Writer's Block
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She stared at the words on the screen, her hand frozen in mid- air over the keyboard. He had written "Mary Ann" - her real name, not her cyber ID "MX25." She felt the panic hit her. How did he know? How much did he know?
She started as a warm tongue licked the back of her hand. Turning off the laptop, she patted the poodle's head. "Poor Frisk, past your dinner time, huh?"
She woke up drenched in sweat. He was out there somewhere. Someone she did not know. Watching every move she made. She stumbled out of bed to bolt the bedroom door.
She lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling. I am darned lucky, she thought. A wonderful house in a prime community, a job at a dot com, what else could a twenty-five- year- old woman want? Except to end the loneliness that drove her to the chat rooms. Forty days. Forty days since she crossed paths with the man who had the arrogance to use the screen name "God." Since then he had dogged her in every chat room and now.... No, she thought, he cannot reach me. I won't let him. The sunshine filtering through the curtains mocked her fears.
Bleary with lack of sleep,she poured herself a cup of coffee and picked up the Daily Despatch lying on the porch. "Real Estate Prices in London Touch the Skies" the headlines screamed. So what's new? she thought and tossed the paper aside. I'll work from home today, she decided, cheering up all of a sudden.
She turned on her laptop to access her work files. An explosion of red roses greeted her with the words " Hello Mary Ann". What the heck! Hey, I am not even connected to the web - Is it a virus attack again? She stared at the screen with rising dismay. She was about to turn off the machine when the words appeared, "Don't panic, my dear. I wanted you to have the flowers. My apologies for the lost sleep."
"What do you want me to do?" she whispered to the empty room.
"Do my will, " flashed the reply on the screen.
"WHO ARE YOU?" she screamed.
"I call myself God. That is all you need to know."
The next evening, neighbors saw the "For Sale" sign on Mary Ann Stone's manicured front lawns . The following day , the sign was gone. The lady was never seen again. Rumor has it that the software analyst is now a nun in the Silent Sisters Order, in a remote village on the Scottish border.
Gossip reports that the new neighbor is a handsome young psychiatrist from Glasgow. Some say he is considered an authority in the little-known art of cyber-hypnosis. He lives quietly and few of his neighbors have ever met him. Rumor has it that his patients fondly call him "God."
That is only rumor. The truth - God knows.
