Line 23

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

LINE 23


John woke up with thoughts buzzing around in his head like flies around a carcass in the video of a bazaar in some third world country they were forced to watch in school. Being a vegetarian he found this imagery particularly disgusting and marveled, as so often, at this awesome human capacity for inventing bloodcurdling footage - inside the head and outside alike. So much for his mom's wisecrack about the dust taking care of itself if left alone. As far as he could check, all of his questions were still there, unanswered. He grabbed his cell phone from the nightstand and punched a few buttons. Small fingers yet to complete their transformation into the strong beautiful hands of John's grown-up self, hit virtual keys on a virtual keyboard with the ease and speed adults, depending on their respective relationships to all things electronic, looked upon with either condescension or admiration.

":( 4 stupid behavior cu l8r John" the message read and he touched the send icon. The cute little beep sound confirmed that his tiny friends who lived deep in the guts of the device, TripleO and TripleI Binaries, had executed his request for communication with Julia. Of course he knew there weren't really any Binaries existing in his phone aside from negative and positive electrical states, but he loved the idea. Blessed with a good portion of his mother's imagination, his world was animated with all kinds of submicroscopic creatures rising to accomplish all kinds of tasks. Even as the more grown-up part of him began to chuckle at the notion, on the whole he was still infatuated with this magical world populated by tiny friends, tirelessly working to fulfill his every wish. He got a kick out of the picture how the Binaries handed the message to the Wavers who in turn surfed at almost inconceivable speeds through space to meet Julia's own Binaries, passing on his message like runners passing a baton in an Olympic relay race.

He first became aware of this minuscule population when years ago he had fallen off his bicycle and shredded his knee. Sarah had treated the wound, and in an attempt to distract him from his pain had told him how minute beings rushed from all different places in his body to the site of his injury; some bringing fibers to mend, others carrying equipment to fix broken capillaries, and others again shoveling out tiny parts of dirt so the wound would not get infected. All she was doing was supporting their efforts by providing some extra materials.

Since then he had personified cellular events into tiny peoples and christened them xms, short for extremely miniscule stuff. There were xms helping with digestion, relieving pain, helping him think as they read off solutions to his varied problems from little slips of paper. Well they must still be asleep coz no answers were forthcoming. Wait! Maybe this all was not just a cute story? Maybe in grandma Kate's world stuff like that did exist? And what about the pixies? Maybe they were nothing but the xms of the trees? As if to tell him that he might be taking his fantasies a bit too far, one of the messenger Binaries appeared to inform him that his text could not be delivered. Ding! Of course! Cedarwood Ridge was pretty close to no-signal territory, and Fragrant Meadows lay miles inside the dead zone.

"Gonna catch her later," he told himself and headed into the kitchen where his mother looked up from her morning paper - her love for her son oozing out of every pore.

"Morning Mom, is breakfast ready?"

"Not yet but it will be as soon as you come out of the bathroom." Remembering their philosophical exchange of the night before Sarah wondered how much longer they would engage in their morning ritual before John would either enter the kitchen fully dressed or felt entitled to have breakfast in his pajamas.

With a sound that could have translated into agreement as well as disagreement, he turned around and Sarah put cereal, soymilk and a bowl of sliced fruit on the table and a lemon-poppy-seed muffin in the oven.

When John re-entered the kitchen he was fully dressed, looking cute. He wore his favorite cargo pants and the hooded sweatshirt that looked as if he could grow another yard in height as well as in circumference and it would still fit. Living according to her own seventy-two-degrees-summer-or-winter-who-cares theory he had it zipped up all the way to his chin, but Sarah would have bet a day of not writing versus cleaning the house that underneath was the striped polo shirt for which she had to pull nightshifts in the laundry room if she wanted her son to wear clean clothes.

She remembered how she had suffered at John's age, when necessity forced her to put on the same stuff day after day. Following her parents' death she was left with no choice but move to Cedarwood Ridge to live with her grandparents and there was never enough money to buy all the clothing she wanted. In her mind she clearly saw her grandmother pulling nightshifts in a much less comfortable laundry room than her own so she could get her protégé to school the next day in clean garments. At that time Sarah would have never guessed how in the future she would repeat her grandmother's chore to bring her own protégé not distress but happiness.

Fascinated with this line of thought and already weaving it into one of her stories, she heard John say: "Mom, are you listening or writing a story in your head? I said I smell something burning and taking into account the many mornings I encountered the very same smell my conclusion is it must be the muffin in the oven and you're spacing out."

"Sorry honey, you're right. I was drifting." She took the burnt muffin out of the oven. "I guess the muffin is toast this morning."

"Yeah, that muffin's toast for sure but thanks, no toast for me. I'm going to ride by Fragrant Meadows anyway and you know how Mrs. Livingston's always got loads of cookies. Gotta make things right with Julia."

Sarah was pleased to hear this piece of news and watched with relief how John's appetite had returned as well. Gone was the thoughtful-picking-at-his-food style of eating from the night before. With the exciting prospect of a new day to explore, he shoveled in enormous amounts of fruit and cereal in the manner befitting a twelve, excuse me, almost thirteen-year-old going through growth spurts on many levels.

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net