The Disappearance

The Disapearance

         He ate slowly and deliberately. He did not want to be perceived as being too anxious to finish dinner and rush upstairs to his computer. His wife of 40 years had prepared an excellent meal, one of his favorite dishes. She deserved his attention and consideration. He finished the last bite, folded his napkin, and placed it on the table.

         “That was great, as usual, Hon,” he meant it and he smiled tenderly at her.

         She smiled and said, “Thanks.”

         He thought how remarkable that so much meaning could go into so few words. He really did love her deeply; she returned the feeling. Theirs was one of the successful marriages that defied statistics. It had not been without its rocky points. Through difficult times it always emerged on the other side of the crisis stronger and more enduring.

         He got up and cleared his dishes to the sink area; he had not yet, after 40 years of marriage, acquired the skill to load the dishwasher to her satisfaction. He walked behind her as she finished her meal. He bent over from behind and kissed her on the cheek.

         “I’m gonna wander up to my office for a little bit,” he remarked casually.

         Her eyes rolled as she tilted her head towards him. He knew that she was way ahead of him. But he also knew that it was what she expected him to do. Why disappoint her?

         He walked into his office and went immediately to his computer. It was asleep -- waiting for him. He hit the return key and it slowly opened its screen as it awoke. Dan kept the screen set on the web page that he had recently found on the Internet, writing.com. Ever since he had been introduced to the site and the writers who wandered in and out of the community with an endless progression of activity, he had been hooked. He was anxious to see what had happened since the last time that he had logged in. He accomplished the preliminaries of logging into the Internet and logging onto the site and then he was ready.

         First, he checked his email. He was disappointed to find that no one had left messages. That meant no one had reviewed his last brilliant piece. He could not understand why those folks did not have an alarm set on their computer that notified them of his posting, obviously a flaw in the system. He turned to the next critical item. He had gleaned an idea while “chatting” through email with another writer. It had stuck with him like a persistent child on Christmas morning, yearning for attention.

         The work was almost finished, a few more paragraphs and he would have another item to share with the voracious writers of the community. Usually, he finished the work completely off-line and then downloaded it onto the page for community consumption. This time he had jumped the gun. He downloaded what he had thus far and decided to just finish the last few paragraphs in the edit mode on the web page. Although not advisable, he did it anyway.

         Ideas began to flow. The keyboard clicked a static cadense. He stopped to read what he had written:

         “…Ideas began to flow. The keyboard clicked a static cadense…”

         Oops, “cadence” was misspelled; he corrected it. He would have to watch that closely. He didn’t know how to operate the speller funtion in this mode. He glanced at the screen again. It read:

         “…how to operate the speller funtion in this mode. He glanced at…”

         Geez, he misspelled “function”—another correction. He determined to just let the words flow out onto the screen and not worry about spelling and commas at this point. He would go back and edit it when he was finished.

         He paused; he thought; and he typed. The time between each function varied with the moment. Sometimes he paused a lot; and sometimes he thought a lot; mostly he typed. Then a curious thing began to happen. The very ends of his toes and his fingers began to tinjle, ever so slightly. He could not help himself. He stopped and read the last passage. He felt an error had been made; and he couldn’t place where it happened. He read:

         “…began to happen. The very ends of his toes and his fingers began to tinjle, ever so slightly. He could…”

         There it was, two of them as a matter of fact. He corrected “tinjle” to “tingle” and removed the comma from in front of “ever.”

         He continued working on his masterpiece. Linda could hear him clicking away from the kitchen. She was a little concerned about his current preoccupation with the Internet. She had heard stories of the police breaking into a home to find volumes of child porn on some upstanding citizen’s computer or of men establishing a second romance with strange women miles away in the hinterland of cyberspace. She smiled, “That was not Dan.” She chuckled to herself. She was happy to have him happy. She knew he was off on some mission in that world of his, but was sure that he would soon be sailing back into port just as he always did.

         Dan stopped again to read his script:

          “…off on some mission in that world of his; but was sure that ….”

         His brow wrinkled. How he hated commas and loved them at the same time. He wasn’t sure if he should put a comma after “mission”. He decided to leave it alone. However, he did put a “she” between “but” and “was”. It read better that way. He continued. As he did, he noticed the tingle in his fingers and toes had increased to include his entire hands and feet. In fact the tingle had turned into a numbness.

         “This is strange,” he thought.

         He wanted to stop, to give himself a break. He could not. He was a driven man. Words continued to form on the computer screen. Periods ended sentences and capitals began them. He continued to type on the keyboard. Linda heard the clicking from the kitchen.

         “He’s really rolling tonight,” she thought.

         The last few paragraphs of the piece had grown. Paragraph followed paragraph and his work proceeded to its natural end. Dan did not know how to end the piece. All he knew was that the part that he was currently writing was necessary to the whole; and so, on he typed. He glanced at the keyboard and then he looked to his fingers to watch them strike the keys. An alarm flashed to his senses at what he saw or rather what he did not see. His hands were gone. Unbelievable as it was his hands were not there. He could feel them or at least he thought he could. He looked to the screen and read:

         “….them, or at least he thought he could. He looked to the screen and read:”

         The words were there. He had typed them. But, how could he? He had no hands. At least no hands that he could see. Alarmed, he swung his chair around to go find Linda and to confirm what was happening. Then in amazement he found that he had no feet. Just like his hands, his feet were also missing; or rather, they had become transparent, invisible like his hands. He turned his gaze to the mirror hanging on the wall across the room. Sure enough, there he sat with head, neck, torso, and disappearing limbs. Perhaps he should call out to Linda to dail 9-1-1, or perhaps he should phone “Ripley’s” or “Scientific American”.

         He did neither. Instead, as astonishing as it seems, he returned to the keyboard. Somehow this happening was connected to the keyboard and the story. His fear fed the idea that if he left the keyboard he would lose any opportunity to be whole again.

         His mind asaulted him. "This can't be happening. You've slipped into some bizarre episode of the 'Twilight Zone'"

         However, his eyes confirmed the amazing happening and told his mind, "Forget all rational explanations. This was a time for irrational action."

         He turned his attention to the keyboard. The story continued to form on the screen. He looked across the room at the mirror and saw an astonishing sight. He could see his arms. Or at least he could see a portion of his arms moving in the mirror. He could also still see the words being constructed on the screen. Unbelievable as it seemed, he concluded that he was in fact disappearing, progressing from his extremities.

         “How can this be happening?” He thought.

         A strange image formed in his mind. If the words were forming on the screen, then somewhere, someplace, his fingers were typing them. He imagined the other side of that place. Somewhere, in cyberspace perhaps, there was a pair of hands, without a body, typing on a keyboard. Somewhere, he was wiggling his toes; but not here.

         He glanced at the mirror again. The disappearance was progressing. His legs and arms were totally gone. He thought that he could feel them. He thought that he was still typing. He looked at the written text on the screen to confirm that fact.

         “…felt them. He thought that he was still typing. He looked at the written text on the screen to confirm that fact.”

         Yes, there it was. The story was up to date; it was still progressing. However, he was getting near the end of the story. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him, “What happens when I finish? What happens when I get to the end of the story?”

         How in the world was he going to explain this to Linda? Who would believe it? He continued to write. There were only a couple of sentences left to write. He placed subject, verb, and adjectives in their proper position. The last sentence was being typed. Dan looked to the mirror. Comically, almost, all he saw was a pair of eyes staring into the mirror. He was typing the last wor……