I worked for Avenda Systems as a technical writer for a while last year. The company is small and the pay was lousy given the amount of work I had to do. They were getting ready for a new product release and I had to give up most of my weekends. They let me go after the contract was up, and I didn't complain.

At the time I was just getting started on my standards manual, and it was frustrating for me that I had to put in so many hours at Avenda when I was just getting this project off the ground. This is something that Ross and I had planned on working on together, but Ross left for Seattle a while back and we lost contact with one another. I figured he wouldn't mind if I went ahead on my own with the thing.

I did manage to show my early work to Fleming, who was also on contract at Avenda. I had just finished the introductory part of the manual, which went as follows:

"Standards are not something to be taken lightly. Standards are what drive human development and innovation. You have to think of this from a historical perspective.

"Let's say that I'm an outsider and it's sometime in the Middle Ages. I'm on the road, and maybe I'm in trouble with the law back home. I can't go back home. That's why I'm wandering around.

"I take a road going south through what is now Belgium. I'm in a thickly-wooded area, and I'm keeping an eye out for bandits. I know from listening to the stories of other travelers that such places are always teeming with nefarious characters.

"Late in the day I arrive at a village. It's a pretty dreary place, with houses put together with mud and rotting wood. The only structure made out of brick is the church.

"But you have to take this situation seriously. You have to think about it with the full effort of your imagination.

"I'm an outsider and I suddenly show up in this town. I'm on a road that doesn't see much traffic. So the locals start stumbling out of their homes to take a look at me. I slow down. I don't want to cause any trouble.

"Eventually I reach what might be called the centre of town. The church is looming up on one side, and there are a few shops running along the other side of the street. There is a blacksmith and his apprentice pounding furiously at some piece of wrought iron. But even they stop working when they see me.

"I know to stop and stand still at this point. I know this because I know what to expect when I enter a strange town. Maybe when I was younger, before I got into trouble and had to leave home, I would not have known such things. But experience has taught me how to survive as a wanderer.

"Now maybe the blacksmith comes out of his shop and stands right in front of me. Perhaps he is one of the more important men in the village. The priest is probably watching everything unfold from the doorway of the church. He is an important spiritual figure, but he is also an outsider, sent out to preach in that spot by his bishop. This is the way things are done.

"I raise a hand as the blacksmith looks me up and down. I know that my gesture indicates to most people that I intend to do no harm. Yet I am not entirely sure that my message is getting across. I am doing the best I can in strange circumstances.

"It is from this perspective that we must think about standards. Standards can assist us as we navigate unknown territory. They allow us to understand and organize new information when we receive it. We never know when we will receive new information. Sometimes it arrives when we least expect it to."

So this is the section of the manual that I showed to Fleming once when we were in the break room at Avenda. You have to understand that Fleming was older than me, and he was thin and pale, as if he were perpetually flu-ridden. I've met quite a few people like Fleming.

Anyway, Fleming read through this introduction and then slid it back across the table. "I'm guessing you'll want this back, " he said.

"You can look it over again if you'd like, " I told him.

"I've read it all, " he said. "You have to trust me here. The longer it sits on my side of the table, the more nervous you'll get. Your work sitting here exposed to a potential adversary."

"I don't consider you an adversary, " I said.

"Let me tell you this, " Fleming said. "I've been working on something similar to this. Or, perhaps I shouldn't say that. What I mean is that there are ideas here that I could use in my own work. How does that make you feel?"

"I'm fine with that, " I told him. "Do you want to keep it for a while? I thought for a moment that you didn't like it."

"You wouldn't want me to borrow it, " Fleming said. "I've seen too much already. I'm sure that I'll copy some of your ideas. They'll stay with me."

"I don't mind, " I said. "I'm telling you."

Fleming looked around the room for a moment. We were alone. "You don't understand the kind of work you're doing here, do you?" he then asked me.

"Like I said, this was an idea an old friend of mine and I hashed out one evening, " I told him. "We thought we'd put all of our experience into a single document. Something that would be a sort of fingerprint that would identify who we were for posterity."

"But your friend bailed out of the project, " Fleming said.

"We haven't spoken since he left, " I said. "Maybe once right after he moved. But for all I know he could be working on his own stuff."

"But you don't think it was a coincidence that he left soon after you came up with this idea, " Fleming said.

"I never thought about it, " I said. "He left maybe a few months after we thought of it. You know, we never really got going. It's like that sometimes. You want to start on something, but it never seems like the right time."

"So why did he leave?" Fleming said.

"He's working for a start-up, " I said. "Some opportunity came up. I don't know many of the details."

"It's all a bit mysterious, isn't it?" Fleming said.

I tapped the paper in front of me nervously. I couldn't figure out what Fleming was trying to get at. "I should try to track him down, " I said. "I think I have a phone number somewhere."

"Don't do that, " Fleming said. "You still don't understand, do you?"

"I'm trying to, " I said.

"You come up with this idea. You and your friend decide that you want to make this standards manual. Yet you never actually do any work on it. And then suddenly your friend leaves and makes sure he cuts off all contact. He knew that you wanted to get on this. Probably you were pestering him about it."

"I brought it up quite a bit, I suppose, " I said.

"So there you have it, " Fleming said. "Now, as I said, I'm working on something similar. I'm trying to leave something behind as well, you know. I don't even know how much longer I'm going to live. I know I don't exactly look like the healthiest human being on the planet. I don't think I'm meant to have a long life. But I'm fine with that. But you have to understand that my situation is rather urgent. I have to get my work complete. I shouldn't even be working here. But I need money to live, even if my life is nearly over."

"We all need money, " I said. "That's the problem."

I didn't speak to Fleming much after that encounter. As you might imagine, he was rather off-putting, and I made a point of avoiding him as much as I could. Near the end of my tenure at Avenda our managers were pushing even harder than they had been previously. There were additional documents that they needed before their new product could be released. There was more work to do than they had anticipated. That's generally the way things go.

A few days before I was supposed to go, however, Fleming showed up at my desk. He borrowed a chair from across the way and rolled up beside me. He then reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded-up sheet of paper. "Here you go, " he said, handing it to me.

I unfolded the paper. "What's this?" I asked Fleming.

"Read it, " he told me.

There were a few lines of print near the top of the page. I still have this sheet of paper with me, so I can cite the entire passage here:

"Issue #204. You wake up in a dark room and you have no idea where you are. You don't even know how long you've been asleep. You sit upright and try to collect your thoughts. You hear someone pacing back and forth somewhere nearby. You suddenly realize that you're in some sort of trouble. You don't know exactly what's going on, but you know that you're somewhere you don't want to be."

I folded the paper back up and put it on my desk. "This is something you wrote, I'm guessing, " I said.

"You may consider it a gift, " Fleming said. "I'm not going to use it."

"I'm not sure what you expect me to do with it, " I said. "It's a meaningless passage without any context."

"It's a situation that demands rectification, " Fleming said. "I have hundreds of these things. I write several of them a day. I'm giving you one."

"So this is what you've been working on, then, " I said.

"It's one project I have on the go, " Fleming said. "But I thought maybe you could incorporate that into your own work."

I picked up the piece of paper again and reread the passage. "I suppose this could be useful, " I said.

Fleming smiled at that. He looked almost relieved, when I think about it now. "I'm glad to hear it, " he said.

"I've been having trouble getting any work done on my stuff, " I told him.

"It's this place, " Fleming said.

"Of course it is, " I told him.

"They don't know what they're doing, " Fleming said. "They'll be swallowed up soon, I think. Some bigger fish will come up and take everything over."

"I don't even know if the company's worth taking over, " I said. "It might be just fade away. That happens all the time."

"I guess it does, " Fleming said.