Nouns: revenge, facts, conflict, reality, irony.

Verbs: profiled, recall, freeze, slither, contact.

Pairs: revenge/recall, facts/profiled, conflict/freeze, reality/contact, irony/slither.

The light went off and the door shut, leaving the notebook to simmer in its own resentment. How could She? And not even the courtesy of closing the covers.

It had been so nice up until earlier that afternoon. The notebook had pride of place on her desk, unused but still admired. It had lost count of the days when She had sighed over it, stroking its outer shell with a melancholic gentleness. The pages remained pristine, unblemished by pencil or ink. What more could a notebook wish for?

And then She’d come in, sat down with uncustomary vigour and announced to the room in general: ‘I do believe I’ve got my mojo back!’

Mojo? The term was not one the notebook had been familiar with. It was as much as it could do not to flinch away when She had lifted the cover and, totally unnecessarily, smoothed that unsullied sheet.

The notebook flinched as it recalled the exact moment the point of the pen had stabbed and bled ink in curls and straights while She transferred the contents of her mind to its pages.

It was no less than a crime!

Fuelled by anger, the notebook lifted its own cover and set its leaves rustling, like those on a tree caught up in a hurricane. It would show Her! She’d think twice before putting pen to its paper again.

As the leaves flipped and flapped, the words began to slip and slide, quite happy and willing to become accomplices in the notebook's plan. They flew up in the air, then swooped and dived. Once back on white paper they leaped from page to page, backwards and forwards as the notebook directed.

Her storyline was left in tatters. Irony had slithered in where She had planned none. Humor, where She had injected it, was now droll and dry. The reality of the words had lost all contact with her intent.

That moment of conflict froze before it began. The notebook would have laughed if it could. The facts She’d provided now profiled a very different central character. Whereas Hers had been honest and misunderstood, the protagonist now was crooked and vulgar to a level that was bordering on indecent.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Her story was ruined!

Revenge recalled that outrage. Revenge! Revenge!

Energy now spent, the notebook stilled. It did not notice the two words that had somehow become left behind by the others. They drifted gently to position themselves at the top of the very first page, to say: ‘The end.’