Meeting Mr. Heckler Sholoms
A tall man, with broad shoulders and a brilliant smile. He had a fancy mustache and his eyes were oceans, steady and calm. When I hovered into the front hallway, I couldn’t help but speak,
“What color are your eyes?”
If he was surprised he hide it well.
Green, the one color I could see. I looked closer, hovering silently as I drank the true color in.
“I came for the flash drive,” I mumbled, and ignored the ding from Zing’s.
I was required to come in for a meeting in several hours. I didn’t think about it, because thinking about it meant that something could be wrong. And I didn’t want to believe that.
He walked, I hovered into the study to the right of the hall. The windows were large, but the vines darkened the incoming light. The walls were covered with books, and I could almost smell them. My breath, if it could still, stilled. The place was beautiful.
Mr. Sholoms sat down in a large armchair. He was wearing a soft set of dark sweats and a long sleeve shirt. He was probably in his early 50′s. I would’ve found it weird considering I was twenty four when I uploaded, but more than twenty years had passed from being bought by Zing’s so this crush that was forming didn’t phase me.
He reached for the flash drive on the small table in from of the armchair, where a cup of tea rested beside an open book, a bookmark resting on the page. It was handmade, figures drawn in crayon in warbles that I knew could only be from a child.
I let a small piece of metal pop out for him to drop the flash drive in.
“Thank you, Irene, for all your help. As I said on the manager I couldn’t have done this without you.”
I hovered silently, anxious to reply. What was I supposed to say again?
“You don’t leave your home.” The words spilled out fast. If I had hands I’d slap them over my mouth.
“I had a bout of this, when I was four. My mother had to drag me out kicking and screaming for me to go outside.”
“What brought you from it?” He leaned back in his chair, resting his elbows on the arms and bringing together his hands, his palms coming to rest against each other.
“I was bribed. More than once. As a child it’s easier to be bribed. I don’t believe promises of cookies and stuffed animals would entice you to leave.” I laughed, but it came out stiff and I felt my fans pick up from the heat that appeared in me. On a human face it’d be called a blush.
“I guess it would depend on the cookie.” He smiled and shook his head. “He would have loved you, my son, James.”
“Would?” And I felt the darkness sweep over and felt like hiding within the shadows. I knew even without his smile fading away and his shoulders dropping that his son wasn’t alive.
Not in this world, not in this time.
Original Copy: December 25th, 2071, 5:23 AM, archived in Irene’s diary.
