Penny Gets a Message

When Penny looked out the peephole, her eyes only saw air and hallway. Yet, the buzzing sound was still very prevalent in her reality. Opening the door, she expected to find a mysterious package left by some sinister villain. Perhaps it would be the beginning of a long tiresome adventure or perhaps it was a ticking bomb.

But to a faint feeling of disappointment, there was no bomb, no package, nothing, but the noise of that soul-grating sound. Closing the door, she decided that the noise could not be ignored, which was her preferred method of handling annoyances..

Focusing on the sound, she tried to follow it, moving through the tiny room in silent concentration. And then she found it. The noise seemed to be coming from her laptop. Hitting one of the keys to awaken the sleepy but noisy computer, stopping its hypnotic lure of abstract colors, an instant message popped up.

Squinting at the screen, she looked curiously at this form of communication. Someone, some guy, wanted to know if she wanted to chat. Looking carefully at the settings, she realized she had left her “in” status on from the morning’s client chat. Someone had seen it “on” and decided to connect. How annoying. What sort of person would keep hitting the buzzer to catcher her attention? Apparent John2775 would.

“Hi. Wanna chat,” the message read. No, thought Penny, who abruptly changed her status to “busy” and began instead to check her email.

There was her mother’s daily missive. One might think that they lived far away, but really these emails had more to do with her mother’s discovery of the joy of computers. And being a loyal daughter, Penny always read these, often following the links her mother thought she might enjoy. Before the discovery of the computer, her mother would send press clippings. Penny preferred the email links, and diligently followed this one.