Mitch watched as the cursor moved on his monitor, the hand behind the screen, navigating the site, belonging to an unknown employee of the billboard in the sky. For fifty minutes, Mitch had been watching, waiting for any details on the sky ad change from GOATSEED.COM to the May installment of BMW.COM, steadily keeping notes on a small pad of paper with no lines.
As the screen went to a logon page, Mitch knew, this was it. Noting all changes, all security codes and passwords, Mitch held his left hand to his lips and nose, his fingers still smelling of basil-garlic bread. After ten minutes of implemented changes, all of which Mitch put to memory as well as in pen to paper with his right hand, the person logged off, and Mitch shut down the monitor for a moment to sit quietly so that his heart and mind could slow down. Staring at his own reflection on the blackness of the screen, Mitch noticed his eyes, a light blue, seemed almost to shine gray-white back at him, and a smile of success, uncocky and patient, eager and deserved, gave his face the look of an Olympic winner. His dark brown hair curled at his neck and shoulders, and his shirtless upper torso looked firm and proud. "I need a haircut..." he mused. Tilting his head to the right, Mitch thought about her, as he looked at himself and tried to see himself through her eyes. Would she find him attractive? Would their eyes ever meet? Her last update to her blog had been funny and warm, although her fish named Bubble had died, her thoughts on the life and death of a fish were filled with goofy poems, pictures and a makeshift fish-obituary. Mitch liked how she handled such a sad event. It reminded him of his father, of himself. Of Lars, who had more strength as a handicapped human than most fully functional adults. Elizabeth had long fingers, holding her fish Bubble in the palm of one hand, taking a digital photo with the other. She had small breasts, fairly visible through her work t-shirt, about the size of small apples, in the picture of her in front of the store she worked at, waving to the lens of a wallet phone camera. Delicate and almost elf-like in her face, her nose so tiny it almost wasn't there. Her smile big, almost goofy, and sincere. Her eyebrows lifted high, as if she were surprised. Mitch had saved the picture to his Elizabeth folder. He clicked back on his screen and brought the photo up again, to look at her for a while, his own reflection behind her, almost a part of her.
He could feel her heart beating inside him, somehow, in the way cyberspace could reach him from the east coast to the west coast. In the mysterious way her picture, her words, her life opened to him with refreshes and updates/new, a life he had followed and grown to feel a part of. Although she did not know of him, other than perhaps news stories on his hacking from years gone by, and then only by computer space nickname, he knew her. He wondered about her. He wanted her to know him, but wasn't sure alerting her to Bill's planned birthday greeting in the sky would be a smart way to do it. He wanted to let her know, share his excitement over the accomplishment of obtaining full knowledge of how to do it, and his determination to see it through, for her... but he knew that for now it must all remain a solo joy, a solo sense of glory. A private plan. But somehow he would have to let her be aware that she would get her wish, without the company's blessing, although she didn't have to know that aspect, to celebrate Bill's 100th birthday with words lit up against a night sky.
He clicked onto her site and immediately noticed a new blog entry.
Expert! That's what I am now. An Expert at something. Ok, so it's only cribbage, a very old game that I learned how to play online. It's a card game where you move along a board to get to the finish line, like a race. You peg spaces by getting denominations of 15, and runs of cards, like 4,5,6 and such. It took me a long time to learn the game and not get confused, but after a year, I finally got my gold icon. I'm working hard to keep it, but it's also a game of luck, and some days I am not very lucky with the draw.
I play on pogo.com, a site that has been around for decades, and some of the players were around when the site first started! They are very helpful with teaching newbies. The site has a setup where you can also learn how to play with a computer, if learning with another person doesn't pan out (I had to learn mostly with the computer player, but also got help from some old regulars who are really good at the game.)
Stop by and play me a game if you want, blog readers! I'm on in the morning, usually when I wake up around 8:00 a.m. and my nick on the site is BethEliz. I hope I'm still an expert if any of you do come to play! If I'm not, try not to tease me too much about it, haha. :)
Mitch clicked the link to pogo's game site.
He glanced at the time on his tool bar, and added 3 hours. On the east coast, it was nearly noon time. Four hours past her usual game time mentioned in her blog, but he registered a name to use on the site anyways. Clicking around, he added BethEliz to his friends list, and saw she was currently in a silver play room. His heart paused, and then beat hard.
Her nickname was sitting alone, waiting for a game, but her rating selection was too high for him to join. Luckily, Mitch knew how to play cribbage, and x'ed out to visit a newbie lounge to get his rating up as fast as he could.
It took him three days, in between computer freelance work and losing streaks that made him feel like a sneaker in a clothes dryer, bumping his rating around. He had noticed Elizabeth only played silver-rated and higher, so once he got to silver, he set his alarm ear-clock to 5:00 a.m. for the following morning.
The sky was dark purple with only a light blue and pink edge at the horizon, smog obscuring the clouds into smudgeprints. A soft 'click' steadily increased in pace and volume in Mitch's right ear, and he took the small foam clipping from his earlobe and squeezed it twice to shut the alarm off. He sat on the edge of his bed and did a few leg raises to get the blood going. Leaning back on his arms, he looked at the ceiling for a moment and hoped Elizabeth getting to know him would go as smooth as getting to know her had gone so far.
Two pieces of fresh cut bread, toasted, with a light coating of strawberry jam filled the computer area with the smell of warmth and a sense of morning. As Mitch entered the pogo site, he saw that Elizabeth was now in a gold room, and he hoped she had not changed her rating selection as he pressed the link.
She hadn't. But she was in a game, and he sat waiting in the lounge awaiting her next game. He went to another window to finish up a design for some wrapping-paper company in the midwest he'd been doing some freelance work for. Mainly business-use wrapping paper for online items shipped offline, for birthdays and anniversaries and the like. Personalized wrap had become popular with online orders, and Mitch enjoyed designing each sheet to fit each customer's requests. It was his favorite freelance work, and although the pay was somewhat low, it was worth it when some of his design ideas and conceptions became top sellers in the company. One piece had even won an award, when he took an anniversary gift wrap and converted a photo of the married couple into text using their self-written vows and varying the light/darkness in the lettering to create the image of the couple. He'd never thought of himself as an artist of any sort, but had garnered a reputation as one none the less.
As he sent the design to the company, which only took about ten minutes to complete, BethLiz became available for a game. Mitch pressed the 'sit' link. Instantly, he was now alone with her and could barely breath. Her web-view was on and she said "Good morning, and good luck to us both!"
Mitch stared at her face in the tiny box, top right, and considered if he should click his webview on so she could see him. It was considered web-courteousy to webview if someone had their webview on. His eyes focussed behind the monitor glass slightly and he looked at himself and wondered if his appearance was frightening or just very human. "Yes, good luck to us both," he said after he clicked the webvoice button. Running his fingers through his hair, he clicked the webview button. "I just got up, so I hope you don't mind if I'm not exactly webviewable at the moment."
"Not at all. I've just gotten so use to having mine on, I never changed the option," Elizabeth said as she put two cards into her crib. Mitch selected two cards to toss into her crib as well, and the game began.
Posted by nft at May 24, 2004 11:11 PM