Free Falter Kingdom by Michael J Seidlinger Page A

kicking myself for it because I sort of knew it would happen. I mean, I remember thinking about taking it, like I subconsciously knew something would happen if I left it here. So it’s sort of my fault. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s gone.
    My laptop. Where the fuck?
    Here’s what I’m talking about when I say it’s exhausting.
    I have to look everywhere. There are so many places where the laptop could’ve gone. Then I think about the possibility that it broke the laptop or banished it into the ether of some kind of hell or something.
    My life is in that laptop.
    I can’t live my life without it.
    Just thinking about all of it...
    Okay, I sit down on the bed. I take off one of the hoodies because I’m legit sweating now. I maybe close my eyes and maybe fall asleep.
    Whenever I start searching for it, like a half hour’s gone and I’m exactly the same: tired, just really tired. Also a little afraid. Definitely confused.
    I keep thinking about what the demon might look like. I’m surprised that the more I think about it, trying to form an image out of the bits and pieces I’ve seen, I’m more interested than scared.
    That’s normal, right? I really don’t know.
    I want it to be normal.
    I start from the basement. I hate the basement. Not because it’s scary—it’s really not—but because it’s where my mom has all of her whatever-you-call-them, collectibles, I guess. They’re so stupid but she loves collecting them. They are all figurines of different fantasy and science fiction characters. She doesn’t read and she doesn’t watch any movies, but she buys all the memorabilia. It’s all in this basement. But not my laptop.
    I check the kitchen; the dining room; the room some people call the “family room,” which is dusty and has a very cool TV that we never use; every stupid closet (there are too many closets in this house); all the upstairs rooms, including the drawers jammed full of stuff I don’t need to know about; and not the bathroom because fuck that bathroom.
    I go back to my room. I go online via my phone and just kind of try to think about something else.
    When something like this happens, it’s not like all the movies where the character fights back and everything just falls into place. The laptop is missing and I’m out of options. I’ve looked everywhere and it’s gone.
    I start thinking about what to do next. Did I back up my files? Any very personal data on there that I don’t want anyone, or anything, to know about? I think about stuff like that, and it makes me really, really tired.
    I sit in bed and then I lie down in bed and then I’m remembering where I’m supposed to be. I’m remembering the party, Jon-Jon’s thing, and I’m remembering something else.
    I check my phone. There’s still plenty of time.
    Back out in the hallway, I keep the lights off because it’s creepier that way. Actually, I keep them off because I’m too lazy to feel around for the light switch. I go down the stairs and out the door to the recycling bin shoved to the side of our garage.
    I pick my laptop up—nope, not wasting any thought on how this could have happened or how I could just know where it was all of a sudden—and I look to see if it’s been scratched, messed up, broken. It’s like it just flew here.
    Back in my room, it’s cold again.
    Where’s my hoodie? There. Okay.
    I open up the laptop. It looks like the screen froze, but no, actually it hasn’t, hmm. Tap a few keys, click around, and the window starts playing a video I’ve never seen before. It’s not something I was watching.
    Two guys in a skit, both of them overreacting and freaking out over the simplest things. It’s actually kind of funny.
    I pause it a moment but the pause button isn’t working.
    The video’s