March 2, 1998, Vancouver, BC

I downloaded a "love program" from the internet. I didn't know exactly what it was supposed to do, except that it was somehow associated with the estate of Princess Di and that it was supposed to bring me love. So I ran the program and it created a little icon on the bottom of my screen. The icon was shaped like an egg, and it said, "generating."

Weeks passed, and the love program was still "generating." Then one day, I looked at the screen and the icon had changed. The egg now had a little black circle in the middle, and it said, "12 seconds."

So I sat down in front of the computer, and waited for the love program to work its magic. After twelve seconds, the icon flickered and disappeared and I could hear a whirring sound emanating from my computer.

I looked at the CPU just in time to see a huge, hairy, black centipede wriggle out through the headphone jack and drop to the desk. I was revolted. I stood and took a few involuntary steps backward, and in those few seconds the centipede righted himself and scurried out of sight among the tangle of cords and cables that interconnect the computer, printer, phone, and fax machine.

Recovering myself, I picked up a thick book and ducked beneath the desk to hunt for the centipede. Every time I caught sight of him, he disappeared again among the electrical cords that lie knotted on the floor. Several times, he was in the clear, and I tried to kill him by throwing the book at him, but he leapt into the air and I missed.

Finally I managed to dash him with a carefully aimed blow. But I found that he was still alive, only wounded, with many legs missing. Ordinally, I would feel sympathy for a wounded creature, but now I didn't. I crushed him to pulp under the spine of the book.

And that was the love program.

The end.