The son had told the 45-year-old man what he wanted one day in a wife though the son didn’t know quite what he meant by what he said.
The 45-year-old man had been asking for the son’s cell phone number but the son had not yet let him have it. Please, the man kept typing. Please. Please.
The man had sent the son strange pictures of a light.
The first name the man had given as his real name was as well the name of many other people.
Now the son was typing and typing to the man in the chat box. He was also looking through websites for pictures of buildings laid to ruin — buildings beat apart by wind and weather, or hit by lightning or burned with fire. He didn’t know why he wanted to see those things, but by now he had a drive full. They were there inside his computer. They were in there, copied on and on.
There beside the chat box with the 45-year-old man, another chat box opened. The message said, HELLO. The son did not recognize the screen name, HELLO444. He minimized the message. It popped right back up again.
HELLO444: I KNOW YR THERE.
HELLO444: I KNOW YR READING.
HELLO444: I CAN C YOU THRU YR SCREEN.
The son waited. He was looking. He stretched before the panel. A small icon in the corner said HELLO444 was busy typing. The son watched the blinking cursor on his end. He stood up and went to the window and looked down on the street. There was some mud there, moonlight, other houses. He stared a moment, somewhat transfixed. He heard the message chime immensely, a thousand tiny phony bells.
The son came back to his computer and saw another message, and again.
HELLO444: IN THE FAR BACK CORNER OF THE ROOM IN THE HOUSE WHERE YOU LIVED BEFORE WHERE YOU ARE NOW THERE IS A VERY SMALL LATCH SET IN THE FLOOR OF THE ROOM WHERE YOU WOULD SLEEP NIGHTS EVEN THOUGH THIS ROOM WAS NOT YOUR ROOM. IF YOU LIFT THE LATCH AND PULL THE LID BACK THERE IS A LITTLE PASSAGE JUST BARELY BIG ENOUGH FOR SOMEONE YOUR SIZE TO SQUEEZE THROUGH AND IF YOU CLIMB DOWN FAR ENOUGH AND THINK THE RIGHT THING YOU WILL COME OUT IN ANOTHER ROOM.
HELLO444: IN THIS ROOM YOU AS A PERSON SPENT MANY HUNDREDS OF HUMAN YEARS. YOU GREW INTO SEVERAL DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF A MAN, SOME ENCHANTED, SOME QUITE BORED. AS YOU LEARNED TO LEAVE THE ROOM THROUGH MANY WAYS OTHER THAN HOW YOU CAME, YOU FOUND PASSAGES TO OTHER ROOMS CONTAINING OTHER PEOPLE AND YOU HAD MANY WIVES AND YOU WERE VERY WEALTHY. YOU LIVED IN SPLENDOR FOR LONG EONS AND YOU WERE WISE AND YOU WERE WANTED. THERE WAS NO CEILING ON EARTH THAT COULD CONTAIN YOUR HEAD AND WHEN YOU TOUCHED YOUR HEAD WHOLE PLANETS DIED.
HELLO444: WHEN YOU GREW OLD ENOUGH YOU WERE GIVEN THE GIFT OF A SMALL OCEAN IN WHICH YOU BATHED FOR FURTHER HUNDREDS OF HUMAN YEARS AND YOU GRANTED WISHES TO PEOPLE WHO CAME TO SEE YOU THOUGH SOME DID NOT KNOW THAT YOU WERE THERE, AND YOU APPEARED IN MANY DIFFERENT FORMS TO MANY DIFFERENT PEOPLE AND YOU WERE WRITTEN OF IN BOOKS, YOU WERE WRITTEN OF IN THE BOOK OF MARK, YOU WERE WRITTEN OF IN EITHER/OR AND MOUNT ANALOGUE AND A VOID AND MANY NAMELESS OTHER BOOKS, YOU WERE WRITTEN OF IN LIBRARIES STUFFED FULL, YOU WERE WRITTEN OF IN ADVANCED SELLING FOR DUMMIES AND IN PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE, YOU APPEARED INSIDE SOFT TREES IN A LOW LIGHT, IN EACH BOOK YOU MADE YOUR PRESENCE IN SOME WAY, CAUGHT IN A BILLION MISSING LANGUAGES AND IN EXPRESSIONS NOT YET DEFINED, EXPRESSIONS DEFINITIONLESS AND UGLY AND UNPRONOUNCEABLE AND PROFANE. IN THE WHITE REAM YOU WERE SOMEONE AND YOU WERE ENDLESS AND THERE WAS NOTHING YOU COULD NOT SAY. YOU WERE NOT GOD.
The son leaned back in his desk chair. The son lit a cigarette he’d stolen from the father and tried to think of something else. He thought about what he might have liked to eat for dinner.
The reclining son was parallel to both the ceiling and the ground.
The messages’ ringing in the room made the room pause.
HELLO444: I CAN SEE U.
HELLO444: I CAN SEE U.
HELLO444: I CAN SEE U.
HELLO444: I CAN SEE U.
HELLO444: I CAN SEE U.
HELLO444: I CAN SEE U.
The other person wrote it again and again and again.
The 45-year-old man was typing something also. The son did not look upon this message. He continued typing to the other.
[The Son]: who is this
HELLO444: HOW ABOUT YOU TAKE A GUESS.
[The Son]: mark
The son did not know a Mark.
HELLO444: NO. WRONG.
[The Son]: my father
HELLO444: GETTING WARMER.
HELLO444: NO.
The son thought about it, really. He felt something in his stomach.
[The Son]: my Friend from school.
He could not think of the girl’s name or nicknames.
HELLO444: DINGDINGDING
[The Son]: hehe, yr weird
HELLO444: J.
HELLO444: WHO ELSE ARE YOU TALKING TO.
HELLO444: TALK TO ME, TALK TO ME ONLY.
The son looked at the screen. The son typed something then erased it. The son looked at the last few lines the 45-year-old man had typed, in which were described various difficult contortions of the son’s body in the 45-year-old man’s mind and the words, between them, they would say, for our whole life. The son touched his head.
[The Son]: so what r u up to
The small Friend did not answer.
[The Son]: sorry i am here now
[The Son]:??
[The Son]: r u there
The son’s cursor was blinking very fast. The son stared at the screen and drooled a little. The father’s cigarette had burned down to his lip. The son closed the chat box window with the 45-year-old man and placed the man’s screen name on his blocked list and deleted him from his friends on the social networking website and deleted his social networking profile and account and deleted all the emails to or from and saved direct chat logs with all the people in his archives who weren’t the girl, his special friend.
The instant message box signaled that the girl was typing text. The son dug his nails into his flesh and waited. He heard the house around him sigh. He leaned and looked and leaned and leaned and leaned.
The last incoming message made no bell.
HELLO444: DO YOU WANT TO COME AND SPEND THE NIGHT AT MY HOUSE ON THIS FRIDAY?