Apathy Jack writes:

So, I’m silently padding along behind one of the students (I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: teachers’ college should make “wearing sneakers to work” a compulsory part of the training...). I’ve decided that this one is going to be a writer, regardless of her antipathy toward the idea, and was waiting for an opportune time (ie when she noticed me and got a fright) to discuss the matter with her.
“Aren’t you late to class?” asked her friend, similarly wagging (and choosing not to reveal my presence).
“Yeah, but I have a reliever, so it doesn’t matter,” replied my one.
A few seconds later she noticed me, and started.
“Sir! Don’t be a stalker! Do you always follow me around?”
“I don’t follow you: I am everywhere all at once, and I occasionally choose to manifest myself where you are. Now why haven’t you entered the short story competition that closes in a couple of days?”
She dithered, before noticing she was outside her class, and hurried in.
The reliever, a woman of advanced years and little humour, demanded to know why she was late. She stammered, and her synapses were firing loud enough to make little cracking noises when a light came on in her eyes, and she said: “I was with Sir, ay Sir?”
“Yes,” I said. “We were talking about how she was entering the short story contest, and how I’d see her entry in the next few days. Isn’t that right?”
Again her eyes darted around as she desperately tried to think, before giving up. Her shoulders slumped.
“Yes Sir,” she mumbled, and went to her desk.



This is how all the great writers started, I think. I’m pretty sure Voltaire had a slightly peculiar beardo blackmailing him to enter tupenny/ha’penny writing contests when he were a lad, too. It would certainly explain a lot if he did...