Written by: E. Daniel Boudreau
Last Updated: 6/6/2000
Word Count: 527

There was once a young man-- no. That's not right. Ahem: Once, there was

a young man - that's much better-who wanted more than anything to be a

famous writer. This young man was unfortunately not quite young enough

to have any crummy little story he may write heralded as the work of a

prodigy, nor was he old enough to really know how to write a decent

story. This poor young man fell somewhere in between. If he was ever to

come up with a story worthy of the masses, he would have to do it

relying on his razor-sharp wit, his God-given abilities, and his uncanny

sense of how to be putting words together to make good-sounding

sentences. And so there he sat, cradled by his less-than-comfortable

armless swivel-chair, as he struggled to harness the great wealth of

ideas that swirled around in his giant-sized brain. Finally, he raised

one frail, bony, girly arm and slowly extended an equally (if not more)

frail, bony and girly index finger, and began to type. A smile crossed

his lips as he proceeded to type the only two words that could

accurately capture the mood of his story to that point:

 
"Chapter One" 

…and that was it. Well, I added the quotation marks, but 

the underlining

was all his idea. Pure genius. Grab the reader's attention and never let

go. This boy knew what he was doing, and he knew full well that once he

really got rolling, it would only be a matter of time before the

publishing companies would come knocking. The fame, the fortune, the

women, the little newsletters that would come in the mail advertising

2-for-1 pizza at the local fast food place. He wanted it all.  "Ok," he

thought to himself, "gotta keep writing…". And with that, he raised

first his frail, bony arm and then his other, much larger,

tennis-playing arm, and proceeded to keep on typing. The words flew like

Alpha-bits in a tornado. Words soon became sentences. Sentences grew

into run-on sentences, that eventually received proper editing and were

reduced to a more reasonable length. But the paragraphs- oooh baby. What

paragraphs they were. Like nothing the world has seen since that

unpredictable twist at the end of the Bible. It was truly a thing of

beauty. I mean wow. Seriously. Wow.

Anyways, as he was wrapping up his tale of intrigue and romance and

espionage and furry little talking animals something caught his

attention. Something that would forever lock this genius and all of the

magic he possessed from the world that needed him. This story, the very

same story that had risen from the glowing embers of his brilliant mind,

had been written entirely in a silly font called "Caslon Opnface BT",

that was very difficult to read (the letters got all squished). Needless

to say, the young man simply shut off his computer and refused to speak

to anyone for 6 months. Of course, this could have all been avoided had

he actually known how to change fonts in his word processor, but he was

not very good with computers. Genuises seldom are. 

TA-DAAA!!!!!


(aka. THE END)