he noticed a slight movement in the list at the top right corner of his
screen. diverting his gaze, he saw the
all-too-familiar name highlighted, first in blue, then in red. then the knocking sound. three
knocks. and the pop-up dialog box. user is online.
he feels the momentary anguish. the conscious
putting her out of the mind won’t work, especially when he can see her name
right in front of him. a solid red word brought to
life by her action of connecting her modem on her side of the line. now it stood blue. with a little eye
next to the name. privacy (invisible). yet
he can see her name. the term came to mind. visible to user. visible
to him.
why would she deliberately put him on her visible list? he
wondered. out of the assurance that he would no longer
pester her non-stop? out of the assurance that they
were both back on normal terms? out of the confidence
that she would be able to handle anything that he would say? out
of concern, and the wanting to talk to him online?
or out of pity?
he couldn’t bear the tugging at his heartstrings, the impulse to
double-click on her name and send a message across. but
he hardened his heart. consciously forbade his finger
from clicking on her name. yet he felt he couldn’t
hold on much longer.
the pointer moved towards that name. clicked once
on it. click not released, dragged the name down the
list. out of sight of the list of names that were in
his line of sight.
he felt instantly better. yet not much.
he
continued chatting. told a friend:
she's online. haiz.
i can consciously put her out of my mind
when out of sight... but now i see her online and i gotta consciously curb my
fingers from sending out a msg to her... haiz.
while rick
price’s heaven knows tears his heart
out in the background.
unconsciously, his pointer seemed to
acquire a life of its own. every few seconds he became
a sucker of pain. the name was out of sight, but the
pointer kept moving to that little scroll bar on the extreme right, shifting
the list down, bringing that name back into focus.
yet he knew he couldn’t
message her. he was afraid he couldn’t control his
emotions, afraid that his messages would betray that he hasn’t recovered. something he’s been desperately trying to assure all his
friends.
he knew what he had to
do.
the pointer moved down to
the bottom right. and if reluctance could ever be seen
on a mouse pointer, perhaps this was it. right-clicked.
the list popped up. and shut down icq was selected.
fleetingly, he felt better.
and then, he cried.
~~~~~
he couldn’t understand at
all why he was in such a state. there’s no proper
reason for him to behave in this way. in this… denial.
he tried convincing himself of that. but somehow his convincing self was failing. the pall of night, cover of darkness always made him succumb
to the real inner feelings within. and in the night,
he wasn’t able to keep up that mask any longer. it
drained him. but the impact of the sad him rushing to
the fore always took him unprepared.
this time was no exception.
he told himself again
there’s no reason he should be sad, should be feeling this way. blinked away the tears. prepared
his bed. he knew he lacked sleep. and
hoped he’d fall asleep easily tonight.
dejectium out
0356 hrs gmt
+8
15 may 2003