Just a little Short Story for you guys. Wrote this a while ago so enjoy!
The Smear
Angela Less’s computer lit up. Normally she would have walked over, sat down on her office chair and checked whatever notification or email she had just received. However now instead she stayed sitting on her couch, watching TV, eating Doritos. Nothing good came from the internet anymore. After her recent post on her blog about how 9/11 was good for America, a massive joke within of itself, she had only received hate and defamation from all available news sites on the wide web. It possibly wasn’t the greatest choice to do such an article, and she should have thought better, but Angela had presumed that people would understand the joke the moment they actually read it.
But as she had now learned nobody ever actually reads her posts, not news sites anyway. No, they just read her headlines and took their information from that. And so now she was stuck, receiving hate 24/7 with no ways to make money. She could probably hop onto her computer, pound out a 500 word article and get a few million hits because of all the attention she was getting, but she didn’t have the urge or passion. She was scared, utterly and completely of getting up and going over to her computer and typing out anything, much less an article which would be shown worldwide.
Angela remembers the first posts that went up after her article, one of them being from a rival blog site by one Anderson Tremble. He hated her in all sense of the word, only because she had skyrocketed in fame while he stayed on the lower levels. He was making good money now, but in the beginning there was only anger and hate from him. Even when she tried to resolve things and suggested co-authoring an article together he blew her off.
And now he finally got a chance to hit her. And he went hard. He called her unpatriotic, a terrorist in the making and, if her article was just a joke, a horrible writer. His words rounded and circled her mind as she ate her Doritos, staring at the TV which was displaying reruns of Seinfeld. How could she jump back onto the computer with all that hanging over head?
Plus there were articles now coming out from the Wall Street Journal, all picking apart previous works she has done in the past which mentioned terrorism or 9/11, some of them being in the context of jokes but they just forgot all about that and labelled Angela as being some kind of supporter of 9/11 and of terrorism all together.
It was getting out of hand, and she couldn’t bear to look at anything else on the web about her now. Her hands had frozen up, fear dripping from her heart each time she even thought of getting back in her office chair and typing at her old keyboard. She wasn’t having writers block. She was having writer's fear.
Angela guessed a lot of writers went through this once or twice, or even more times in their careers. But it was different for her, all because of how much attention she was now garnering. Most bloggers online were talking about her, and about the scandal she was now in. Some were supportive, and some were not. But for the first week after posting the article she remembers crawling up to her computer, anxious and scared to see what people had written about her. She would always hesitate, one hand over her mouse, unsure is she truly wanted to know what was on the web. She would always give in however, and soon would feel completely horrible about herself.
It was strange, knowing that there were many people who now hated her over one mistake. One stupid mistake. Anderson Tremble got his last laugh in, she supposed. He had always been waiting for to be brought down, and now maybe he had the chance to take her place. She didn’t envy him if that’s what he planned to do. Being at the top was hard, and understanding just how much influence you had was even harder. But she wouldn’t bother with that anymore. She was done.
Or was she? Angela kept picking at the Doritos, thoughts rushing to the forefront of her mind. Maybe she could make a comeback, write everything off as a joke and apologize for her rash behavior in posting such an article. Sure, the rest of the internet might see it as a crass attempt to resolve things but it was the best thing she could do at the moment. Besides of course just quitting cold turkey. But Angela didn’t want to give them all the satisfaction. She didn’t want Anderson Tremble to write his way to the top, or want Wall Street Journal to feel good and proud that they managed to throw her down onto the trodden ground and keep her there. She had gone offline for three weeks now, and her reputation and fame were slowly fading into the distance. But she could bring it back. She could bring herself back, and stop all this self-loathing.
Angela stood from her couch, unsteadily, and walked over to her desk. The steps were slow, deliberate and each brought feelings of anxiety and stress. Maybe she wasn’t ready to get back on the wagon, maybe she needed more time to let things cool over before she could start posting again.
But something kept her from stopping, and soon she was at her office chair, sinking into the smooth leather, hands above her keyboard. There were times in her life where she had been bullied, or misunderstood and hate and anger were thrown at her with little regard for her own actual feelings. In all those times she merely walked away, dealing with the insults with no retaliation. But this was going to be different. She would apologize, sure, but she wasn’t going to let these people walk over her again.
Angela Less positioned her fingers above her keyboard, looking at her monitor and the blank page that rested there. Now, she would go to war.