literature

No Buffering - Part 2

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No Buffering, Part 2

 

Helen

 

                Do you remember when you were little, and everyone else on the Internet was either a stalker or a pedophile? To hear my mom talk, you’d think I was the only person of good intent on the entire web! My mom threatened to ground me if she ever caught me in a chat room, but she always grew bored of hovering over my shoulder, watching me play silly games on the Cartoon Network website and reading movie reviews, so she’d wander off and leave me be. I’d immediately go to a forum afterwards, of course. Moms don’t understand Internet friends, either. They seem to think all Internet talk consists of mindlessly spewing one’s personal information, and don’t seem to get that the same privacy compromising system can also be used to hold real, meaningful conversations; that friendships aren’t beholden to distance anymore.

                Mom’s lightened up now that I’m in school and by myself most of the time anyway, but every year, when I go to Tubecon, I still like to tell her I’ll be having a good time with all my creepers and perverts. Mom, being a mom, never laughs.

                Con friends, Internet friends, they’re kind of like ice cream cake on your birthday. They’re rich and delicious, and while you wish you could have them around every day, you really don’t. It’s only getting to see them once or twice a year that makes them all the sweeter. Our reunions in the hotel lobby are full of spinning hugs and gales of laughter worthy of movie endings.

This year, we forewent being at the con, right when it opened, to eat brunch at our little cafe. We skipped breakfast last year, and the morning was hot and sweaty and we were all grouchy, because granola bars do not make good meals. So today, we fill our stomachs with real food, while we fill in each other on everything that’s happened in the twelve months since we last sat face-to-face.

                On the Internet, you’ve got nothing to unite you except your personality, so we’ve grown into a bit of a weird group. Paulo, 17, is traveling on his own for the first time, and brags about how he drove up from Yuma all by himself. He pats his pockets while he tells us this, probably because his pants are too tight to let him easily pull out his wallet and show off his driver’s license. 25-year-old Starbeam keeps mumbling to people in the cafe that that is her real name, and that her parents, while slightly too young to have lived through the 1960’s, read a lot about them and decided they were a good idea. Salt-and-pepper-haired Thomas looks like the camp counselor stuck bussing us kids around, but he chuckles and laughs along with the rest of us. We’re a patchwork of people, but we all ordered omelets of some variety, and are discussing the latest animated family films with equal vigor.

                Paulo, I notice, keeps bringing out his phone and staring into the screen. I take a sip of my water and look at him. “Something wrong, Paulo?”

                “Sorry. Just checking the time. Don’t want to miss any of the panels, you know.”

                “I don’t think the first panels even start until noon,” Starbeam says. “The Tubecon guys know their nerds. We’re not known for being early risers.”

                “Yeah, but ‘Cave with an Internet Connection’ is one of the first performances. I hear Django is gonna do a build-your-own-computer seminar. Dad won’t let me get a gaming PC for my graduation present, but he says he might let me make a custom one, so I figure I can take some notes.”

                “We’ll be good,” I say. “Me, I’m more interested in checking out some of the booths. You remember that webcomic I showed you, ‘Back of the Schoolbus?’ The artist has a booth set up, and she’ll be doing commission sketches and selling prints! C’mon, you guys know I’m a sucker for art.”

                Thomas chuckles. “Yes, I do remember that one. Isn’t the artist the same one who also does all the designs for Duke Grukie’s T-shirts and channel motifs? He was the one who helped her gain a lot of her popularity.”

                I feel a twinge in my shoulders, and set my glass down with a ringing clink. “Hey! I liked her before she got in good with the Duke. Fatima’s a talented lady!”

                Thomas frowns at me, with his frown lines lending him a Dad-like authority. “I thought you liked the Duke, though. In fact, you said earlier that you were—“

                “I never said I didn’t like the Duke, either! I’m just saying, Fatima didn’t need his help to get popular. He looked to her because her comic was building a fanbase and he heard of her. Most of the Duke’s fans don’t even read the comic, even though they always praise his art. It’s all of her fans who spread the word about the work she’s most proud of.”

 I feel a cold, shivery look coming towards me from my left. “And for your information, yes, I am still going to the Duke’s panel with you. So enough of that look, Star.”

                Star looks down at her omelet with an insulted pout. Her convention schedule and planner is conveniently lying by her plate, opened to today’s date. Pink, yellow, and blue highlighter marks are encircling Duke Grukie’s name in a fetching half-rainbow. She also has her napkin tucked into her shirt collar, only just obstructing the view of her Duke Grukie T-shirt. It isn’t even one of Fatima’s designs. She mumbles, “Yeah, well...” 

                Paulo swipes at us with his hand curved into a claw. “Rreow,” he says. “Fangirl fight! And I thought the front gates were the only place with action like this!”

                Thomas smirks with his fist over his mouth. “If you want to see fangirls fighting, all you have to do is read fanfiction reviews. I can’t promise you it’ll be quite as pretty, though.”

                “I kid, I kid!” Paulo looks away from us to swipe his finger across the surface of his phone again, and check the time. “Man, I know we’ve still got, like, forty-five minutes until the gates open, but... I don’t wanna get a crappy seat, you know? Would you guys mind if I split early, or are we done here?”

                Star doesn’t say anything, but she starts stuffing the remainders of her omelet in her mouth in larger-than normal chunks. I swipe up one last ham-and-spinach-filled chunk. “I think Star is suggesting we finish up,” I say. “We do want to have time to wander the show floor, after all. And if I get Fatima to draw me something, I don’t know how long that’s gonna take. Artists are popular. We might want to hurry.”

                “Oh, we don’t have to hurry, per se,” Thomas shrugs. “But we might want to get past the ‘pick a little, talk a little’ stage if we want to—“

                “Cheep cheep cheep, talk a little talk a lot!” I recite the song lyrics with a spinach-filled grin.

                “Uh, yes, thank you for that, Helen,” Thomas says. “Let’s all try to finish up eating. If we time it right, we can bypass most of the traffic of the gates opening and not get trapped in the loggerheads.”

                Just in case we don’t finish, though, we snare the next waitress who passes by and ask her to bring us some boxes for our leftovers. Carrying them isn’t a problem, because we’re all seasoned con-goers and have brought plenty of tote bags for our swag.

                Star passes up a box, though. She just tucks away into her omelet and hash browns. There are moments when her chewing visibly slows, and her gulps are heavy. Between swallowing, she keeps glancing at me. She alternates with looks at her planner, and the gleeful, fangirlish rainbow around Duke Grukie’s panel.

                I really am looking forward to his ukulele performance, which his panel will undoubtedly include. Music is kind of a big deal to me, after all, and even if Fatima doesn’t need him, he’s still a talented musician. I fully admit to tuning in every upload, crossing my fingers and hoping he’ll play. But Star is giving me some cagey looks.

                I really hope I didn’t just make this con suck. 

Here's Part Dos of my weird foray into the world of romance and first-person present tense narrative! In this part, we're introduced to Helen, our heroine. I am... very worried that she sounds too much like Rudy right now. As always, concrit is very welcome! If you can think of ways to make them sound different, or if you think I'm a nutcase and they sound just fine, be sure to tell me!

We also get introduced to some of Helen's entourage. Fun fact: The name "Starbeam" was the name of one of my first original characters (by which I mean actually original, and not what is more properly termed a fan-character), when I was 10 years old. Her story was a little weird!

The cafe they're eating at is based on a real cafe that's next to the Phoenix Convention Center, or at least, was. But I don't go into a lot of detail about that cafe at this point. I will later, though. Maybe when it's... romantically appropriate? ;)
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