CHAPTER 10 - KINDRED SPIRITS

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" the brown protozoan said as he hit me with a roll of the newspaper he used as a blanket, waking me up. It was already morning, but his shadow darkened my surroundings a little; making it seem like it was still night when my eye was still closed.

"What did you do that for?" I shouted angrily. "I'm homeless, a wanderer in this big city! Isn't it obvious?"

"Obviously, but who are you?" he asked in a slightly vexed manner so early in the morning.

"Why should I tell you?" I replied, also just as annoyed.

"I'm also lost in this huge place. I just found this box yesterday by the dumps and made a makeshift shelter out of it. I would have let you in, but I guess I was already asleep when you got to this alley."

"How long have you been here, anyway?"

"I can't even remember," he replied. "It must have been a very, very long time already, and my sense of direction must be getting poorer and poorer with old age..."

"Okay, I'm Sheldon," I said as he gained my trust a little. "And you are?"

"I'm... Howard," he replied. It must have been tough for the poor old guy to remember even his own name.

Silence filled the alley for several minutes, but we weren't silent because we had a deep understanding of each other that no more words were needed to express our profound brotherhood. We were silent because we simply didn't know what to tell each other. The silence was a very awkward one.

"Okay, now what?" I asked, breaking the lonely quietness.

"I have no idea," he replied. "We both have nowhere to go in this big city. Besides, retirement homes are too expensive, and I guess neither of us have the money to afford them."

"Why?" I asked worriedly. "Don't you have any family to back you up?"

"I never had one..." he replied as tears began to flow from his hazel green eye.

I wiped away the tear for him using the newspaper.

"Thank you for being the very first one in this place as far as I could recall, to be kind to me and to even care in the first place. Thank you for having the time to listen to me," he said.

"Back in the place I used to live in, no one would ever describe me as someone kind and caring," I replied, brushing off an undeserved compliment. "To tell you the truth, I've lived almost all my life as a bitter failure, rejected by society. I lived almost all my life alone. No one was ever kind to me, so I was never really kind to them either. It's hard to be kind to those who hate you and make fun of you."

"This city has no room for the little ones like except for this alley," he said. "We always get trampled on as if we are..."

"Discarded chewing gum," the two of us said simultaneously, completing the sentence.

"Don't worry, I'll find a way to get us out of here," I reassured him.

"How? This is a big place that is so easy to get lost in! We are small creatures in this town that towers over us from all corners. We're stuck here! We'll be in this alley for the rest of our lives because it's safer here and only very few fish pass here. The blinding neon lights don't shine here too, so this place is perfect for me to live in. I'm a bitter failure too!"

He started crying right in front of me, thinking that there was no more hope for him. We only knew each other for about half an hour now, but it felt as though we are already close friends. We simply understood each other so well even though things started a little rough and awkward for both of us. I patted his back, doing my best to reassure him that everything will be okay.

"It looks like we will have to make do with what we have," I replied in despair. With so little resources, I knew that making the micro hover boat I was planning to invent would probably take a longer time than whatever I have left in my life, considering that I'm already old.

I was happy to meet Howard, though, because I have seen for myself that I'm not really alone, that in all these years, there is actually someone out there who actually shares my problems. Times must have been much tougher for him because he never had a computer wife to reassure him time and time again that everything will be okay. He didn't even have a family to care for him in his old age. At least I was fed regularly back in prison no matter how unpalatable the gray sludge was, and Doubloon Swallowin' Misty was there to talk to me, sometimes. I didn't hit on her though because she is married, and so am I, although my wife is a machine. I learned the hard way that cheating leads to dire consequences. It's just that I was actually alone in a small prison cell that was about the size of an average cinder block, so I sometimes couldn't help but feel alone in a claustrophobic space.

"Is it just me... or is your skin slightly greener than it was a few minutes ago?" Howard asked in awe. I looked at myself and realized the trend. It seemed that every time I would be genuinely happy for a good reason, my skin would gradually return to its former vibrant, greenish complexion as an additional reward from The Flying Dutchman. I figured out that the reason I had been happy back in the diner was the food. My success with stealing the food had nothing to do with it. Besides, I only stole the food out of desperation and hunger. I know for a fact that hunger can lead anyone to do crazy things.

"Maybe the sun is just starting to shine brighter as it rises," I replied, doing my best to hide the fact that I am on a mission given to me by The Flying Dutchman.

I felt a new sense of hope gradually overtake my despair. I started out this mission with the hopes of redeeming only myself. All I wanted then was to fulfill my mission in a pathetic attempt to reconcile with an erstwhile friend only so that I could avoid Davy Jones's Locker. For the first time in my entire life, I knew that I was doing something right for the right purpose. I knew now that my new-found purpose is to make a difference in Howard's life, to reassure him time and time again that everything will be okay. It was the least I could do after all those years that I myself had been repetitively reassured by a machine who loved me unconditionally.

[Author's Notes: Thank you for the great reviews! But it looks like I'm only replying to one review for now. Oh, and Page of Darkness, I see you've changed your name back to 'Victory Goth.'

Capertadia - Thanks for adding my story to your favorites! Monica is my trollin' valley girl/preppy (in the sense that Tara/Todd Gilesbie means it) alter-ego who also happens to be my exact opposite.

On another note, C'ren is not stupid name; I mean it. After I did some research on the name, I realized that it is in fact a common name of male fanmade characters for the Sci-fi/Fantasy saga 'Dragonriders of Pern.' I would like to apologize to Anne McCaffrey for accidentally ruining part of her fanbase by naming a Spongebob Squarepants fanfiction Mary Sue character (C'ren Amethyst LeHeart-Bieber) the same name as a common masculine Pernese name.]