it was the first that Harold ever took a chance on.
I panicked, cried, listened to Juice Wurld for like 30 minutes straight then called Harold to cry and ask for another chance.
He picked up. I actually was hoping that He wouldn't. What would a 33-year old Irish male publisher be doing by - I checked my teacup clock hanging at the other side of the room - 4:02 am?
"What's up?", he answered, rather alert.
"You're awake?"
"Yup. Gotta get up, get going."
"Huh-uh."
"Don't you start work like around 9?"
"You called?", he replied, circling the question back to me.
"Promise not to be mad", I answered like a schoolgirl about to tell her mum why she failed American history.
I told him all about the story mishap and he laughed.
I was about as confused as a water pot being used to hold sand like a fire bucket.
"This is no joke", I said above his laughter fighting the irritation that I could feel cooking up despite it being my fault.
He kept on laughing and I knew he won't stop until he got it all out.
When he finally calmed, he asked me, "Have you clicked the undo button?"
"Undo?" I was confused.
"Yeah, undo. Like, uhm, Ctrl+Z?"
"Ctrl+Z, oh Ctrl+Z! Undo, redo all-do!"
I clicked it and it worked. 634 pages of talent brought back to my screen.
Woo-hoo!
"It's good you didn't close your word app 'cause then it wouldn't have worked. Although, I still don't get how you didn't know that about the undo button." He said whilst chuckles.
I knew about the undo button. I just forgot but I didn't bother to explain that to Harold the IT boss over here so I just ended the call.
As I stared back at my two years of hard work on my screen formerly washed away but brought back to life by a single click, I wondered why I didn't have such a tool for my life.
There was so many things I wanted to take back; things I wished I never said, or did or listened to or even felt. So much regret going on.
There is so much I want to turn back the hands of the clock for. So much much I want to change and undo and twist and switch and redo. From things like forgetting to check the stew until it burnt to checking up on my grandma everyday before she died to wishing I had said yes to Ralph when he proposed.
I want to undo all the wrong things and redo them to right, to perfect.
Ralph was the man of my dreams, the love of my life. We were polar opposites but yet we loved each other in an inexplicable way. He was going to move to South Africa and I wanted to stay in America. Not like there's much to show for it now. Our parents hated each other as well as us. His parents hated me and my parents and vice versa.
I wish I went with him, I wish I said yes. I wish I didn't let logic and fear cloud my heart and my parents cloud my judgement.
Now he's married to some South African chick called Bonolo. How can I compete with Bonolo and the three stunning children that she now has for him?
I can't. I can't go back in time to say yes and I certainly can't live in South Africa. I can't go running into his arms begging him to take me back, not 12 years after he gave me a chance and I was too scared to commit.
Let Bonolo have Ralph. I'll have Harold when I give Jeremy here, the happy life I should have allowed myself to lead.
© Olatona Fortune I.
