The world we call home is encircled by an invisible network of electromagnetic waves, EM Waves, that we call the EM Wave Road. The Wave Road have existed since time immemorial, or at least that's what Dad always told me. Though, I admit to never hearing Dad use the word "immemorial". I guess I'm just pretentious like that.

Actually, I've never had a dad to hear use the word "immemorial" in the first place, so I guess I'm just an orphan.

The name's Emmett, but everyone calls me Em, or EM rather. I wasn't born to this name, mind. I received it when I was maybe three or four after it turned out that I was born with a very peculiar aliment. Actually, no that's not right. Perhaps deformation or even mutation would be more appropriate, all things considered. You see, friends, since I was born, I have never once been able to properly wear a hat. This is because my hair sticks up like an antenna maybe one and one half foot right around the area of the crown of my skull.

Because of my hair antenna, and in addition to my hat impairment, my brain is able to receive and decipher EM Waves in ways impossible to the common man. As such, I was taken from my home – or more correctly I was sold to science by my parents – and shipped off from lab to lab, from Netopia, to Kingsland, to Electopia, to where ever there was a lab capable enough and pencil necked scientists willing enough to run me under whatever scanning machine they had on commission for pretty much all my life.

Consequently, my birth name has since been lost to modern historians.

Eventually, I ended up in the sleepy little suburb of Echo Ridge (under regularly scheduled surveillance, of course), where essentially nothing worthy of note happens. The current holder of my leash, Amachi Laboratory Space Research Institute, or AMAKEN as it is more commonly known, has allowed me to live here, on my own, with no intelligent life around for miles and miles on end.

I pass my time at home looking up at the night sky from the telescope outside my bedroom, and sometimes I go out to Vista Point, a little plateau looking over the nearby elementary school. I'm actually there right now to remind myself that while I experience minimal to no interaction with other human beings on the average day, at least I don't have to go to school, so my life rocks, basically.

Yay me.

I say I only come up to Vista Point sometimes rather than set up a tent and live here – not like I've got anyone to go home to – because Vista Point is a rather popular spot for its pretty view of the nighttime skybox – Now, I want you to suspend all thought for a moment. Earlier, I said that there was no intelligent life around for however many miles, but now I say that Vista Point is a popular spot. With that in mind, how can Vista Point be a popular spot to star gaze when there is only me and the wind that blows free to ever admire the skybox here?

"You there! Wait!" I hear the voice boy who probably sings castrato call out to me.

Suffice to say that not all human life should be considered intelligent by sole virtue of being born to Homo sapiens (or Homo sapiens sapiens, if you really want to get into specifics).

Fueled by thought of ruining my day, presumably, a face of fair pallor and a head of short blonde hair slowly grew out from the horizon as it approached me. On him was the dutiful blue uniform vest of the local private school to which I was technically enrolled, but never actually went to. He had on shorts that looked like he had thrown off his pants after school clothes and ran outside in his prepubescent, orange booty shorts. Blue stockings striped by goldenrod shielded my maiden eyes from his pale, skinny legs. Presumably they started somewhere in his shorts, but I don't really care to find out as long as I never have to see his legs.

"Ha-ru-hi…."I hissed out his girly name, hoping against hope that I had packed enough hate into every syllable to translate the message I mean to convey. A message which reads thus: "I hate your guts. Leave me alone, toothpick legs."

"Hello, Truant." He greets me in his own special way, that way of his that only serves to fuel my already intense dislike of him even further. "I noticed that you skipped school again today."

With every word he spoke, the image I had of snapping his skinny, pretty boy back in half over my knee became so much clearer. "I didn't skip school." I told him. "AMAKEN handles my studies. I don't have to go to school unless I want to." And let's be honest, what kid would want to?

He looked down on me with a holier-than-thou smirk. "Don't you know that if you don't go out and make friends you'll become a shut-in and die alone?"

"Yes. Now shut up and go away. I don't care which you do first. Just tighten your belt and get things done." I turn my back to him so that I may more properly appreciate the clouds which look like thrown up spaghetti noodles.

I still felt his presence close by, and the heat from his stare burned into my backside. He wasn't moving, probably because his two less physically fit compatriots still lagged behind.

A few more precious seconds of my life were swallowed by the ravenous annals of time before I heard the pathetic panting and wheezing of two more annoyances who, for some undoubtedly deranged reason, grouped with Haruhi here to go out and take time out of their lives just to annoy me.

The first and foremost stooge whom Haruhi kept at his side was Ushijima, a rotund school boy, a little tall for his age, who shared his friend's habit of wearing his school uniform after hours. Though, unlike Haruhi, Ushijima had the sense to leave his uniform vest and tie at home, and leave on his creased uniform shorts. They're still shorts, but they're comparatively less ridiculous looking than the ones that Haruhi's wearing.

"You… Y-You better not be…" Ushijima gasped for air with each alternate breath like he was on the brink of collapse. "Hey, Prez…, could you run a little slower next time?" Though he was built like two mini-fridges stacked on top one another, Ushijima was not the most athletic dude around. He could probably still beat me into oblivion, tho. Hopefully I can out run him if ever I have to.

"I said waaaaaaaaait…!" That impotent whining signaled the appearance of the third and final of the three blunderers who, collectively, ruined my every day. At least this one was kinda cute.

In a little poufy blue dress with black lace like the ones you see in some creepy doll shop was little Miss Saishoin. If Ushijima is Haruhi's right hand, then Miss Saishoin is their mascot, and that's cool. She's really quite the cutie. Her blue eyes take up her face like two dove blue dinner plates on a kitchen table for one. Her bob of black hair was kept hidden under a straw sunhat so large that the head of her evening shadow was thrice as large as her actual head.

So, yeah. I've actually got a bit of a thing for Miss Saishoin. Too bad I can never run into her when the Shorty Shorts Boy and Refrigerator Kid aren't around.

"I don't like to run…." Said Miss Saishoin, who was built for sprinting as guitar strings are built to floss one's teeth. "Prez…!" Miss Saishoin whined, adorably. "You promised that we wouldn't be running today!"

"Have you tried powerwalking?" I spoke up, saying what could be considered the most passive attempt to win a girl's favor in recent history. "If you want to build up your stamina, you should start with low intensity workouts, and then work up to the harder bits." I'm speaking from experience here. You don't keep a svelte, teenage bod like mine peering into a telescope and eating crisps all day.

I try and get a good jog on. Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm a jackalope that walks as a man, that my antenna hair are a fused pair of horns, and that my heels are instead springs as I vault over every mailbox in town because I get bored. What do you expect? I'm practically an orphan, and I'm an only child to boot. Looking up at the stars is cool and all, but forgive me if such gazing alone does not satiate my need for activity when my situation is as it is.

"He's right, you know." Said Mr. Refrigerator, whose agreement with me did not fail to surprise us all. "Testing your limits is one thing, but you should never be stupid and collapse from doing more than you should."

I was tempted to tell Mr. Refrigerator that he didn't look like he had exercised once in his entire life…, but he's agreeing with me, so I'll not be mean.

"Bud!" Haruhi called him out, looking a small bit annoyed at what Ushijima just did. "Don't talk to the truant like he's our friend. You'll only encourage him."

Haruhi continued to berate Ushijima, which looked to be upsetting Miss Saishoin somewhat. Was this my chance to step in and shine in the large blue eyes of the adorable Miss Saishoin? Of course not. I'm a social coward. A morning jog through the town is considered normal and healthy, stepping between two bickering friends would just make me look like I'm trying too hard, wouldn't it.

No, now was not the time for me to shine. Now was the time for me to descend into darkness, and make a stealthy escape.

"Where do you think you're going?" Asked Haruhi, who looked back over his shoulder to see me creeping away like a villain to be met with inevitable failure.

I've no option for escape now, sans the most direct route of running away like I'm being chased by an angry fourteen-year-old in short shorts. Coincidentally, that was exactly the work out I had in mind for the afternoon.

"See ya, boys. I've gotta rock." And like lightning I bolted.

I ran. As I ran, I began to lose Haruhi and his chums. Before I even began my dash, Miss Saishoin was fed up with running. I heard Ushijima after me for a while, but I also heard a loud smacking against the pavement which convinced me to think that he had given up the chase. Haruhi, as could be expected, was the most annoying to deal with. He kept up close behind me as we ran passed Miss Saishoin's family dojo and Ushijima's two story home. I assume we passed up Haruhi's house, too, but I don't know where exactly in town he lives.

It was dark by the time I had to stop running. Entirely genuine was the possibility that I might fall to my knees. I am not sure when or where Haruhi finally gave up chase, I saw not shorty shorts nor striped stockings of him since the sun had set. He probably had a family and a curfew that he was held to. Such is but one downside of living with people who fret over every aspect of your life.

And so I am alone again, here on Vista Point. The stringy wisps of clouds which had sparsely occupied the blue skybox had since move on, leaving the starry heavens above devoid of all but the beautiful golden stars, the pale white moon, and the pulsating orange wave roads that just waited on the boarder of Earth and the eternity of the cosmos.

"I almost forgot about you guys." I said with my back to the grass and my face to the stars, still winded from all the running I did today. "You know, when I think about it, you guys are the only things that have stayed with me since I wound up on this planet."

It was true. All my life, the only things which stayed with me were the wave roads which only my eyes could see. Even the moon would wane until new, and even the stars would disappear when the clouds took up the night. It had been so long since I had seen my parents that I no longer remembered them, nor their names, nor the name that they had given to me.

I did not feel lonely when I came home to quiet and solitude. I did not feel lonely knowing that I had no family who shared my blood, for my family was all around.

I look to the sky and I say…, "What the hell is that?"

…

Do you really consider us family, human?