"One sec," I said to Master Liam as he wrestled to get out of Laura’s grip.
I leaned past our bed and laid my MacBook Pro on the carpet before turning to open my arms to him. Instead of greeting me, he went straight for the TV remote, bee-lined to the edge of the bed… and did the unthinkable.
I remember saying, no, no, each attempt to dissuade him getting louder.
NO!
AND THEN — HE LET GO 😱
I watched it plummet in slow, tormenting motion. His mouth was agape in excitement; mine in utter horror.
The remote struck the bottom of my MacBook’s screen, and before it had the chance to blink, a distorted vertical beam shot across the display.
Just like that, my MacBook was dead.
Six glorious years we shared together.
We saw it all — countless manuscripts, first-draft frustrations, copious macOS updates. But with each passing year, I could also tell she was getting tired. Boot-up times grew longer. She struggled to open apps that, once upon a time, didn’t so much as break a sweat.
She even restarted halfway through a drafting session as if my writing displeased her.
Yet through it all, she marched on, loyal to the end.
Until an 11-month-old with two-and-a-half teeth brought her story to a close.
Sure, I could replace the screen, but she’s over six years old, and in computer terms, that’s deep into the twilight years. Sometimes, you’ve got to let them go out with grace and not drag them under a technician’s scalpel like a Hollywood elite who refuses to age.
Alas, it was a sad day.
And the second stroke of bad luck to strike your Overlord & Saviour after losing my precious email codex just yesterday.
But I’d be doing her a disservice by merely mourning her passing.
After all, we created so much together (the worn keys are a testament to that).
She bore witness to the first word of The Divided Region. Edited old horror manuscripts that didn’t even make her flinch. And even up until recently, she was polishing The Great Betrayal.
(Fitting, really, that it was my heir who dealt the death blow.)
But do you know the final gift she wheezed out before her last breath?
TINY EPICS
VOL. 1.
A collection of 141 micro-stories we created together over the years, spanning the genres I love most—fantasy, sci-fi, and horror.
So, yeah…
We saw a lot. Did a lot. And, for that, I will forever be grateful to you, Macki-Moo.
For now, though, she’s tucked away in a special drawer, inside her laptop sleeve, getting some well-deserved rest.
And if you’d like to honour her memory — or just want to be entertained (no judgement here) — then I can think of no better “farewell” title to recommend than the last one we made together:
https://djjwatsonstore.com/products/Tiny-Epics-Vol-1
DJJW