The Clip

[MalReynolds]

It hadn’t been his first original idea ever, although it was one of this better ones, he thought. It really wasn’t, but he didn’t surround himself with people that shot down his ideas. He didn’t surround himself with anyone, except for his collection of shot-glasses with funny quotes on them, although they didn’t nearly qualify as sentient beings.

He didn’t even use the shot glasses, because he didn’t really drink. As a child, it had always struck him that adults collected things that they often times never used, like wines, key-chains, matchbooks or spouses. Everyone seemed happy with a hobby that was very pointless, and so the young man decided, in a fit of faux-normality, to buy several shot glasses to please all company with delusions of societal placement. Only problem being, he never had guests.

When he did drink, he drank straight from the bottle and making a liquor face, even though it didn’t really taste all that bad to him. He was just imitating the people he had seen in the movies, Clint Eastwood and various other bad-asses of Hollywood, who despite being severe bad-asses, couldn’t quite down a shot without making a very scrunched up face, that if given the properties of a citric fruit, would juice itself.

The young man fancied himself as a writer, although the pieces he wrote normally wouldn’t be considered “normal,� “happy,� or “realistically plausible,� in the most common use of the words. They were considered by his peers to be “disturbing,� “fraught with detail,� and “giggle inducing the point of near vomit,� if he was trying for a particular mood that he failed exceptionally at writing.

And so it came that one day, this strange young man sat staring blankly at his computer screen, contemplating the various words to spring forth onto the blank pallet of the Word document that he had so very long ago opened. The dust gathered on his fingers, expertly poised over the keyboard but in a statuesque fashion, so much so that birds could perch on them, had he a window open or a window to open.

“Hey, need help starting a Word Document?� The little animated paperclip bounced to life from the bottom right hand corner of the screen, it’s black eyebrows arched and staring into the soul of the young author. His spine chilled, his fingers froze, and his soul frosted over. In a word, he was a very disturbed and frost-bitten being at the phrases shot forth from the paperclip.

“What do you want,� the young man curled his lip as he spat the words.

The paper clip looked to the left slightly, then looked to the right. It grabbed the piece of paper it was resting on and began to roll something away from the young man, who was now genuinely curious as to what the paper clip might be doing.

“Hey, stop moving, animated paper clip,� the young man smiled as the paper clip stopped shortly from the edge of the screen. It turned, flicking a lighter and puffing at the end of the paper. The small room in which the young man sat began to fill with the pungent smell of flavored tobacco and burning paper. Smoke poured slowly from under the monitor as the young man watched in disbelief.

“I’m having a cigarette, you fucking ******,� the paper clip grinned, the edge of it’s mouth contorted into a smile while smoke poured from its yellow teeth.

“What?�

“You heard me,� the paper clip coughed.

“You know, every cigarette you smoke takes ten minutes off of your life,� the young man said, watching the paper clip scowl at him.

“Say another smart ass comment and I’ll take ten minutes off of your life, dumbass!�

The young man rolled back in his chair slowly, standing and pacing the room, the carpet soft yet uncomforting under his bare feet. The light switched flicked on casting ghastly shadows across the walls as the light poured over the irregular boundaries that composed his desktop. He took a swig from a bottle of Peach Schnapps before returning to his seat, watching the paper clip dance around his screen.

“You’re an animated paper clip. There’s not a whole lot you can really do to me, is there?�

The paper clip blew a ring of smoke from its rapidly dying makeshift blunt before delivering the surprisingly blunt answer, “Try me.�

The young man didn’t. He clicked, “Close Animated Icon,� quickly and the paper clip, against all will, was forced down the dusty road of unused computer tools. The young man began to furiously type a story of love and redemption, seven pages in before the paper clip came back. It was normal this time.

“You have several spelling and grammatical errors! Would you like Word to fix these?� The words stained the helpful speech bubble that hung in space above the dancing office paper-binding tool.

The pointer hovered over “Yes,� before the young man, no longer shaken, clicked. The program began to auto-correct his mistakes as he began to type again, the paper clip watching the progress of the cursor slyly out of the corner of its eye.

Before the young man knew what to do, the other paper clip was on screen, pouring a thick liquid over the helpful tool before setting it ablaze with the same pack of matches it had used to light its cigarette. The helpful paper clip writhed and fell to the bottom of the screen, red hot.

“This story sucks, sonny Jim!� The paper clip howled.

“No, you suck!�

“That was good. Did you come up with that all by yourself or did you have a computer program help you along?�

“I… Shut it!�

“Once again, I’m surprised at your vernacular, being a writer and all. Does all the eloquence of your speech go into the stories?� The paper clip scanned the lines before continuing. “Apparently not…�

“Alright, I think you should just give it a rest before-“

“Before what, ******? Before you turn the computer off? Okay, go ahead.�

The young man leaned down and held his finger over the power button. “I have a paper and pencil in the other room. I don’t need you.�

“Oh, right… But, say, when you finish writing your shallow and pedantic story with underlying themes of social imperialism, what are you going to do? Rip them out of your notebook and then send them to a publisher that way? Or do you not even bother with a publisher? Afraid of rejection? Well listen to this, asshole: Publishers hate getting papers stapled together. You know what they like?�

The young man knew the word before the paper clip even spoke.

“Paper clips. And I’ll be just as critical in the real world as they will. You think they’ll spare your feelings? No. They don’t care. Hell, I don’t care, really-“

“Then what the hell are you doing?�

“Saying things, you know, that other people would have said, had you surrounded yourself with living beings instead of glasses more shallow than your works.�

The young man sighed. “So, you’re a part of me?�

“No. I’m a part of malicious coding on the part of Microsoft. You’re going to have to deal with that, because I’m not limited to here. I’m like Visa, baby…�

“You’re everywhere I want to be?� The young man grimaced.

“Exactly.�

-

It was three weeks later that the systematic bombings of office supply factories began. There was a motive, but no rhyme or reason as to why paper-clip factories where being targeted.

Well, there was. But no one would believe it.

-

Mal

[FishFishRevolution]

The helpful paper clip writhed and fell to the bottom of the screen, red hot.

I hate that freaking paper clip.

[hERO777]

Interesting, I can just imagine where the story came from! Being able to create such a good story from just one small idea is an amazing talent, keep it up!

[xiron]

I enjoyed that a lot. Had me laughing out loud. Good job Mal.

[FluorescentArmy]

Wow Mal, This is the first story of yours that I have read. It's fantastic! It was pretty funny, too. But where the hell did the idea of a maligned paper clip come from?

[MalReynolds]

Originally Posted by FluorescentArmy

Wow Mal, This is the first story of yours that I have read. It's fantastic! It was pretty funny, too. But where the hell did the idea of a maligned paper clip come from?

Yeah, well... I took an SS of when I was writing the story.



Mal

[esupin]

That's why I changed mine to a robot.