I lay on my back staring up at the ceiling trying to get my bearings. The room was unusually silent and black. Not even the usual streams of light were breaking through my window to let me know it was safe to sleep. Maybe that’s why I woke up. Once the sun had faded below the low buildings on Main Street it was dark enough to wake me up. This time it seemed like there was a storm brewing. I tried to remember if I put my bike under its cover before I came upstairs last night.
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Maybe I had lost touch with the real world. Sometimes I wished I could just give up on it. Sometimes I would sit on the couch in my apartment and just stare at the ceiling and wonder why I even left the room anymore. Life had churned to a halt sometime between that summer before I left for college and the summer before I stated sophomore year. I struggled to remember what it was exactly that had brought it all crashing down around me. My once great optimism, my once great intellect, my once great desire to become the greatest man I could possibly be… all of that was gone now.
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How long ago was it now, the first time I drove at night? The first time I could truly feel the power of the engine purring beneath me. The first time I watched the light of the day sink beneath the far horizon. The first time I was immersed in a world that only existed in the headlights of my parent’s old car. That feeling, that first taste of true freedom, that moment in which the only thing you can worry about is what is right in front of you. Maybe that’s why I craved it always now.
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When someone would resign themselves to the blackness, and utter darkness in which nothing thrives, then to what ends would they themselves choose to live their lives? Often I asked myself that question as I began a trip into the hustle and bustle of the rooms downstairs. The students would often be laughing loudly and carrying on. Such things had lost their meaning to me long ago. I was nothing like the person I used to be. I could only sigh heavily as I pulled on my jacket and picked up my helmet. Would they look and stare and make their silly comments about me? Would I always be that strange guy who lived at the Chinese restaurant?
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What was it about life that sometimes just seemed to make it last forever. Every experience of every man was a series of sudden bursts of passion, followed by endless years of nothingness. So was it, that I was doomed to a similar existence. My passions were long since lost to the eternal abyss of the endless lonely years of boredom. Was it that which motivated me? I could never be truly sure. It seems as though, that is the fate to which I was resigned at the moment.
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It was funny how sometimes life was like this. Nothing was happening, nothing seemed important. Everything seemed so far away, like the objects had no substance. I could almost see my hands passing straight through the cushions on the sofa, slowly sinking into nothingness. I had to find a way to clear my head, to find a way to draw myself back into reality. The dull colors faded in and out slowly as I blinked my eyes slowly. Focusing was becoming difficult. I had to get out of there.
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The room was cold and damp. The floorboards creaked uneasily beneath my feet as I paced back and forth in the small, dark, third floor room we were in. She was huddled in a corner now, her knees clutched tightly against her chest. I kept pacing. The door was barricaded as best we could do. Beds, bookshelves, tables, they all were crammed up against the door, wedging it tightly shut. I had to focus, I had to do my best and think. There wasn’t anything I could do though. Maybe there was something I hadn’t tried, maybe there was a trick we hadn’t thought of yet. I looked around the room.
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The ride home made me a little thirsty. I was sprawled out on my couch, sipping on a cool bottle of Mountain Dew. Nothing had ever tasted so sweet. On the screen in front of me ran a huge rendered video of our ride from early recorded by one of the tiny pin head cameras Konpyuuta Chan used to see the world. I had five angles up, all shifting slightly to let me see the area around the bike. I was trying to sort out any issues it would have, especially with the engine. My heart was still pounding from the race. I loved this thing.
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The tests were run in a lesser-used section of town in a big stadium. The user had set it up specifically for his Mecha run. I had checked all the specs out in great detail beforehand. The “Soul-cc” was a monstrous fifty-feet tall, weighing several tons. It was powered by a modern fuel cell, which apparently afforded it a one-week operating time. Bi-pedal locomotion similar to human mobility, and its body type was modeled after something I had seen in one too many Animes. It was a little bulky in the body area, and the design didn’t look like it was well thought out. Apparently it was supposed to be able to withstand most modern rail weaponry, I had my doubts about that.
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Traffic was heavy; the old program we wrote ages ago to render it was originally a joke, now it was a rule. No one could break the rules once they were decided, not even now. The car was rolling along slowly through the crowded streets; hundreds of people crowded the sidewalks outside, all wandering aimlessly here and there. I couldn’t tell who was a user and who was a program, that was the point. I did catch a glimpse of a few familiar faces, probably software I built ages ago, long forgotten to me, but still operating.
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I was in the middle of sifting through millions of files when the message came through. We had finished the format on the HK processor, I was checking out its stats. The bike’s CPU had to be perfect; perfect and small. The processor itself had capabilities I hadn’t explored, as of yet, the specs weren’t really available to the public, especially in corporate controlled territory. I had to figure most of it out for myself, scrolling through line after line of code, testing it.
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The sun was rising slowly. I was starting to feel exhausted; the weight of the day was bearing down on me already. I could barley keep my eyes open. The shadows of my room retreated slowly into the corners, waiting silently for the night. I stared long and hard at my desk, my vision blurring. I wouldn’t be able to keep this up much longer.
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The place was crowded, all of us pushed up against each other. The air was musty; sometimes it was hard to breathe down here. We were about twenty or thirty feet down in the old drainage systems for the city above us. The place was not much of a city anymore. It was long forgotten, its ruins collapsing into the earth and being swallowed up by weeds. The surface was a horrible place to go, especially at night. The bare crags of what were once buildings cutting a painful silhouette against the empty sky. Nothing was there but pain; screaming ghosts from a twisted past, memories of war.
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The room was cold now, silent. The wall was a dark black square looming over me as I lay staring at the ceiling. My thoughts wandered all over the place, never staying anywhere for very long. I had trouble sleeping at night, I always did. The second the sun would come over the hills out my window, and flood my room, that was the only time I could sleep. The darkness terrified me. I was never sure why, as I grew older it only became worse. Even if I was online, I couldn’t stand it. The way it was always there, a dark void, nothingness.
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We were at the appointed meeting place early. I was always early to any appointment. Ever since I was a kid my parents drilled it into my head. A lot of the people I used to know were all about the “fashionably late” thing. Not me. I was always the first person there. Better to be the first and recognized, then the last and ignored. No way around it, I would scope the whole area before they ever had a chance to get there.
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The nights were long, longer then they had been in years. Sometimes it was hard to remember what the days were like way back when. The sun used to shine a lot then, for hours and hours. I still remember those summers when the sun was still up when I went to bed at night. Maybe I was just younger then, but now. The nights were cold and lonely.
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The air was smoky, and the lighting was dim. I was sitting at the bar nursing a drink, contemplating the morality of this and that. The jazz band in the back wasn’t that bad at all, probably some group that had gained some popularity with the clientele of the establishment. I tried not to listen to them too hard; the clamor of all the other guests helped me a bit. The place was crowded; I guess that’s what I get for coming on a Saturday night. I pulled my hat off and set it on the smooth untarnished bar top. That’s when she sat down beside me.
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I rolled into town, cruising slower as houses started springing up around me. The blur that used to be the landscape slowly started to take form and shape. I remembered vaguely driving through the area with my father so many times before this. He used to take me out here for some reason, it escapes me at the moment, I think it was one of his last vague attempts to bond with me while I was still young. Sometimes he would get spurts like that, suddenly decide it was time to go fishing or go play golf or something. Too bad I wasn’t a fan of fishing and couldn’t play golf; otherwise it would have been a lot of fun.
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I rolled out of bed; well at least I thought I rolled out of bed. My bed was a small uncomfortable futon on the floor of my small grungy apartment in a small town somewhere on the east coast. I couldn’t even remember what they called the place anymore; I hadn’t left in so long, as far as I was concerned it was home, whatever that means. Ever since I was a kid I had no clue what home was supposed to mean, I always had a house that we all called home, but that never meant any great deal to me. Once my grandmother said home is where the heart is, I guess my real home is on the net then.
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