The Information Junkie Read Online Free PDF Page B

one-pager:
    Charlie, Never want to see that look of hurt on your or anybody else's face. Ever.
    You and I are temperamentally unsuited. I have a free spirit and Martin makes no demands. You are a controller.
    Hear this Charlie: I am my own woman and whatever your brain wants me to do, my heart says I will not. Charlie proposes; Ffion disposes. I'm elusive, babe, do my own thing. I'm unpredictable. You just wanted a happy, a neat ending.
    Well, real life ain't like that, babe.
    You told me you loved the phrase Romance Languages. I think you've misunderstood the term Romance.
    Tighten up, Charlie. Think of your wife & your responsibilities. Concentrate on your job. You'll never be able to grasp that elusive thing you spoke of.
    Charlie, I adored our evening together. But that was it. That was all. I'm independent.
    By the way, Martin thinks very highly of you, both professionally & personally. Don't take it too badly, cutie.
    Don't take it so personally.
    Don't ever, EVER, project that hurt look at anyone again. You need an outlet, sweetie. Channel it all into your work.
    Charlie: here's the deal: pretend I'm not real. Figure I'm a construct. Imagine Martin is too, if that helps. But never believe you are. We had a fabulous—I know you'll disapprove that choice of word—evening together. You set me ablaze; now set me free.
    P.S. Persevere with Proust. He's worth it.
    Posh parchment, buddies? Vivid vellum, folks? Pre-eminent papyrus, friends?
     Nice chick, eh? No: she's not a chick. She's a woman. A REAL woman. ALL woman. And, with her fountain pen, she forms not lazy crosses but elegant ampersands.
    Oh, well, I suppose I'd better press on with my job. Software. Funny word. The disc or tape is hard but the essence is soft: just thoughts, ideas.
    That was Belinda, just now, with a cup of coffee and the usual note. I add the obligatory X and give the elephant a trunk rampant. Yes, must concentrate on the real, the actual; not the fantasy, the imagined. Odd, though, how the two can become interleaved and difficult to separate.
     Now I'm digitising: laying down machine code—my zeros and ones—to enable a financial process to run more smoothly. I'll continue with my games software too. Must keep those ideas coming. You need a good flow of ideas, but only one to torch the world.
     
    *
    The final E from Martin:
    I'm writing you out, Charlie.
    [Arty arrogance! Only I write characters out.]
    I had to re-read that verb. What he actually wrote was:
    I'm buying you out, Charlie. Robert will send you the legal stuff. For God's sake, get yourself sorted. You've already lost B and your sideline. If you're not careful you'll lose your job too. Then it's skid row.
    Think carefully. M.
    *
    Yes, folks, Belinda had left too. Said she was a cyberwidow. That I spent too long tickling the keys rather than her.
    However, chums, here I am. Oh yes, buddies, still playing the keyboards, still flicking a mean riff to keep the Aristocard cardholders sweet. I'm often tempted to slip in a little subroutine which would... But no, that's another story.
    Hey, gals and guys! Wow!! Isn't life a gas?
    Anyway, you asked for a story. I gave it to you. You requested an introduction, a development and a dénouement. Well, I gave an exposition, a sizzling development, and three preliminary conclusions. Now you want the Biggy. Don't want much, do you? Now, listen, buddies: gonna give it to you straight: the old one-two-three. See how this grabs you:
    Shortly after B left I did lose my job and ended up, with my corpus full of tubes, in a place which some call home and with a screen perched above my bed; keyboard and mouse at hand level.
    Then one day I called up Cybernurse. Wow! What a chick! And caring... Before she inserts the needle of the drip she always gives you a local.
    By the way, did I ever tell you the one about the nurse, the patient and the redhead? I didn't...? Well:
     
    Ffion : (Welsh) the colour of red roses or foxgloves.
    Foxglove : plant of the