Moonbase

A prose fragment inspired by an actual conversation.

Nick straightened the table with both feet, generating a loud honk as the leveler feet scraped over the linoleum.

“Video and sound were not practical when I started on the web,” Nick observed.

“Eh, the bandwidth just wasn’t there,” said Matt.

Nick raised his eyebrows earnestly. “Indeed, even pictures were frowned upon as too expensive.”

“Well, I suppose they’re hardly essential,” I said.

Nick paused. “Sometimes I would get word documents from the sysadmin about how my text was using too much bandwidth, and that I try to write more concisely.”

Matt snorted with suppressed laughter.

I grimaced. “Lovely.”

There was a loud “PANG” as the vending machine in the hall outside disgorged a beverage.

I picked up the thread again. “Concision is a lost art, sadly.”

“People tend to write about it more than do it,” Nick said, setting his cup down definitely.

“Yeah, it’s great to see long articles about the virtues of concision,” Matt said, illustrating with his hands.

”’Use less words,’” I quipped.

Matt laughed.

“Moment,” I said as I dragged my laptop off the table to balance it on my knees. “I am so going to blog that.”

“The thing—” I glanced up again to find him looking at me. “The thing I was laughing at, though, is that it should be ‘Use fewer words.’”

“Oh. Hmm,” I said, and looked down at the laptop again. “It’s posted. I think I’m going to leave it the way it is.”

Matt leaned back in his chair, looking up. The back cushion shifted with a faint sound of vinyl on wood. “I suppose it could mean you’re using lesser words. Shorter ones. Sort of.”

“Okay, maybe I will fix it.” More typing. “There.” I turned the laptop around to face him.

Matt leaned forward over the table and frowned. “Huh. Loses a bit of its zing, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah…”

There was a long silence.

“I’ll put it back the way it was,” I said.