Day 16 of my 2023 drabble-a-day challenge! Today’s drabble again has a content warning for death/dying.

Here is today’s drabble…

Man’s Best Friend

From the corridor, Bill's voice was quiet but still audible.

"I'm dying, Hinny. I'm scared. I'm so glad you're here."

The nurses exchanged whispers.

"Hinny?"

"Childhood pet, I think. Might've been a dog?"

Bill's hand fluttered over a small hollow in the duvet.

Richard nodded to his colleague. "I'll sit with him."

He slipped into the room, and stayed until Bill didn't need him any more.

When the mortuary guys had left, a faint depression remained in the covers.

"C'mon, Hinny, it's time to go. You've been a good boy." Rich paused before stripping the bed. "Such a good boy."

I finished today’s drabble, and carefully edited it down to 100 words in my software of choice. Which is emacs, a weird kitchen-sink of a text program which does a bewildering array of things including counting words.

Counting words is, it turns out, something it does extremely badly. In particular, I’ve just learned that it considers any word with an apostrophe to be two words. Today, my inital “100 word” story turned out only to have 90 words in it when counted by more… conventional means.

As someone who has used emacs for everything for around thirty years, I am mildly staggered by this.