You dont find

Must involved yourself, a cat, and a usb hub

Now when you say this does this mean that when you name yourself you talk about yourself in first person or third person? Basically can the creators name be in it (seeing it is about them)?
Just wondering because if the competition will be anonymous (in the voting scheme of things) like the graphic competitions how should we go about writing it?

I read it as autobiographical.

2 hours left to get your entries in

Well to be honest i've had only one entry so i'll extend the deadline for 48 more hours

Well theres no competition with just one entry so i'll try to find more entrants..

Cant you try to remember what you wrote?

I'd been working for a company for a few years that mainly dealt with safe deposit boxes in knightsbridge london, my job was to allocate boxes to bank customers and to oversee customers into vaults and their safe deposit of whatever they wanted to put into their boxes.

It was normal monday morning and i was feeling more than a little hung over from the saturday night before which was spent at fabric, a club in london, anyway i was asked to escort a gentleman to a box and to leave him in the room as normal while he carried out his business.

I'd left him in the vault and waited 20 minutes and still there was no sign of him wanting to leave, much to my annoyance,so mistakenly and impatiently i walked in and startled him, and he dropped a usb stick on the floor now i'd seen usb sticks before but i had never seen one like this.

Now normally i'd be the epitome of honesty, but today i was a little in cloud cuckoo land and he didn't notice he'd dropped it, god knows how, you could hear a pin drop in the vaults but he seemed so ruffled and redfaced and insulting to me i decided not to say anything about it lying there on the floor, he walked out while my manager lead him out apologising for my indiscretion, so wrongly i picked it up and put it in my pocket till i'd get home.

17:30 and i was leaving work, i started the car and headed for chiswick down the A4 where i'd been living alone ,except for a cat i lived with called oscar (after the bloke in 6 million dollar man), gradually over the years i'd lost pretty much everything due to my marriage braking up ,but oscar remained my faithful companion to this day and the only one from my past.

I walked in the kitchen looked at the bottle of whisky, stroked oscar and put some food down for him , i'd been trying to give up smoking for a while now and i was managing to not smoke during the day but as soon as i'd get home i smoke like a trooper well 10 or so a night anyway and the whisky didn't help.

I reached into my pocket looking for a lighter (i always keep fags with me just incase i have a stress day) and noticed the usb stick ,i'd forgotten all about it ,i plugged it into my usb Hub and it was uncoded unfortunately for me a message came up " Please report in the morning to head office, today had been a test of your honesty and quite honestly your not"

Sh*t.

I’d never done anything like this before, but I needed to.
But the past few months, the pressure had been building and I needed a release, and the way it’d been portrayed films, tv and books made it seem like the remedy, my perfect drug.
I didn’t even know where to start, where I’d look for a dealer, I’d made a habit of avoiding the backstreets, and going out at night, but to get the buzz, to get the release, I’d have to.
Back in the flat I sat in the corner, the only light coming through the blinds. I’d been meaning to replace the light bulb for a week now, but I didn’t know how much money I needed for the fix.
A few minutes had passed since I’d taken those pills, and nothing had happened yet, maybe I’d bought the wrong things. I sat there hoping I’d start to see some sort of colour changes or anything weird at all. But nothing.
The only sounds I could hear were those of cars. No distortion, just the usual. Something wasn’t right, because everything was alright.
“Not what you were expecting then I guess?”
“No, I think I got the wrong stuff, serves me right I gu..” I stopped mid word.
Where the hell did that voice come from? I live alone, the door is locked from the inside and I’m several floors up. Maybe it kicking in.
The blinds started to rattle, the window was open, but it was a clear night, no real wind.
I backed even more into the corner, “who’s there?” I asked.
The blinds rattled more, and a cat popped through them.
“Aww hello little fellow” I pulled myself out of the corner.
“Hey no need for that” the cat replied
My body froze, was this cat talking to me? Must be the pills.
“What is this? Alice in bloody wonderland?” I questioned.
By now the cat had approached me.
“Oh aren’t we a funny guy? You should have been a stand-up, then you wouldn’t be in a tiny flat with no lights, off your head on pills talking to a cat”
I don’t know what it was, maybe it was the pressure of life, or maybe the drugs, maybe it was being taunted by a talking cat but I snapped. I saw white rage.
I grabbed whatever was nearest to me, happened to be the usb hub next to my computer. I had to yank it hard, but I got it, and without thinking, without even seeing what I was doing I started flailing my arms up and down.
The next thing I remembered was a knock on the door, I opened the door, it was Mrs Harvey, looking for her missing cat.
I opened the door too much, she saw the dead cat on my floor, and the blood on my top.
I can still hear the scream in the back of my mind.
But that’s all I hear in my solitary confinement cell.

I was angry, blazing in fact. Seething with frustration my mind was made up as I stomped down the corridor. I mean it was a simple enough request wasn’t it? Mind you wasn’t every request put through to the I.T. Department simple in essence? How many of us in the office had time and time again put through a request – “via email only” – because our machines had stopped functioning only to be fobbed off with empty promises of the I.T. guy being with us later that day?

Enough was enough, my USB hub had been faulty for three weeks now and numerous emails and phone calls had got me nowhere (and my IPOD badly needed charging) – I was off to see the I.T. Guy in person!

The first thing that struck me as odd when I got to his office was the gravel bed at either side of the door. They weren’t even either. They had little infrequent mini-mountains formed at irregular intervals and the corridor itself stank. It was a pungent odour that caught in the back of my throat making me gag!

Taking a sharp intake of breath and holding it I raised my fist to knock animatedly on the door. Somewhere inside a cat wailed as if suddenly startled. As I waited impatiently for an answer thinking how come I.T. guys where allowed pets at work, a cat flap folded magically open in the bottom of the door and a voice said, “Yes!” – clearly irritated.

“I am looking for the I.T. guy, I have rang and emailed him loads and my USB hub is knackered.” The information came out of my mouth in an aggravated gabble.

“Oh woe to you sonny,” said the voice. “What do you think I am? Turning up here in the middle of my bowl of Kite Kat! Wouldn’t mind it’s the Mediterranean Chicken and mint sauce!”

“You eat cat food?” My frustration was giving way to confusion. “Look can I speak to the I.T. guy please I just want my USB hub replacing if he’s not in can you let me in and I’ll leave a message?”

To my surprise a ginger cat came skulking out of the cat flap sat down in front of me proudly displaying a silver name badge with “Nigel – Informatics Officer” emblazoned across it. “As I said – I was in the middle of my Kite Kat! I didn’t say Whiskers did I sunshine? Go sing for your hub!”

Ironically the first thought I had was – “Typical the I.T. guy is a ginger!”

Second was a moment of complete realisation. Suddenly it all added up. Of course a cat ran I.T. the truth if weighed up was stark.

Nothing ever got done computer wise around the building and we never had enough milk in the canteen and somebody always pre-ordered all the fish from the canteen on a Friday. My lesson learned I skulked off back to my office to learn all the hot keys available in Windows.

"Monday morning" x cried to himself "do you think they would mind if i didn't go in today"
he put his head back on the pillow and pulled the cover over him..
He could hear a faint russell as he laid there "whats that" lifting his head up he tried to see where it was
coming from “damn cat" he mumbled and put his head back down just at that point he felt a ruff tongue
on his face "Bloody hell! cant you see I'm trying to sleep" he shouted into the pillow, he moved
his head to look at the cat which now was sat on the pillow next to him "what do you want" the cat stared at
him tilting his head to the side as if to say "don't you know " the cat moved forward and nudged
x with his cold wet nose "meow" he wined.
"Leave me alone" x shouted "i am not getting up today" "meow" the cat wined again "for crying out load!"
pulling his arm out he pushed the cat away, "There now fuck off" the cat moved back in
shocked that his owner and best friend could be so horrible to him, this wasn't the person he had grown up with,
this was the man that fed him when he was hungry stroked him when he was purring, had he forgotten all the
nights they had spent in front of the TV watching repeats of Emerdale, "no he must be the same man" the cat thought.
The cat jumped back on to the pillow "meow" he stared at the the creature that was in front of him "is it him"
the cat thought again "What know" x growed "what is it you want" the cat jumped off the bed "no it's not him"
the cat looked around the bedroom floor "what shall i do there is a mean creature in my owners bed"
he spotted a cable next to the desk the cat scampered over to it "whats this"he thought,
"this will do" the cat picked up the cable with his mouth and made his way back to the bed where the
creature was, with the cable still in his mouth he jumped up on to the pillow.
The cat sat and waited until the right moment , and then it came.
x moved his head to get more down into the pillow and forget that it was Monday morning yawning as he did
when all of a sudden he felt as though something had jumped in to his mouth x opened his eyes to see his cat
stood over him he reached up to his mouth and felt what was there the end of the usb cable "where the hell did that come from
it must have come unplugged form my usb hub"
he said to himself "well i ain't getting anymore sleep today am i might as well get up and feed you and go to work"

That day changed my life forever. It was just a normal day like any other. You know the type, boring, dull
I was walking home from school when, Ginster, my cat, came running up to me to greet me home. I gave my ginger moggy a hug. Then I noticed the woods. I didn’t know there were woods where I lived before, I’d never seen them. They had that strangely eerie enticement that attracted me towards them. I put my cat down and it ran back into the house.
‘All right,’ I thought to myself, ‘I always complain with the lack of excitement in my life, why not take a risk?.’ I ran home dropped off my school bag and told my Mum I was going to a friends house. She just nodded and told me to be home no later than 10pm. Seriously I’m 18 and she still thinks I should have a curfew.
The woods had a black gate at its entrance. It had vines twisting around it as if it hadn’t been touched in years. ‘Here I go’ I thought. The adrenaline started pumping through my body. Why was I so scared? The gate was jarred so I clambered over it, falling on my head as I landed.
“Ouch!” I screamed. I walked through the trees, and a sparrow squawked in the distance. The trees seemed to be looking down on me as if they were people. It got darker as I entered deep into this wood. Soon enough all daylight disappeared into the darkness. I thought about turning around and running. ‘Don’t be stupid!’ I told myself ‘It’s only a silly little wood.’
I felt a cold breath at the crook of my neck, menacing deep breaths. I turned and screamed as I came face to face with head half snapped off and an evil grin across the things face.
“Who, who are you?” I asked petrified to a stone.
“Your worst nightmare” he cackled. I looked over his shoulder at an object.
“What’s that?” I thought aloud ‘Did I just speak?’ I thought.
“An usb hub.”
“What’s one of those?” I started to become cocky hoping I could distract the monsters attention. That’s when I blacked out…..
I woke up and found myself in a dank, smelly dungeon. ‘What’s that rotten smell?’ I thought, too afraid to speak. There was a lamp in the corner, I picked it up and shone it around the dungeon to get my bearings.
“ARGH!!!!” I screeched. Dead bodies! Hundreds of dead bodies surrounded me. I wept, unable to control myself. What had I gotten my self into?
“Hello, dearie.” I recognised that voice, but from where.
“ARGH!” I screamed again. I was in hysterics. It was that monster again. “Just leave me alone!” I pleaded.
“Never! You will be stuck here as my slave… for eternity hahaha!” With that, he left. It’s my 2nd year in this place. I have to figure a way out, I can’t stay here forever!