chapter 1

Lights: on; coffee: ready; laptop: open. It’s time to write.
Ted sat down on his chair and started typing:

~ CHAPTER 1 ~
Without hesitation, he began putting words on the page. Of course, he already knew what to write. He had already told the story before, countless times. It was all a matter of willpower, of finding the strength to tell it again. It was about not giving up, for that was all he had going for himself.

The words came down like a rushing river. It was not the best version of the story, but he didn’t have time to make it perfect. The motivation was barely enough to just finish it. Every thought about improving it, every “this passage was better last time I wrote it” needed to be discarded right away.

When the cup was finally dry of its coffee, the hands stopped typing. One final full stop, and chapter 1 had been written again.

“Every Day.docx” already exists. Overwrite it?

     No              > Yes <
Yes

Print options for “Every day.docx” - select the number of copies
50

Now printing: “Every day.docx”
Good.

In the meantime, Ted did his usual morning routine. The printing should be done by 6.

He took the copies of the chapter and his foldable table and went out. Each sunday, the people he knew all walked down the street and asked him about the beginning of his book. “When can we read the first chapter?” was the usual question. “Now!” answered Ted.

“Actually, you have been reading this for a long time. Aren’t you curious about chapter 2?”
This was what Ted really wanted to answer to those people - but he couldn’t. The problem was, his audience had a really bad memory. Every day they read the first chapter from the book, then threw it away - both the physical copy and any memory they had of it. Every day, they believed they had never read the beginning of the story, and so every day they asked to read it.

While people were passing by the table and picking up their copies, Ted became lost in his own thoughts and had weird fantasies - absurd fantasies! He pictured himself writing the words

~ CHAPTER 2 ~
on a new page. He fantasized about continuing his story, writing new sentences, describing new emotions and, in the end, saving it as a new document.

Sometimes, when the fantasy became really extreme, the chapters extended beyond the second. A third, a fourth...

But at last everyone had their copy, and Ted came back to reality. So he said hi to his last reader, grabbed the table and went back to his apartment. He knew, now was the time to do things that he enjoys doing. He needed to recharge, or this night, he won’t have the motivation to restart his work.

26/07/2025