my first story

Internet friend

During last winter break I went back to my hometown in Russia. Despite all the mainstream awareness about the global warming, it was freezing to the bone the moment you step outdoors.

Since I came from a warm country, I was not prepared for such a blizzard so I ended up catching a serious fever in less than two weeks. The flu left me bedridden for the whole week. Because we live next to the sea we encountered strong winds that howled without a break during night. There came my insomnia.

That week when I was sick there wasn’t a single visit to the other side of my conscience. Although I carried on with my activities without any precautions keeping my family asleep, none noticed that I was not sleeping at all, nor I decided to tell them. “What’s the point?” I was thinking to myself.

Thanks to the gift of technology called internet my spare time was never wasted. Over the following four days, consumed in the endless world constructed from bytes, I have completed everything my heart desired.

While I was browsing through daily websites I have noticed an advertisement of a popular social network chat application. Having nothing to lose but the feeling of boredom I signed up for it.

To summarize everything, it happened to be a very intriguing concept of “do what want, be what you want” chat that was among the top websites with the highest profits. Not to mention that I eventually contributed a pretty round sum of money to their income.

Though eventually I was active in it for only half a year, spent loads of my precious time and finances, there were no regrets of a single day spent there. It was an exchange for a good number of friends around the whole wide world along with some basic knowledge of different cultures, languages, customs, habits and tendencies of my peers in many corners of the world.

Two month later when I had returned to Singapore, I realized that the number of my friends in the chat had exceeded a thousand by a couple of hundreds.

Among that count was her; the internet friend I wanted to tell you all about.

She wasn’t anything special but happened to be just a perfect type of girl for me. Almost all the characteristics of her stroke the golden mean. She was most definitely short or as she liked to say “fun-sized”, which I had found very adorable. She was Asian but her hair happened to be hazel-brown of exactly the same tone as mine and had blue eyes, all due to some intriguing genetic domination. Moreover she lived in Australia which is relatively close to Singapore.

The two of us went on chatting with each another almost every day. Unfortunately, the educational demands caused us to transfer to a more basic and accessible network, reducing the amount of information we shared, which did not seem to affect anything.

One day in the middle of the holidays we agreed on a webcam session together. I got very nervous and in order to make a striking and positive impression I wore the most expensive outfit. The strangest thing that I myself did not understand was why I have sprayed myself with perfume; perhaps so that she can “see a pleasant air around me”? Still I don’t really know and don’t really care.

At the end both of us were more than satisfied with the session. I could see her pixilated blue eyes shining with joy while my heart was performing some heavy calisthenics, leaving me with a feeling that she could actually see my chest throbbing rapidly.

It was a good three hour talk. She said that her microphone had been munched on by her dog so we decided to type instead to be fair to both.

From that day onwards I kept thinking about her. Strange as it may sound but I didn’t feel the urge to meet her in real world or to date her. All I was thinking about was “why”? Why was she interested in me, why did she feel so important to me, why wouldn’t  she come and visit me or why me- a hopeless animal lover who doesn’t even know the breed or the name of her dog and why had it never occurred to me to ask for it? Maybe it seemed irrelevant?

She was a well brought up down-town girl that was originally born at some North Korean outskirts.  As she was young her mother had some serious argument with her dad which led to migration to Australia leaving the father alone on his home ground. Who knew that political issues would not let them see or meet each other anymore? Despite that her mother was still wearing the wedding ring at all times out of the house. Her brother was a Seoul university graduate who now lives on his own apart from his dad too.

No letters, no chats, no calls, no emails, no postcards, nothing!

Surprisingly, she did not happen to have any problems with the English language so she did pretty well in a local school while her mother worked at the foreign embassy.

There was not a single particle of snobbishness in the air around her. Meanwhile I had a totally opposite background.

At that point of time I had a part time job at the fly factory. When I first joined my boss assigned me to assembly section where workers had to assemble the ready parts of the fly together. Despite the microscopic sizes of the details, the tools provided made the task as simple as playing with LEGO constructor. Construction of a fly was a speedy job since it was the parts themselves which needed a professional approach to be made. I was able to finish my daily quota by early evening an liked to observe other experts in the company making a good quality artificial flies that our company made.

The idea of making artificial flies was actually rooted to an old Russian story where the Americans sent to Russia a mechanical golden fly to show how skillful they are; but when they received the fly back they examined it and discovered that it had shoes on all its legs with the masters` names engraved on each shoe.

Most of our clients were aristocrats all over the world that possessed the rarest species of lizards or toads. According to what they say, the pets prefer those to the ordinary ones. Even the veterinarians of exotic animals say that they are healthier than the common ones.

I was working there for fairly long period of time as the pay was generous and expectations were pretty easily met. While working there I discovered a lot of facts and myths about the wild life and our products itself. I always had an article about some insects or reptiles to share with her. She would just wait for me to finish while adding some appropriate comments at appropriate timing or pausing me for awhile if she had something to say or somewhere to go or something to do.

As a reply she would always share some fun facts, trivia and latest jokes. I couldn’t be sure to tell you whether they were hers or she searched them on the internet at the same moment; however, with the same success she could prove to you that I didn’t plagiarize Google of its articles about invertebrates. Nonetheless we never ran out of topics to share with one another.

Of course, like any other people, we would have some arguments and different opinions about some minor insignificant things, but it never blew out of the proportions making either one of us pissed. It always settled, thanks to diplomacy.

One day when I went to school, our class teacher announced that we will be having a class trip to Australia at the end of the semester. We were supposed to have some enrichment on different levels of society and by luck we happened to go to her city. When the teacher finished, my friend commented on my face being that of a constipated person, but afterwards my muscles relaxed into a wide grin expressing the excitement I felt about finally being able to meet her grabbing this “hitchhiker” chance.

When I reached home I could not find myself a place. I wanted to update her but she was never online for the whole day. It was as if someone just took and stuffed the time inside some time-storing refrigerator. No matter how long I waited she did not show up her icon as green. Nothing was able to take away much time for me, it felt like with every hour I grew older by a week! Not being able to put myself to rest I stayed up all night at the desk staring at the cold, bright and pixilated rectangle.

Somehow at that point of time it was really hard to grasp the reality or even a trace of it. It felt as if I was the character in a Monty Python`s cartoon. Wicked and lacking much mental framework.

After the third day of the same pattern, she finally logged in, announcing that her laptop was demolished by one of her teachers which after some complications was forced to purchase any computer that her heart desired. As she was humble and not fierce or of any vulgar attitude she picked a similar device that was about the same as she had before.

With my ambitions to inform her about the visit I failed to listen to her full story so I left the details to remain as vibrations in air, not digesting them.

After I told her MY story, it happened to be good news for her too as she sounded very upbeat afterwards.

Three months had passed like nobody`s business and I was already packed for the trip though I still could not believe I wasn’t day dreaming. The airport announcement about a lost 20x60x40 Prada luggage made me snap out of trance and I started looking for any teacher or mates. Some of them happened to be in a small group at the Starbucks near our “check in” depot so I joined them with a wide grin on my face.

From then till the moment we left the Australian airport nothing significant happened. No exaggeration but whatever you would expect from a typical tourist group in airport and nothing more. Even shopping: two guys stuck with their girlfriends in a fashion or a perfume boutique while other students were replenishing their sweets and chocolates supplies at Duty Free.

Outside, there were the agents taking care of us and our luggage and providing us with an excursion bus which was claimed to be ours for the entire week. That happened to be false and somebody`s headphones went poof!

On the way to our hotel it was nothing but a cityscape which all of the developed cities would be expected to have.  Personally for me there was not much captivation in the scenery. All the way there, the only thing for me was to observe typical locals on pavements while listening to “top 100 classics” playlist on my player.

Upon reaching, most of us were stunned by an unexpected luxury of the dormitories that were specially prepared for our stay. Judging by the kinky smirks of the teachers, they were already informed beforehand.

Right after unpacking and arranging all the necessities in an order, I took out my notebook and instantly located a strong Wi-Fi signal somewhere within the dormitory. I wasn’t surprised from not finding her online so I typed out some informal greetings, information on my location and a mobile phone number as I have managed to get a SIM card in one of the convenience stores at the airport.

I was content to discover that she had actually messaged me back when I woke up in the morning the following day. I messaged from my Australian number and by afternoon and received an SMS from her with some smiley and short greeting.

Almost instantly, I asked our guides and teachers about any free time that we will have alone without supervision and where (indirectly of course). They told us that the following day they will let us roam around and explore some National park all by ourselves for about two hours. I confirmed that with her and it happened to be a walking distance from her house so we managed to arrange an appointment. Unfortunately I could not hide my excitement so teachers suspected me being some crack addict and even searched my luggage and pockets when my group mates were not around…. I could not blame them; I was acting extremely upbeat and unorthodox that day indeed.

Nothing surprising but I failed to sleep that night as well. My roommate was sound asleep so I managed to complete the FLCL OVA on my laptop. After watching a few episodes of it, my brain started rushing a flow of the most random and unnatural thoughts. One thought that I managed to take hold of was the vague memory of the quote from Alice in Wonderland. It was something like: “if this was like that, it wouldn’t be anything much. But if nothing was much, it would still be like that, so as this is not like that, than that is not like this! So is the logic of all things.”

Yes it is pretty hard to comprehend but the most amazing thing is that even when I could not read much by myself and my mom was reading it to me; it became one of my favorite books since an early childhood despite its sophistication. Even I don’t understand why I liked it but imagining the scenes from the plot was good enough to get me interested in such a complicated book.

The following morning we had some light snacks for breakfast in our briefing room as we were receiving instructions and warnings about the upcoming trip to the park later on.

The whole time until we had to alight from the bus for the park I was daydreaming in my own world so I was never able to retrieve any memories of that particular time.

When we were dismissed I rushed –or a better word would be “bulldozed” – my way through the group and the patches of people here and there, towards the Visitors’ Center where we were supposed to meet each other. I was trying to recall if I missed out any detail of our arrangement and double-checked everything that I could have mistaken….. No…. Everything was exactly as it should have been. Punctual. Everything just as I have planned. There could be no mistake. Nothing could possibly go wrong!

After around three minutes, when I was about to set up my walkman on my ears, I felt a touch on my shoulder. I could literary feel my pupils shrink to a size of a pinhead. I started turning my neck around towards the spacing occupied by the owner of that hand that tapped me.

SPARK! Our eyes met.

 “IT’S HER!” echoed my neurons. It was really her! Alive and breathing! 3D and made up of cells! No more pixels!

For almost a minute we stayed like that without as much as a twitch. No facial expressions, no hand movements, no noises-Nothing at all-Just the two of us.

I could no longer maintain my cool as my hands started shaking and clinging to the contents of my pockets so I released a wide grin.

As soon as I did that something happened, something that had ruined my entire day and eventually the whole trip. Guess what that terrible thing was?

That very agonizing thing was…. her saying “hi” to me and letting out a loud giggle. Yup, just that simple greeting and laughter made me feel nauseous. That grotesque part was her voice.

Her greeting sounded like a Japanese sumo wrestler with a heavy runny nose who is now working as a part time clown. When she carried on her speech it was like a whale trying to whisper in a loud pitch. However her laughter didn`t make things any better. It was like an orchestra of unturned equipment retrieved from Titanic trying to play some heavy beat song that they play at clubs.

I managed to act out a shy and stumbled type of person and tolerate half an hour of conversation with her after which I made up an excuse and left saying that I would text her the following day.

When she was talking my ears would twitch from time to time. It felt like there was a tiny bat in my ear “sonaring” its way from one eardrum to the other and back. Every time she laughed I would be scared and my shades would drop from my forehead down on my nose.

The weirdest thing was that it only seemed to bother me alone. As in the way she spoke- none of the passersby were in any way affected or disturbed by her speech. She even exchanged a few words with a dog owner which seemed to know her well and not being bothered a least bit. Thus I gave up on reasoning myself.

I left the park and for the whole time I felt as if I had left something of mine back inside but no matter how hard I tried, I could not outline what it was.

Outside of the park I purchased a small, cheap whiskey bottle and finished it while the rest of the students, teachers and guides had their happy times out there, where that something of mine lay missing.