Doreen's last name

Doreen has a last name, but you'll forget it before too long, so let's just leave it off.  And though we won't bother with her last name, we'll point out that she did have a life.  And it was worth having and living.  She might have done better with it, lived a little harder, loved more.  But she lost it.  It was the I DID IT, though, that brought hers to an "already?" end.

Doreen wasn't a dreamer.  Normally.  She didn't look to a horoscope or the shape her tea leaves took.  She thought things through, normally coming to the same conclusion her mother would have, had she been there.

But that day was unnaturally spring-like; the air reeked of change.  And change, sad to say, wasn't in her plans, not for a long time yet.  This isn't to say she didn't have dreams of change; of easy smiles, of great men, and new, unique experiences.  Doreen was passionate, but disciplined, and so when these ideas seeped in, they were summarily pumped out.  With a sigh.

But the I DID IT was an affirmation, an echo of her soul's whimper.  It said she could dream those dreams, that they were not a waste, and that all work and no play made Doreen a dull boy.

So she did it.  She logged off, snatched up her purse, and marched out the door.

And the next time she was seen, in an official, on-the-radar sort of way, it was by an early morning jogger on the trail that goes by Lake Austin.

And she had a hole in her forehead, punched through by God knows what.

Though, that's not exactly what the coroner had to say about it.  What he did say, however, was that death was instantaneous.  The facial expression supported that; she was "downright peaceable lookin'".

It didn't start here

You could say it started when [name the event or the date or time stamp].  But you'd be wrong.  Like most would-be effects, this one can't be primly tied to a specific cause.  And if you tried to pull that stunt, you'd just end up dogmatically defending something heretical.

That said, let's backtrack and point out that there was a time and place where it was noticed.  Where the output peaked above the noise threshold, and was thus registered.  And we could argue that that is where it started.  But we won't argue that.

It was a Thursday afternoon.  It was in that waiting-for-something-to-happen sliver of time when you're sitting at the computer, checking headlines or the weather or, as in this case, your Twitter feed; whilest waiting for something mundane, like for the wife to get ready or the chicken to be done or, again, as in this case, the clock to read 4:35 PM Central time.

And that's when it happened, that's when Doreen saw it.

"DID IT." read the post.  Or rather, the author's zeitgeist, Twittered for the world to enjoy.  And that's all it said.

Doreen wondered what "IT" was.  And you know what?  She would never really know what IT was.

But others would, and be terrified.