Ghostwriter in the Urkel
It was a dark and stormy night.
It was a dark and stormy night.
It was a dark and stormy night.
It was dark. It was stormy.
Yep. Whatever way you looked at it, it was a dark and stormy night.
Steve Urkel's fingers flew over his keyboard with a skilled grace unseen by most pianists as the words came up on his computer screen in a light blue text. He stopped and examined what he wrote.
"No, no, no!" he exclaimed, "that's all wrong." He tapped a key on the upper right section, "Backspace, backspace, backspace." He made an annoyed growl and said, "I should've known better than to try writing another Johnny Danger story. You just don't mess with the original." Holding his arms to the side and shrugging, he added, "Gee, I wonder why the writers for Nightmare on Elm Street couldn't figure that out?"
There was a knock at his door.
"Stephen, there's someone here to see you," a feminine voice called.
"Very funny, Mom, you and your jokes," Steve turned in his chair, laughed and snorted.
The door opened and Little Richie stepped in. "It's me, Uncle Steve."
"Richie!" Steve exclaimed. "What brings you over?"
"I had a question to ask you..." the five-year-old stopped and looked around Steve's bedroom that was neatly organized and covered in bug collections pinned on the walls and scientific equipment. "Whoa, this is your room?"
Steve was beaming as he nodded proudly, "It sure is."
"Where are your toys?" Richie asked.
"Mm, that's a long story," Steve said. "So what's up my main man?"
"I got a problem. Mommy's birthday's next week and I don't know what to get her," Richie said.
"Hmm, well," Steve thought, "how much money do you have to buy her a present?"
"None, that's the problem," Richie answered. "I bought a new yo-yo last week."
"Yeah...and I don't think Rachel would appreciate unwrapping that," Steve said. "Well then, do what I do, make your mom a homemade present."
"Like what?" Richie asked.
"Well, let's see," Steve thought, "do you have any crayons?"
"Do I have any crayons?" Richie repeated mockingly, "are you kidding? I've got a jumbo box."
"Well there you go, you can draw your mom a one-of-a-kind birthday card, she'll love it."
"Thanks, Uncle Steve," Richie said, and looked to the computer screen. "What're you doing?"
"Oh, I'm working on a new short story," Steve answered.
"Is Eddie gonna use it for school again?" Richie asked.
Steve shook his head. "No, this one's just because I want to write it. But this time I'm having trouble actually figuring out what I want it to say. The good thing is it's a vast improvement over my old typewriter. Watch this." He tapped the key again, "Backspace, backspace, backspace."
Richie's eyes widened when he saw the words disappear off the screen. "Wow, it's magic!"
"Not exactly, Richie," Steve said. "But it is a lot easier than using White-Out and corrective tape, or for that matter tearing up the whole thing and starting over from scratch."
"Can I try it?" Richie asked.
"I'll tell you what, Richie," Steve said as he saved his story to his floppy disk, "it's a lot more fun, and a lot easier to figure out, once you learn how to read."
"I can read!" Richie insisted. "By the way, how do you spell 'birthday'?"
Steve smirked to himself.
"Uncle Steve," Richie said, "if you're so good at inventing things, why do you like writing stories?"
"Well in a way, Richie, it's the same thing, like making your mommy's card, in all instances you create something where before, there was nothing. Besides, I figure if I get good enough at writing stories, I can publish them and use that money to further fund my science experiments." He shrugged. "Everybody keeps saying how good my stories are, it would be a shame not to capitalize on them."
"Well, good luck," Richie said, "I gotta get back home and start working on Mommy's card."
"Bye, Richie," Steve said.
Left alone in his bedroom again, Steve looked at his computer and the blinking cursor waiting for him to touch the keys again and create something on the screen. He intertwined his fingers and cracked his knuckles, then tried again.
It was a dark and stormy night. The kind of night you only saw in murder mystery pictures. In a spooky dark house, also the kind you only saw in murder mystery pictures. Only this wasn't a murder mystery picture. This was real. It was happening. I was in the middle of a real life murder mystery, and if I didn't watch my step, the next victim would be me. My name's Johnny Danger, I'm a private eye, sometimes I've also been a sympathetic ear. In my work I've been known to sometimes thumb my nose at the local flat foots, which resulted in me contracting secondhand fallen arches and hammer toes. Yep...I throw my whole body into my work.
"Hmm," Steve thought, "if I do get published, what I ought to do is sock that money away for my honeymoon with Laura."
Turning his attention to the screen again, he did a double take when he saw the text underneath his last sentence.
Don't bet on it, kid.
Steve's eyes bugged out as he tried to make sense of that, and hit the backspace key even harder.
"If there's one thing I don't need, it's a computer with its own opinions," he commented.
Before he could touch the keys, more words formed on the monitor.
You wanted a computer smart enough to play chess with you, what did you expect?
Steve glared at the screen, rapidly hit the backspace key again, then resumed typing his story.