Member-only story
Founding the lost
Kuro, the hero
I look at the screen in utter horror.
The draft of my newest novella “The nun and the prostitute” is gone.
My brain is screaming thousand swearing words unknown to me, “How do I know so many bad words,” I ask to myself. My shaking hands type again, and error comes out like the unavoidable curse that has fallen on me and my computer.
“It’s got to be somewhere,” I tell to myself trying to remain calm. I log into various accounts, clouds, and alternative boxes and nothing “How did this happen?,” I scream at the computer. And again error.
Tears come to my eyes but I refuse to give up, and go old school and take a look at abandoned USBs. The first USB only brings more disappointment. The story repeats itself with the second, and the third USB I check. And the last one, the one I named “Kuro” (black in Japanese) brings almost no hope because this USB comes with me everywhere, to my classes, to my lectures, to my business trips. I know what’s in there, and what it isn’t.
But I decided to check it anyway. And to my surprise, there is an old copy, only 22 pages, almost a fifth of the final version. “Better than nothing,” I console myself. I decide to keep checking just in case, I click in an old folder and there, shining like an oasis in the desert, is a PDF version with all 98 pages of it.
The whole novella!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The characters and I cried of happiness. We’re together again. I found what was lost. Or better say, the characters found me again. I’m home. And kuro, the hero, takes a well-deserved rest.
