The Blog

He was there, for the fiftieth time that time, or something like that. Checking the stats for is blog. Same story. No change from the last time he checked. 

Andy heads downstairs. He finds Mary in the kitchen. 

—I’m gonna dump the blog.

—Why? I like it, for starters.

—Ah, it ain’t doing well. Only getting a few visits. And half of them are bots. 

—But you’ve not had that version up for long? I’m no expert but it takes a while, doesn’t it? 

He knows she’s right. Of course she is.

—Yeah. 

—Leave it alone. Keep writing. You’ll get readers, you write very well. 

—Ta, love. Brew? 

—Please. 

He busied himself making them both a brew. And resisting the urge to check the Analytics app on his iPhone. Fucking blog. What was the point? All that graft. And for what? More shouting into the void. 

He finished making the brews and walked through to give Mary hers. She smiled her thanks; he turned to head back up to his office.

—Leave it alone, it’ll be fine. 

He nodded and went back up to his office. He squinted through narrowed eyes to close the tab in his web browser displaying the stats. 

—Close them all, he muttered. 

So he closed the other three. Took a swig of his brew. Not bad, that, a cappuccino from the Tassimo. Good stuff. His favourite. The blog then, mate, what was he gonna do about it? And this weird thing happened.

—The Empire strikes a match, he said out loud. 

What the actual fuck was that? He typed the words out, looked at them, and then started typing again…

LORD VADER:

Where’s the LIGHTS? I sense a failure in The Force. 

ADMIRAL PIET:
Don’t know how to tell you this, my Lord… 

LORD VADER:
Did you forget to pay the leccy bill again? 

ADMIRAL PIET:
I told Captain Needa to pay it. 

LORD VADER:
Send him TO ME…

He chuckled. Then, he laughed. It was proper funny, that. It made no sense at all; it came from a random thought. What would he do with it?

—Write the bugger in a blog post, he said out loud again. 

So he started writing. And it made him chuckle; it was good stuff. He even added a bit.

A ‘Phantom Called Dennis’ on his Speeder drops random thoughts into people’s minds.

Haha! Yes! Great, get it published. There was no thinking about it. A quick edit and post it, off it went. Out there. 

Mary put her head around the door. 

—Did you leave it? 

—Better than that, I wrote a new post. 

—You did? Great, I’ll have a read—

—It’s here, and bloody funny. Have a read.

She came in and read over his shoulder. He waited, watching her. And there it was, a slight smile. Then a chuckle. Followed by a laugh. She shook her head. 

—You’re nuts. 

—I know, but d’yer like it? 

—It’s funny. And a bit mad. But yeah, I like it. 

—Great! I published it on the blog. 

—Good, people will like it. 

—Thanks, love. 

Mary headed off, leaving him to it. He needed to write more for his new novel. The manuscript was there, waiting. 

—Yeah, blogging is fun, but it’s time to get serious., he muttered. 

He opened the manuscript file and started typing. He’d check the stats for the new post… . Soon. Not yet.