Mitch awoke from an afternoon nap to the loud tap-sound he'd established for his instant messenger. It sounded like a cross between a chainsaw and plastic dominos falling on top of each other. He'd created it himself using a few sound files he'd come across while surfing an audio folder he'd hacked into that belonged to a movie producer.
Looking at his his monitor, her nickname lit up in white font against a black background, his heart just went from the slow 'just woke up' pattern to the steady pulse of life.
BethEliza: you there?
Mitch typed 'yes' quickly before sitting down upon his computer chair. Once he was comfortable, he waited for her to type something else, but she wasn't responding.
Miticihi: I'm here. Are you here? Where'd you go?
He waited a few moments, and then saw her finally start to type out whatever it was she was needing him there for.
BethEliza: I wanted to talk to you about our talk the other night about meeting one day. Over the past few months, things have been great with you, OTIN*. I keep thinking that if we meet, the feelings and attraction are going to lead us to one of us moving to be closer to the other one. Do you think that, too?
Miticihi: There's something between us, sure. I think it's probable that this is leading to something. I think if we met in person that it would probably turn out that way. Probably me moving to your area. You already have a job that is OL*. My job is OTIN and can be done from anywhere.
BethEliza: I need to tell you something. I just want to talk to you about something. I need to change my name on this IM first, though. brb.
Mitch waited for a few moments. He could see she was typing something out after she changed her nickname for herself on the instant messenger. He wasn't sure what to expect and had no idea what any of this could be about.
ebb: Ok. I've been meaning to change my name to ebb for about a week, just kept forgetting every time.
Miticihi: Nice. Why ebb?
ebb: like a tide, the flow of the ocean, ebb and flow. I don't know, lately I've just been feeling sorta drawn to the ocean of life, the way things come back to you when you think they are lost at sea or something. I think I just spent too much time thinking this week... lol.
Miticihi: you must have. So what's on your mind?
ebb: When I was younger, I caught my dad cheating on my mom.
Miticihi: Me, too, except it was my mom cheating on my dad. Hold on, I'm changing my name, too, brb. Keep typing.
ebb: ok. So, I just wanted to talk to you about it. How it made me feel. My confusion with it. I figured it out this week. Because I was thinking about you and me.
flow: you and me? I don't cheat. I've read up on the different lifestyles and relationships out there. I like the old fashioned one on one. How about you?
ebb: lol, nice name. We're a good pair.
flow: ty*
ebb: yw*... well, I guess I should start by saying that the day I caught some woman giving my father oral sex, I tried to tell my mother but she wouldn't let me.
flow: that happens. Sometimes people just don't want to know.
ebb: and all these years, I think what bothered me was that my mother was a miserable woman. My dad, well, I'm just going to say this bluntly, is that ok?
flow: blunt is good.
ebb: my dad wasn't a miserable guy. He was a guy who thought and said a lot of stuff, but he didn't really do much. Well, he did work hard. He supported us his whole life. But he was a happy man outside of his marriage to my mother. He took me to parks and zoos. He took me camping a few times. Usually he was the one that went to school stuff, like plays or open house. My mother usually was just in too bad of a mood to do much.
flow: do you think she was miserable because she knew your dad was cheating?
ebb: no. She was miserable before that. Something was just wrong with her. I don't know what, but she was just sad or mad, almost all the time. When my dad was with that woman, when I saw him there on her couch...
flow: wait a minute, when you say you caught your dad cheating, you mean you literally caught him right in the act? I thought you meant you found out about it somehow, like I did with my mom. You literally walked in on him getting it on with the other woman?
ebb: yes.
flow: oh man. I'm sorry. That sux.
ebb: literally.
flow: I don't know if I should lol, were you making a joke about catching your dad getting oral?
ebb: lol, yeh.
flow: ok. ; ) lol
ebb: so here was my dilema at that time. I see my dad with this other woman. Not only does he look happy...
flow: no guy looks unhappy when that's going on.
ebb: lol, sure enough, but the woman, she was happy, too. Although, I only saw the back of her head. But, she was touching my dad's legs. And I didn't stay long enough to see much at all, but the short glimpse I got was enough to know that my dad was happy and was with a woman who was happy to be with him.
flow: and you felt guilty because your mom was not?
ebb: something like that. I also felt like I wanted to have a relationship in my life someday that was more like my dad and this woman's than the one that was between my dad and my mom.
flow: are you trying to tell me you want to give me oral?
Mitch immediately wished he hadn't typed that. He was trying to lighten up the conversation as she had been, but the small pause between her typing a reply made him concerned he had hurt her feelings with his overly-sexual callousness.
ebb: LOL!
flow: whew.
ebb: ?
flow: I thought I offended you.
ebb: no, not at all. I don't think we've ever talked about any of this. I've never done that with a guy, but I'd do that with you.
flow: holy shit.
ebb. :)
flow: Ok, now I can say for sure that we need to meet and I should probably start looking for places in your area.
ebb: Maybe we should take this a little slower?
flow: nah.
ebb: yeh... nah. :)
flow: ok. You and me, this is it. I've got a surprise for you, too. Coming up in a few weeks. I think you're going to like it.
ebb: you're coming to visit me?
flow: not then, no. Although now I would like to be there by your side for the surprise. But, it would be too complicated to do everything like a visit and the surprise all at once. After the surprise, I'll visit you after it. In fact, the best time for me to move would be then. So, keep an eye on cheap apartments in that area for me.
ebb: you could just move in with me.
flow: that would be a little too fast. Let me get there, let's go out and do some things. Then we'll look into a cool, new place to get together.
ebb: ok.
flow: ok.
ebb: Mitch
flow: yeh?
ebb: My heart is pounding.
flow: mine, too.
ebb: I can't believe all this is happening.
flow: me, too.
ebb: I'm happy about it. I'm ready.
flow: I'm ready, too. I've never been so sure about anything like I am with you.
ebb: no doubts?
flow: none.
ebb: me either.
flow: it almost feels like we're supposed to be nervous here, but neither of us is.
ebb: yeh, I wonder why?
flow: maybe because we're both just ready. Maybe because we both just know?
ebb: could be.
flow: Can I tell you something?
ebb: uh oh.
flow: no, nothing bad. I just want to tell you something now about me and how I felt when my mother left my dad.
ebb: ok.
flow: I didn't tell you about this before when I told you a little about everything that happened, when we were talking about life stories and all a few weeks ago, but on the day my mother left, I put a picture of my brother and I inside her suitcase. About a week later, I get the picture back, mailed directly to me. She'd written on the back of it "goodbye." No return addy.
ebb: Mitch, that just sux.
flow: Actually, it didn't suck. It pretty much was so final I just let her go. From my mind, from my heart. As my mom, she was making it clear, she had no plans to return. So, I never went through any of the wondering if she'd one day show up at the door stuff. My dad made out ok. So did my mother, I guess. We never heard from her again.
ebb: ever wonder where she is?
flow: not really. Not to the extent I could have wondered.
ebb: maybe our mothers both just had something wrong with them.
flow: seems like something was just making both of them incapable of being happy.
ebb: yeh. Well, we're happy. So whatever was wrong with them isn't wrong with us.
flow: yeh. If you ever are unhappy, you let me know. I'll be there for you.
ebb: sbty.*
*OTIN- Over The INternet.
*OL- OffLine
*ty- thank you
*yw- you're welcome
*sbty- same back to you
Ed had gotten there early. Standing by the hovershoe ramps, he listened to the quiet struggles of air and magnetic pulses from beneath the feet of the teenagers that wore all white clothes with the black hovershoes. Even their hair was dyed white, giving them all the appearance of floating albinos. Ed wondered about these kinds of fads, and then wondered why he never himself felt compelled to follow any of the trends out there. Was it him that was strange, or them? Was anybody strange at all, for following or not following? He looked on as one guy did a mid air full body arch, arms outreached in some personal call of victory, and landed softly on... nothing. An invisible force that kept him safe, as he hovershoed towards a ramp and did a climb upwards into the air, feet over head and dangled down again into the field of challenged gravity. Behind him, a white haired girl followed, doing a hovershoe shuffle, twisting her feet back and forth in rythym, like an applause to all that he was doing in front of her. But their eyes never met, he was looking forward, she had her eyes closed and seemed to be following him with just her own sense of him. Ed was glad to see, when they finished their little hovershoe show, that they faced each other and smiled broadly at each other. For some reason, it gave Ed relief.
And she appeared, at first blending in so well she was almost missed, wearing all white herself, but her hair, black with faded red tipped ends and wearing no hovershoes or shoes at all. Barefoot. Ed watched her lips move to something she was hearing on her ever-present earpiece to her ear. No sound, she seemed to be lip synching, but when she got very close, he could hear her whisper words to the song playing. He gently lifted the earpiece from her ear and placed it on his own, she pressed a button on her player that started the song over and then she mouthed the song perfectly to him, as if she were singing it, as he heard it for the first time.
Not a lot of time to think today
It's almost over now
Didn't need it anyway
Guess I knew somehow
I feel love around me
And the feeling grows
As your love surrounds me
How was I to know
That straight out of nowhere
You'd come to me
Out of the blue
Into my heart
You came to me
Out of the blue
Into my heart
Never know what life can bring your way
You never learn
Over night, from day to day
Where our love's concerned
It was so hard to hold on
But I never let go
For so long, so hard to take
How was I to know
That right out of nowhere
You'd come to me
Out of the blue
Into my heart
You came to me
Out of the blue
Straight to my heart
Ooh girl it was you
You came out of the blue
Into my heart
You came to me
Out of the blue
Straight to my heart
You came to me
Out of the blue, into my heart
Out of the blue
Straight to my heart
Ooh girl it was you
You came out of the blue
Into my heart
Out of the blue
Straight to my heart
You came to me
Out of the blue
And into my heart
Out of the blue
Straight to my heart
Ed took her fingertips to his lips and kissed them. She stared into his eyes and placed her fingers on his cheek and then pressed her hand to his face. His hand came up to her hand, and she turned her hand around to meet his and they entwined their fingers together and held on so tightly as a hovershoer went by them so fast they felt a gust of air and energy.
They walked towards the sunflowers and watched as butterflies and bees swirled around them, heading for the same patch of large, yellow flowers. The heads of the flowers had lettering and symblos created inside the seeded-center of them, as teenagers often would pull out some of the seeds to spell out things, usually the initials of their own name along with that of the person they were dating, or sometimes the hovershoe symbol which looked like a sideways horseshoe with a horizontal lightening bolt crossing through it. Anarchy Girl started taking off seeds from a flower and Ed watched and tried to figure out what she was trying to create inside the middle of the flower. He said some guesses, which she just smiled at him and shook her head no. "A heart?" "The sun?" "An egg?" When she was done, the anarchy symbol. Ed laughed and she said to him "You do one now, I want to see what's on your mind."
Ed thought a minute as his fingers touched the seeds. Then he started pulling. "A kite?" she asked. He smiled at her and shook his head no. "A tree?" and then she was silent as the word, not the picture, appeared in the missing seeds he'd taken from the sunflower: YOU