It had been a proper service, Dorothia thought, a bit too quick for her liking. But that was fine, she supposed. These things went fast nowadays. At least there were flowers and beautiful classical music: Mendelson, Bach, Tchaikovsky; the sort of soothing, simple melodies her husband had liked.

Many of the people that she and Charles had known had not been in attendance to pay their last respects. So many of their dearest friends were dead. Ken Applegate was not there, nor were Bill and Mary Braithwaite; Ken had succumbed to his prostate cancer. Mary--her friend since childhood--had quietly passed away six months after her husband's massive stroke. Too few friends were left to offer her their sorrow; too few left to squeeze her aging, trembling hands.

Her bones ached from the cold as she stood looking down into her husband's grave. Good-bye, beloved, Dorothia thought. How cruel that you should die the day before your seventieth birthday.

She had not wept as she thought she might during the wake; instead, she sat straight-backed for the whole time, dressed for mourning, decorated by a string of good pearls, looking . . . looking at him, smelling the roses and carnations--there were too many carnations--wondering if she had removed all of their cat's hair from her plain black shift. Cat hair was a silly thing to worry about, she knew. Still, she continued to focus on life's little troubles. In a peculiar way, it was comforting to do so. She looked at her hands. Were her nails done properly?

Dorothia knew that no matter how long or hard she looked at him, Charles would never again animate. His eyelids would not twitch as they had when he dreamed. His chest would not rise . . . and it would not fall . . . in the even way that had always been particular to his slumber. She could not think how to will him into life and--although she wished for a miracle, and prayed and hoped and longed for Charles to be--she understood that nothing she could do would wake his body from this, its final dream.

Dorothia heard a sound and looked up, squinting behind her glasses.

"Everyone's gone," Reverend Parks said. He took her hand in both of his. "Come home with me, Dorothia. Laura will have tea and cake ready for us." His dark blue eyes were pools of compassion.

Tears. She could not help herself. She was on the brink of sobs; but with the stubborness that had always characterized her, she gathered herself, pulled her sleeves down her thin arms, and smoothed her coat.

"I am perfectly all right, Reverend," Dorothia said. "No need to concern yourself about me." Dorothia reached into her purse, took out her compact, and checked herself. Her tears had run lines in her makeup. She touched herself up, snapped closed her compact, and smelled the sweet gush of powder from inside. "Take me home," she said.

She still took out the garbage, but she soon tired of all the stairs and began letting the discarded containers and dish scrapings pile up. She was, after all an old woman. She couldn't be expected to run up and down five flights of steps every night. And taking out the garbage had been Charles' job.

Charles' job.

She let the phone ring into silence the few times that it sounded and the occasional knocks at her apartment door went similarly unattended.

"Dorothia? Dorothia, are you there?" whispered the Reverend Parks one day.

Dorothia did not answer.

"Where in Heaven's name could she be?" asked the Reverend.

His wife answered, "I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. She's probably living with relatives. She might need help when she leaves the apartment."

"What makes you think she would ever leave the place? She and her husband lived here for fifty years."

"You don't think an old woman like her would want to live in a run-down rat trap like this by herself, do you? Not with Charles' insurance money. I don't know why they lived here all those years in the first place. Her husband made enough money in the computer business to provide better. And what about these stairs? Thank God this is the last time I'm ever going to climb this awful mountain."

Dorothia heard every word. She frowned and thought-yelled: Charles was work for hire in the computer business, you little snit! He never invented anything or discovered anything. He just wrote lines of code. Other people got rich--the bosses, the copyright holders of the software. And no, you terrible woman, there is not a drop of insurance money to be had. I signed Charles' small policy over to the funeral director three months ago. And to think, she stopped yelling, once I actually liked you!

Hemmingway uncurled himself from his place by the radiator and padded to Dorothia. He sat at her feet quietly, looking up at her, head cocked to one side, golden eyes shining.

Dorothia bent down and patted him. At twelve years old, he was still handsome. He had a long, tar-colored coat, a white diamond on his chest, and a fluff of tail that any feline would be proud of.

"Dorothia?" called the Revered again.

Hemmingway leaned to one side and raised his paw. He looked as though he was about to meow.

Please, she silently begged him, don't let them know we're here! She put her crooked index finger to her lips. They want to put us in one of those dreadful nursing homes!

As though he understood, Hemmingway sniffed under the door instead. His curiosity satisfied, he rubbed himself against Dorothia's shin before trotting, tail high, into the kitchen.

Dorothia eased down the wall and sat on the floor.

Everything will be all right, she thought. They'll go away. She just had to keep silent. "Shoooosh!" she whispered to herself. She covered her mouth and giggled.

That was the day Dorothia drew the blinds on all the windows and began watching television without sound.

She lost weight. It was obvious by how her wedding ring was fitting. Clothes that once pinched under her arms seemed loose; even her slippers seemed loose. But she didn't care. She found that, the less she ate, the more vivid were her memories.

Dorothia sat in Charles' favorite chair, she used his favorite coffee cup for her tea, and she read and reread his mystery books. All these things were Charles. Sometimes, if she concentrated hard enough, she could see him sipping from his cracked, blue cup, frowning, thinking hard, scribbling notes by his computer--just like he always had when he was alive.

His computer, she thought.

She crossed the room, sat in front of it, and immediately felt a chill. She coughed, cleared her throat, coughed again. She would become ill if she kept this up. People her age were prone to illnesses. People her age were prone to pneumonia. People her age were just prone. If only Charles would come back, all could be right again. He would nag her about taking care of her health; nag her, be cross with her. And she would take care--yes, she would. The Lord knew she would be happy to have him back, even if he were cross.

She looked at her reflection in the computer monitor. She'd been neglecting herself. Never once in all their marriage had she allowed Charles to see her this way. Lost in reverie, now, she remembered how, while Charles slept, she would sit in this very spot to type seemingly endless pages of his hand-written code into the computer. She laughed. No one but she could decipher his handwriting, especially at the moments when he found his way through a problem. Wildness in his penmanship marked his moments of genius--his too slow hand struggling to keep up with his flashing mind. She looked up again at the monitor. Charles' smiling face seemed to replace her own. "You were a good wife, Dorothia," the image said. Then Charles' face faded away.

That's it! she thought. She sat bolt upright. Oh, why hadn't she thought of it before? That was how she could bring him back!

The solution to her problem winked into crystal clarity. She needed a simple book that would lay out and explain the commands that she needed to write those little programs. She rushed to the nook that housed their books and began scanning the shelves. There! She picked one up and blew dust off the cover. It was impossible good luck but there was a volume from . . . she looked at the inside cover for the copyright notice . . . the eighties. The Beginners Quick Start Guide on MS-DOS, second edition. Dorothia smiled. Charles was not one to throw anything away.

Dorothia opened the book and ran her finger down the page. There, she thought, this could be something.. She read the header:

COMMANDS IN BATCH PROCESSING

Yes! she thought. This is exactly what I need!

The next few days were spent teaching herself computer commands. The command COPY CON: was the first she encountered. Dorothia read:

The quickest way of creating a batch file

is to use the COPY command to copy

what is typed on the keyboard to the batch file

A special device named CON: is used to

represent the console (keyboard) for

input and the monitor screen for output.

Okay, Dorothia thought. She could understand this.

Always type ^Z or hit the CONTROL button

plus the letter "Z" to end a batch file

This is the end of file marker.

Yes, I will, thought Dorothia. Thank you. She made notes and turned the page. She read further.

THE ECHO COMMAND

The ECHO command is a special command

used to turn on or off the echoing (display)

of the individual commands contained

in a batch file as they are being executed.

Okay, Dorothia thought.

She understood that too. Depending on how she set it up, the actual computer commands that made up a batch file would or would not display on the screen as they executed. She read more.

The ECHO command can also be used

to cause any text you desire to be displayed

on the screen while echoing has been

turned off (by a previous ECHO OFF command).

To echo text to the screen, simply insert ECHO

followed by the text to be displayed at the point

in the batch file where you want the text

display to occur.

Dorothia scratched her head. What? This was getting hard. She read the passage again. Oh, she thought. Now I understand. If I wanted my charles.bat batch file to tell me, "Dorothia, I love you," all I have to write at the c prompt would be. . . . She scribbled on a legal pad:

copy con: charles.bat

echo off

echo DOROTHIA, I LOVE YOU

^z

It's just like a recipie, she thought.I've always been good at following those.

Dorothia created her first batch file by typing these lines into the computer. When she invoked the Charles file by typing charles.bat at the c prompt:

DOROTHIA, I LOVE YOU

appeared on the computer screen.

"Eureka!" Dorothia exclaimed. She giggled and rubbed her hands together in anticipation. Charles would be up and running within a week!

Damn, she thought. It isn't working.

Oh, she could get the computer to type to the screen, "Good Morning, Dorothia" and "Dorothia, I love you" all right, and even "Meatloaf again?" but none of it, not even the scolding, was the same as having the real thing. Here, inside this beige, plastic box, Charles was so predictable, cold; two things he had never been once in his life. And she had gone and entered everything on him too; his height, weight, the color of his eyes. She'd even documented his crooked little toe, but none of these things got her what she so desperately needed: Charles' spirit.

Dorothia felt sick. She had lost track of the hours spent at the keyboard. All she knew was that her back ached terribly and--oddly--her left arm, too. She wanted to sleep.

Hemmingway sat on the floor next to her chair and meowed.

He was hungry, she knew. And more, he looked a little thin. "Good boy," Dorothia said, and then she patted him. She remembered feeding Hemmingway some tuna, but when? What day was that? She didn't know. She looked at herself; she was dressed in an old, tea-stained slip.

Hemmingway leaned to the left and raised his paw. This was something he did only for her and Charles. Not once could they get him to perform for any of their friends. It was a special greeting, Charles used to say, used only for members of the inner clan, people Hemmingway loved. She always liked that idea: the idea that Hemmingway loved her. She was glad someone still did.

Dorothia shuffled to the kitchen to see what she could feed him. She seldom picked up her feet anymore or looked straight ahead when she walked. She knew that she would always make it to wherever she was going as long as she started off walking in the right direction. Was this the right way to the kitchen? She wondered about that for a moment then she frowned when she saw that the pantry shelves were nearly empty.

When she returned to the parlor, she had found one last can of tuna on the top shelf, Hemmingway stood on top of the mini-tower case of the computer intently eyeing her, swishing his beautiful tail. The case wobbled as he circled in nervous anticipation of his meal, it teetered as he shifted his weight from one side to the other. When Dorothia lowered the dish, Hemmingway sprang at her, sending the tower case crashing on its side.

Dorothia gasped, letting the tuna slide off the plate before dropping it. Hemmingway went to devouring his meal off her bare feet.

"Now what am I going to do?" She was sure something had popped, come loose inside the system. Computers were very sensitive instruments. Her Charles had always said so. They couldn't be bounced and battered around like, like . . . catnip kitty toys! It was broken. She just knew it. It was BROKEN!

Dorothia sat in front of the computer and sobbed. Now there would never be a Charles! Not even the cold, predictable one that she had made! Dorothia embraced the computer monitor. She was tired and she had a terrible feeling in her stomach.

She lowered her head on the desk and took a deep, cleansing breath. Before her hands slipped from the computer monitor for the last time, she dreamed of her wedding day . . .

When Charles woke, he saw Dorothia sleeping at the keyboard in front of him. Hemmingway--loyal watch-cat that he was--sat on the desk by her head, protecting her. He would let her sleep, Charles thought. She had worked so hard typing up his papers.

Charles smiled. Dorothia had something special planned for his birthday party tomorrow, he just knew it. Ken Applegate would be there, as would Bill and Mary Braithwaite. So many of their dearest friends would show up to celebrate him. She would try to fool him though, make him think that they all forgot. But she'd done did this too often for him to believe that old bologna. He'd pretend though--pretend not to know--just like he always pretended not to know that she dyed her hair.

Hemmingway sniffed the monitor, blinked once, and raised his paw.

GOOD BOY

said Charles in silvery Times New Roman.

Charles extended his hand to scratch Hemmingway between the ears and a beam of bright green light scanned the monitor screen from top to bottom to top again.

Strange, Charles thought. Hemmingway looks a little thin.

Having toiled as a technical writer for, lo, these many years, I couldn't resist this story. If only some of my readers were as diligent as Dorothia, they'd have less trouble operating their equipment. Of course, if they were as diligent as Dorothia, they might never get to operate their equipment. Your comments, please, to our BBS.--gm