The Rum Diary by Carolyn Glass

I modelled myself on Bridget Jones; it seemed such a good idea at the time, having a blog, it would encourage me to write every day. My life was so boring; it was a nice hobby, harmless. The trouble was, my love life was non-existent, I’d never smoked or taken drugs and was completely teetotal. So I decided to embellish a little. It was a little harmless fantasy, it was for me, I wasn’t expecting anyone else to take an interest in my blog. It was anonymous, so where was the harm?

I was pretty surprised even a little excited when a magazine editor, mentioned it in her editorial. I was flattered that she had been amused by my small efforts. I never gave a thought to what would happen next.

Once she had mentioned my blog, a lot of people started to take a look, it was a few weeks before I realised there was anything wrong. One Friday I witnessed a huge argument going on as I left the office, I knew the guy slightly and I assumed the girl was his wife or girlfriend. It looked like a pretty big argument.

The next Monday, security escorted a number of people from the building, no-one would talk about why, but they were all from the planning office, two floors above mine.

The penny finally dropped when I was called into the office of the managing director, and questioned about whether I had ever been subject of unwanted sexual advances from my line manager. I fervently denied that poor old Mr Jones had ever done anything inappropriate and couldn’t wait to get out. I feigned illness and went home early.

I went back over my blog, there it was, I had claimed an affair with the guy I had seen arguing with his wife/girlfriend; I claimed I had snorted coke with guys from the planning department; I claimed Mr Jones was a terrible letch who made unwanted advances to the female juniors in his department. How could I have been so naïve? I should have made sure the names were completely changed; I really didn’t expect anyone to spot links between the names in my blog and people they worked with. Obviously people weren’t as dumb as I gave them credit for. As long as they didn’t work out my name I would probably be alright, how could they track me down, it was all anonymous, I just needed to keep my nerve and abandon the blog or do one final one saying it was all fantasy. I’d sleep on it and it would all blow over.

I was awakened by a loud bang and shouts of “armed police” Oh dear, they must have found the post about my mythical terrorist boyfriend who was planning a suicide mission.