The Natural Consequence

I stood behind him, watching him write at his computer. He was in the hunched position that always accompanies long-term laptop use; the strange, elbow-sticking-out pose that screams out for a full-size keyboard and promises a nasty bout of RSI in later months. The curtains were drawn, and the only light in the room came from the small desk lamp. Given the time of night, anything at all could have been being produced on that machine, and frankly I was slightly worried what it might be, so I sidled over.

I was prepared for the worst, and unfortunately I found it in the form of an open Word document with oddly-arranged text. Concrete poetry is never a particularly pleasant thing to find in front of you, and when it's being written by a young man who is clearly convinced that he has discovered the meaning of life and/or love, it's doubly bad. In this case, the lines taking shape seemed to be about a romance that hadn't taken off. I had no doubt that if someone would get round to inventing the Youthful-Angst-O-Meter and bring it up here, they would be banging it on the wall going "that CAN'T be right...that's black bedroom walls and joss stick territory".

Watching his face as he typed, I could see that he was half-smiling, as if he couldn't quite believe that he was writing something this bad. I was sure that he felt it needed to be said, but why couldn't he understand that no-one else was interested? Occasionally, he stopped and looked at what he was writing, adjusted the indentation a little (I came very close to shouting "Align left! ALIGN LEFT! That's what it's FOR, you young fool!") and gave a sigh that conveyed a sense of the weight of the world. Well, that's probably what he thought, anyway. In truth it sounded like he was practising for the World Breathing In And Out Heavily Championships, but presumably it was helping him get into his mental angsty place.

Against my better judgement (and really because there was very little else to do at this point) I paid attention to the subject matter, which seemed to be near completion. As I scanned the broken lines, a suspicion began to form, which quickly became a certainty. For the first time, I spoke.

"This...this is about her, isn't it? It is, isn't it? What on earth do you think you're doing?" He didn't respond, but instead added a couple of extra lines. Again, I looked over them, and continued the interrogation.

"Oh, honestly, you're just hoping she sees this now, aren't you? Look, she's happy. Drop it. Don't try to make her miserable. Heck, anyone would be miserable after reading THAT. They'd be all, "Where are the 5 minutes of my life that I'm never going to get back after reading stuff as bad as this?'" He continued regardless, finishing the formatting and highlighting the whole heap of doggerel in order to copy it over to the website.

I knew it was hopeless, but I tried once more, thinking that I'd never forgive myself the damage done to the English language if I didn't at least attempt to stop it. "She never liked you like that, you realise. She has no idea that you ever had such a stupid, adolescent crush on her, and certainly doesn't know that you thought it was bigger than that. If you're meant to be with someone eventually, it'll happen, OK? Just quit moping and get on with your life. Oh, no, please don't click 'Submit'! Please don't subject us to that!"

It was as pointless as I had known all along. He clicked the button, and his testosterone-charged piece of overdriven libido spiralled off into the vast wasteland of the internet. I turned away and left the room, walking through the night back to where I belonged.

There was one good thing that would come of this, I reasoned. Eventually, he would realise what an awful bit of writing it was, and would probably try to warn others about the perils of writing under the influence of fake emotion.

I wondered how long it would take.