His watch's alarm sharply shrieked two in the morning. Sighing at the sudden disruption, Frank Hardy, with his eyes still glued to the LCD monitor, reached across his desk and felt around for the singing watch which was nagging him to halt all activities and slip into slumber. Almost knocking over a glass half-filled with water, Frank swiftly peeled his eyes away from the screen and balanced the tall glass back just in time before it spilled over treasured, opened books.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." He wordlessly swore under his breath and ran a hand through his glossy, dark-brown hair which had the ability to flop back in place no matter how hard anyone tried to ruffled it up. Joe always tried to mess it up, jealous of Frank's sleek, straight locks when his would always curl slightly inwards at the ends. However, both brothers had their own unique charms and somehow, despite his "to-die-for" hair, most girls seemed to prefer Joe's sculptured Adonis looks. However, that Adonis had already found his Aphrodite and Frank, on more than one occasion, had to listen to a poor lass cry when Joe rejected her advances.
After picking it up his watch with no more near-accidents, Frank switched the alarm off, thinking that he must be some weird sort of guy. Most people used alarms to wake themselves up. Frank utilized those useful gadgets to remind himself to go to sleep. He could not help it- he was addicted to the Internet, as do most insomniacs, because he was lonely when the world was fast asleep, leaving him behind to grapple with consciousness alone. However, the fact that his computer was online relieved the intensity of his solitude to a huge extent. Being connected to the WWW gave him comfort with the promise of 'ready-at-a-click' companionship. If he was feeling chatty, he could always go to some message board and type in some provocative or controversial remarks to spark an intellectual debate. He liked to stir up the cauldrons of stagnant ideas- to push the people around him to be more alive in the world of the minds. And he loved it more when he could just think of one question that could collapse a synthesis after many rounds of thesis and anti-thesis so the whole process of discourse would start all over again.
Thus, that was how he spent his Christmas Break. Sometimes, he wondered if arguing and asking questions over the internet or just idly chatting with old friends, was just an escape for him. Wearing himself out as his fingers flew over the keyboard until the black ink of the night dissolved to reveal daylight, he would be indirectly forcing his brains to remain numb on that issue.
Callie. Oh Callie. Why haven't we reach a damn resolution?
Though his heart was reminding him by breaking into countless pieces every single day.
The subdued hues of his surrounds was a stark contrast to the bright cascading windows, threatening to spill out of the screen. Though the windows flashed WebPages from different web sites, in the eyes of the one who knew what he was looking for, they formed a simple discourse for him to analyze and mull over until he could decide which was the best graphic card to invest in for the coming year.
Leaning back, he stared up at the ceiling of his dimly lit room to rest his eyes and doing so caused dazzling white spots to assault his vision like asteroids speeding menacingly close to a space shuttle across the galaxy. Cracks that lined the ceiling soon traced into forms and shapes open to his interpretation and he thought he found a lamb hidden in the tapestry of flaking paintworks. How intriguingly organize his mind must be, always trying to form order out of something as chaotic and random as crack-lines.
He shivered a little, feeling the coldness of winter gnaw into his bones. The radiator did little to ease the frigid temperature and he was already wearing his sweater with two t-shirts underneath. Winter was not kind to Bayport this year and he desperately wished it would be merciful when Christmas arrived. Though he loved the fantasia that winter inspired, he wished earnestly that the beauty did not have to come with the price-tag of less than 32 Fahrenheit.
"Oh, oh."
Lost in his own thoughts of frame-rates and usefulness of DVI outputs, Frank absentmindedly retrieved the message on his ICQ after its arrival was childishly announced by the program.
Who are you?
Distracted from his mission of making a decision before he and Phil Cohen make a trip down to New York City later in the afternoon to source for the ultimate game machine, Frank stared at the innocuous question from an unknown originator. A long string of numbers marked the ICQ ID of the sender but Frank had no idea who it was. Paranoid about leaking personal information to a stranger, Frank decided to throw the question back at the one who asked, biting the side of his lower lip as he typed.
Maybe it's a secret admirer! Hah! Joe's not the only heartbreaker around.
Who are you!
He waited patiently for a reply as he drummed his fingers on the tabletop. Many things piqued his curiosity, even simple mysteries like this. A thought dampened his spirits a little. Most likely, the person was just someone he knew who had re-installed ICQ and was trying to consolidate the contact list all over again.
I don't know who I am. Do you know who you are?
Hmm… secretive ain't ya? No… please don't be a psychopath! I want a nice holiday before I go back to college…
To obvious choices splayed out in front of him. He could discard the exchange and think no more of it or he could go along like a blind man playing by ear. Probably not so blind. There were still knowledge about the person's identity that could be sought and give Frank a clue or at least a pseudonym for the faceless person. He fiddled with ICQ's options and matched the ID to a nickname. The first person that flashed in his mind was his beloved, kid brother. Who else could be so restless in the middle of the night? Very logically, Joe must be dead bored because Vanessa refused to chat with him over the phone so late in the night so he decided to ruffle Frank's feathers a little- when he could not ruffle the hair.
"TheWhiteRabbit@Wonderland. Interesting kiddo though I'll prefer FreeEntrance@Disneyland or ComplimentaryTicket@UnitedAir." Frank mused softly to himself and smiled cynically after. Alice in Wonderland was his all time favorite book which about a haughty girl with too much questions trapped in a magical fantasy where poker cards came alive to chop off people's heads.
Cut it out Joseph Hardy. I have some stuff to do all right? Go pester Vanessa some more.
This time, the reply was almost immediate and slightly longer.
Who is Joseph Hardy? He's your younger brother whom you dote upon so much but do you really know who he is? Who are you really too? Do you know? Do you… wonder?
Now, Frank regretted not dismissing the messages in the first place. The sender might well be someone on the other side of Earth on an inverted time zone from his but he doubted it on a hunch. Twilight till four a.m. always attracted all sorts of nocturnal freaks. Slowly, he felt himself turning into one gothic mess as well wearing permanent eye-shadows from the brand, "Sleepless".
He gripped the glass of water and took a sip from it. Already, the water had turned icy cold and swallowing it froze his brains for a head-splitting moment.
How sad. We seemed to have lost the ability to wonder. I'm so afraid you'll soon lose the child in you and you won't qualify to take the same trip as Alice. She used to be such a darling, asking questions in that overbearing manner- flooding our beautiful land and then turning large and tiny alternately. But she has grown up to become a grouchy old maid in Seattle so contacting her is useless. She believed she had dreamt the entire adventure! Bah! Anyway, back to you. Since we have lost her, Mad Hatter suggested we invite you to replace her at our lovely tea party. What do you think? Tea do taste much better than ice-cold water, isn't it so?
Frank choked on the water and slammed the glass so hard down onto the desk that it was a miracle for it not to crack or shatter. Immediately, he glanced around his room but saw nothing of interest except for the overlapping shadows of furniture illuminated by the table lamp glowing a soothing shade of orange- the sole source of light in the room. Standing up abruptly, he crossed the distance to his window and flung it open to take a look outside, mindless of the frosty air biting at his skin.
Please don't let it be a serial killer or someone perverted like that, God. Please. I have a life to live…
He took in the silence, save the night sounds of non-hibernating insects, and surveyed the street below, holding his breath in anticipation at spotting a stalker. All he saw were bald trees with upturned palms, holding on to treasure troves of frosted stars, caging in their bounty with white, gnarled fingers. However, greed was always one of the worst seven sins to rid of. They tried to hold on to too much treasure and thus, spilled more than was desired onto the ground. Heaven thwarted their efforts as well- too kind to allow those frozen diamonds to be in the possession of only a few, selfish, wrinkled entities. It let fall a thick blanket of gems that burst a dazzling whiteness that shimmered even under the pale moonlight- gems that quenched the fires of Autumn with their freezing beauty.
Exhaling heavily until his chest hurt, he walked back to his armchair and sat down heavily. Tea. Water. How did the sender know he had just drank water that tasted like melted snow?
"Joe, is this you?" Frank whispered, willing for the next message to pop up and go, 'Haha! Caught ya!'.
Cut it out! I warned you, brat.
Frank could almost imagine a sorrowful voice of a maligned person narrating the next reply.
I'm not going to harm you, nor am I against you. I just want to help you keep the child in you, the real you in yourself before you become jaded. Wonder, like I said, is a delightful faculty. Without it, we'll never be where we are today for the discovery of a whole new science often start with just a simple thought. An apple on the head and boom! Gravity!
But most of us live from days to days like mechanical androids, so trapped in our mundane routine that we have forgotten who we really are and what amazing creatures we are meant to be. We don't just belong in the world. We don't just exist. We are definitely not a product of coincidence. Do you ever think about it?
I ask you again, Frank Hardy. Who are you?
Despite his reservations, Frank decided to follow the enigma down a tunnel that he was not sure if light would shine at the end. The exchange was getting interesting and he always thought of himself as a philosopher of some kind. He slouched in his chair and thought about the questions, feeling not at all silly for doing so for was it not in everybody's mind to know more about themselves?
Who am I? I'm Frank Hardy. I'm the son of Fenton and Laura Hardy, elder brother of an imp, Joseph Hardy. My full name is Franklin Jeremiah Hardy. I have dark brown hair and eyes which I'm not positive if they're a intense shade of deep brown or just black. 6ft 1 with a muscular lean built, I have no lack of dates. Many call me intelligent and I have an IQ of 180 though it doesn't always show. I'm now doing an accelerated law degree program in Harvard. Life is good.
But Callie's not here with me and that made me sad. She is so much a part of me that it's so scary. So who am I? Does it constitute the part of her that I have etched into me?
I just know I'm not who I'm supposed to be, yet. But I know that I am me. I know my name is not the answer you want, since you already know.
Frank waited again and this time, the reply came back in the blink of an eye.
Of course you're you. If only you understood the true wisdom behind your words.
Chewing on a knuckle, letting the jarring pain that the act induced in his bones to jolt his mind to some intelligence, Frank thought over his next reply, not wanting to sound stupid and yet the same time, not wanting to boast what he did not have knowledge to.
So tell me. What's the true wisdom you are talking about? I am me, I understand, but because I'm me, I'll probably never see me. Even when I look in the mirror, all I see is a left-right reversal image of my own face. Can a mind understand itself? Build tons of debates and win or lose all on its own? How can I who exist as me take a step back to understand what's me?
The reply did not come. He waited until the blackness of the night dispersed into muted hues of purple and red. As light filter through with more intensity, so did the colors take on the vibrancy of a child's water colors palette. The veil finally tore and daylight burst forth as the colors become brighter and brighter until it become a blindingly colorless.
Disappointed, Frank was about to shut down his PC when ICQ flashed again, bringing more news from the stranger. Excitement coursed through his veins and he felt a little giddy at where these exchanges would bring him to.
Life's just one, big fat riddle.
He felt headier still when his mind's intestine digested the next message.
Look around you. Isn't the morning beautiful? Who put the sun in the sky to light our world without fail every day? Who make sure we can still see in the night even as our eyes rest from too much daylight? Why do our hearts beat without us commanding it to consciously? Questions and more questions. I only ask you to never be jaded. Be like a child. Be amazed.
Yes. Questions like who are you, where do you come from and are you having a good laugh out of this.
What do you want?
Frank typed with rapid speed and waited with bated breath for the next message.
Only to bring you down the rabbit hole and see how far you dare to go. This is the end of our conversation for now but I do enjoy talking to you. I charge you with this task for the time being until we speak again- Wonder.
And with that, the sender disconnected from ICQ and like an opportune finale of sorts to this funny introduction, a ray of sunshine streamed angularly into his room and an elongated golden replica of his French lattice windows blanket over the parquet floor with substance-less warmth which would be nothing more than wishful thinking in the freezing weather. Still, Frank stepped onto the image and felt the sun rays, now blocked by his body, being adsorbed into his system to thaw him a little.
Wonder. He knew what the sender was talking about and he knew about the androids parts. Sometimes, he feared that he would one day just exist like everybody else and take everything around him for granted. Life, the great mystery, was difficult to unravel but he never want to stop trying. However, he had not realize that he had almost become a mindless, walking being, contended with just the routine of everyday until the messages came like a godsend to reawaken his senses.
I have neglected to stop and smell the flowers, to think about the beauty of the ocean and to be thankful for the twinkling stars that act as our compass.
I cannot be jaded!
If only he was not so tired after saying up the whole night, he would be able to examine all that had transpired a little more closely and perhaps come to some answers that would only dredge out more questions. Wonder. He would start by wondering about sleepiness- wonder about the most natural realm in which even the most fearsome dictator would have to relinquish control to. The sub-conscious state of mind was perhaps the scariest thing anyone could face. It could speak of the harshest truth with the most unaffected voice as it could sweetly deceive with the song of a nymph.
Sleepy.
Before he plopped onto his bed and dream many things, he messaged his friend Phil on his mobile to cancel the outing because he was sure he could not wake up in time.