Twenty minutes remaining

TIME LEFT TODAY: 00:20.

Twenty minutes was not enough to do everything, so she had a routine. First: read new messages. Second: check whether anyone had replied to her question about memory managers. Third: play today's turns in her favourite door game. Fourth: download anything genuinely worth keeping.

She navigated the menus almost without looking. The letters had become muscle memory: a key to list conferences, another to read, another to write. She had drafted her own reply earlier that afternoon in a text editor so she wouldn't waste a precious minute composing it online.

A new message from an old rival interrupted her plan. He had captured a sector she wanted in the trading game. She typed out a playfully outraged response, deleted it, then wrote something sharper and shorter.

Fifteen minutes.

She entered the door game and used her remaining moves. The board felt different at night. The same handles were present, but the messages were quieter and more conspiratorial. She bought supplies, checked the scores and left a warning for her rival.

Eight minutes.

There was a ZIP in the new files area. She considered starting the download but decided against it. Better to use the remaining time to answer a newcomer who had posted a question she knew how to solve.

At two minutes, she returned to the main menu. Another late-night caller was probably already waiting to get through. She typed G for goodbye and watched the screen return to her communications software.

She had been online for less than an hour, but it felt as though she'd spent the evening in a tiny clubhouse. Tomorrow she would call again.