Hardwired: A Limping Panther

I have a black laptop named Panther (I name things that I spend time with, okay?). My daddy gave Panther to me for my birthday four years ago when he noticed that my graduate school netbook (named Athena) was slower than a tortoise. I cherished Panther and vowed to jumpstart my writing career with him.

I wrote 15 book drafts with Panther, including four Nanowrimo projects, and not including dozens of other smaller writings. I grew and stretched and failed and learned as a writer with Panther. I discovered who I was as a writer and what it was I liked to write with Panther.

He has lasted twice as long as any other laptop I've owned, but now he limps along. The battery lasts twenty minutes without being plugged into the wall. The screen is smudged and dirty. The keys are worn smooth. But he was still functioning perfectly until one day..."he took a little tumble off the cliff."

He fell off the computer tray onto the hard tile floor. The outer shell cracked a little, but something got jostled inside. Now he gasps for life, running three minutes at a time before freezing up. And I mourn him already. He was my writing partner, my daily companion every November of his life. And now he is just wires and chips that don't work.

Another will have to take his place and finish the work he started. But who?

Stay tuned for Part II

Stumps

My life is like an overgrown orchard.

I try to curate my friendships

To find like-minded spirits

To find bosom friends

To find people like me.

But the trees grow when and where they may,

As people step into my sphere, my orbit,

And the fruit of friends ripens when I least expect it

And it is delicious.

I don’t control my overgrown orchard, but

I do take care of the trees.

But the stumps.

But the stumps.

Where a life was cut short

Before I was ready to let the tree go

Before I was done eating the fruit

And now there are shadows on the orchard floor

Where fruit never ripens and falls

And it’s in those deserts between the trees

That I watch the orchard blossom or rot

That I watch the seasons come and go

And the sun shine through the leaves

In warm golds and cold silvers,

All while I sit on the stump of a friend.