| a little icq message popped up on the corner of the screen. a very simple "hi".. as a start. i never know how to really talk to a stranger but i guess hi would be the best word to use. a very simple hi sometimes could make an unforgetable impact on one's life. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ i lost 2 years of contact with outside world.... not touching computer for such a long time had made me a computer illiterate. icq had changed a lot.. but it would still be one of the best tool to reach the out to the world. i had no clue about what these new e-generations were talking about in the chatroom. all these capital letters plus lowercase had made my eyes and my brain dizzy. forget it.. i just needed to find a job fast.. anything would do. one of my friend recommended monster.com. what should i put on my resume? college degree don't mean jack in this world where a falling sign in time square could kill tons of MBAs. that sweet "hi" had break my thought of what to put after my last compeleted education of EE degree on my resume. a strange nick name.. "cloud" had appear in the message box. "i am looking for a cup of coffee." that was her next sentence after hi. gee coffee is my nick name. i guessed she was looking for her friend name coffee.. but i sure was not the one she was looking for. i checked her profile.. 27 y.o., gemimi, lives in nyc.. speak mandarin... well, i had not made any new friends for so long.. i decided to talk to her. "i did a search on icq.. i figured you are on line, so i sent you a message to see if you can chat with me" she typed. "i thought you had mistaken me for someone else" i typed. it's how it started. everytime i logged on she was there.. with a very sweet hi that started our cyberspace friendship conversation for that day. ....i had chatted with her for about 2 months almost every evening yet i had never really ask her which part of NYC did she live. during the time where our friendship was developing, i found myself a job as a construction worker a month ago so i had to change our chatting time to after 9 pm. i would say these couple of months were pretty bad for me since i had to re-adjust myself to fit in this society and i have abusolutely no closer friends. she was the only one who really know what was going on in my life. i shared all my ups and downs with her and she gave me hopes and dreams in life. i had asked her what does she do and where she lives in nyc several times yet she never really tells me anything but a simple ": )". i did not bother to find out and i did not think i could be proud enough to appear in front of her. she has not logged on computer for several days in a role. i was kind of worried what had happened to her. there she is again... her name appear on my icq list after almost 2 weeks. "hey!!! where have you been, cloud?!" i can almost hear myself shouting to her. but she did not reply to me. it's been slience for almost 2 min before the message next to her name popped up. "who is this?" she asked. "hey, stop joking with me, it's coffee! remember the joke i told you 'men are like coffee, a good one would keep you up all night long?' here is the cure to your tiredness and borden everyday! come and give me a cyber hugg NOW! where the hell have you been!!!!" another 60 seconds had passed by yet she still did not return my message. "HELLO" i send another message. soon a message appear next to her name. i clicked on the flashing icon.. it says " hi i am sorry this is cloud's sister, rain...." the next couple of hours we had kept on talking to each other.. she told me how her sister had gone through the treatment of brain tumor and had an operation 2 weeks ago but still would not recover from her sickness... she is still in deep coma now. the hospital was located right next to the east river with a view of brooklyn bridge. white bedsheet with blank walls.... she was surrounded with medical equipments with geometrical graphics dancing on the monitor. she lay flat in her bed... all i can hear was beeping sound from life support system. stiches on her bald head. she looked so pale and so calm.. as if life, death, happiness and sadness no longer matter to her. i would never image our first meeting would be like this. i used to joke to her about how i would make her super strong coffee for her so she would be jumpy for whole day and she would not be able to sleep when the night comes. she would tell me if i could actually make a cup of nice coffee.. she would change her nick name to mrs. coffee. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ i never have the courage to find out if she ever wake up from that coma. i did not even remember how the last time i walked out from the hospital after i saw her bed were empty. the flower i bought her were all dried up in the glass vase. all i could remember was the sky were so clear that day and it was cloudless when i walk out of the hospital. my shadows were very long on the ground as the sun slowly sinked into NYC skyline. i am still waiting for that "cloud" to send me that sweet "hi" every i turn on my computer. |
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