A Day Gone Wrong
Chapter 4: Rainy Days and Fridays
KRAKATOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!
The thunderclap boomed across the whole sky, as winds buffeted the trees with the incoming squall's mighty force.
I cringed as the sudden noise came from out of nowhere and startled me. Boy, I hope Barry's party is held indoors... tonight is no night to be out partying. Heavy rains were blanketing Kanluran city and already I can see the rising levels of flood water threatening to engulf the little strip of space where my dormitory was located. Brrrr.... it was friggin' cold.
I took out my ratty old blanket and covered myself in it. It was dark inside the little cubicle that had to make do as the room that I shared with four other guys. Two of the other people were working scholars, and were out this time of night to do their chores. The other guy was probably out somewhere getting laid, or so he kept on bragging to the rest of us roommates. As for me... well...
I switched on the lamp placed on the little table that I had to share with the other guys and opened my books. I began poring over the commands needed to encode a program in Visual C++. You'd think it was a funny thing... me, someone who's been a farmer all his life, majoring in something so technical as a Computer Science course. Funny thing or not, that was what I had wanted to take. I guess it came from listening to Uncle Romano, who was a lawyer from the big city. Everytime he came to the province, he would always drop by and impress on me and the rest of his nephews and nieces that, "...Computers are the wave of the future, mark my words. Someday, if you want to find jobs that will take you all around the world, I guarantee to you... a computer profession would give that to you." The rest of my cousins would just listen attentively and say their customary Oooohs and Aaaahhs and go back out and dream of working a nine-to-five job in a bank somewhere in the city. Not me. I took a special attention to whatever Uncle Romano told me. Among all his siblings, Uncle Romy was the only one who had managed to get out of the rural life and make a name for himself as a lawyer. I looked up to him. I thought that if he could do it, then surely I could too, if I only gave it a try. And if the man said computers were the way to go, then surely computers were the way to go.
The only computer that I had seen back in Sitio Maringgit was the really old 286 model in the basilica's convento. Some rich haciendero had donated it when he upgraded to something more modern. Mostly, the 286 was used to encode documents for the masses held and for printing dot-matrix announcements, streamers and posters. At first, nobody could make heads nor tails about it, since no one knew how to operate a computer. So it just sat there on the office gathering dust.
I had passed there one day as I was going to file a registration for a nephew's baptism. My eyes alighted on the computer and immediately I saw a window of hope alighting on me. I approached Bro. Joseph, one of the convento's administrators. "Uhm.. Bro. Joe... I was wondering if I could perhaps... uhm... take a look on your computer?"
"What? Oh that. Why tell me Dale... do you know how to use it?"
I knew it was a sin to tell a lie, especially if to a priest, but surely God would understand if gave a little fib as an investment for my future. "Err, yeah. I could."
"Marvellous!!" Bro. Joe cried out. "We've been trying to find someone to help us use it. Perhaps you could help the convento out by coming here every once so often to work things out for us? That is, if it'll be okay with you. We can pay you for your efforts with a little sum."
Would I?! "Why sure Bro. Joe. I'd love to help you out."
"Good, good. Tell you what... come over here by tomorrow morning and we could get started on a letter that I'm sending to the Archbishop," Bro. Joe said.
"Alright. I'll see you then," I told him.
After finishing my business with my nephew's baptism, I hurriedly ran to the high school library to see if there was anything I could use to crash-learn what I can about using a computer. I was so excited and guilty at the same time. What did I know about computers? I was deathly afraid of doing something and destroying it. I have heard that computers were very complicated and expensive equipment.
That night, as I went back home, I began introducing myself to the wonderful world of MS-DOS, Wordstar and Lotus 1-2-3. The words all looked like gibberish to me, but thankfully I had my intellect and my sheer guts that helped see me through until the following day.
The day came at last. Trudging along the dirt path which led to the convento, I could hear my excited heart go thumpety-thump-thump-thumpety-thump. This was it. I was going to be a computer man.
Bro. Joe led me to the little cubicle where the 286 was located and handed me a few documents and letters which he wanted me to print out. "Here Dale. Just complete this and give it to me when you're through."
I looked straight at his eyes and considered confessing my sin right then and there. I wasn't a computer man. I was just a farmer playing at being a techie. It wouldn't be that much of a big deal if I came clean, right?
Then from out of nowhere, Uncle Romy's words came back to me. "Computers are the wave of the future, mark my words." I gulped. If I don't do this, I will never get a chance to be part of that future.
I grinned nervously at Bro. Joe. "Alright Brother. No problem." No problem. Right.
With nervous fingers I tried to locate the power switch. I found it and I turned it on.
I'll never forget the beautiful sound of a CPU humming itself to operation, nor the wonderful feeling of knowing that so far, the computer wasn't going to explode nor send a nuclear warhead to Russia.
I typed my first words on the dusty keypads of the console. Right on the spot of the blinking cursor where a green "C:" was located I began to type those magical little passwords to a bright, shining future: "WS"
The Wordstar program came into operation. I whooped loudly at my own cleverness.
Four hours and a half later, give or take a million errors and a thousand curses to be confessed at the penitentiary box, I had typed my first 3 paragaph letter. From that day on, it became clear to me. This is what I wanted to be... a professional computer man.
Three years later, and I'm sitting here in a cold room, wrapped in a blanket and freezing my nuts off, while studiously trying to make sense of how to make a random number generator program. I groaned to myself. Visual C++ was a far cry from the initial DOS commands, QBASIC program and Turbo Pascal applications that I had taught myself to use on that dinky little 286. The situation was compounded by the fact that I had no computer to practice on. Life was a bitch.
Well, I guess the only thing that I could do was to deal with the situation. I turned over a new page and struggled to make sense of all the technical words that were crammed into it. Groan
I bet the party over at Barry's was a lot more fun than a random number generator.
Chapter 4: Coffee Would Really be Good right about now.
3:00 A.M.
It was a damn cold morning. I had already gone over my Virtual C++ book over and over again until I was pretty sure that I understood all the concepts. By tomorrow afternoon I'll be stopping over the university's computer lab to debug this sample program that I had formulated.
Sniff A smell of something burning wafted through my nose. Those crackheads over at the next room must be sniffing something illegitimate again. Yawn
I'm so sleepy! No... correct that... I'm also very hungry! My stomach was rumbling so I checked my wallet to see if I have enough dough for some sustennance. Forty bucks. Good enough.
Putting on some raingear, I went out of the dorm and negotiated my way down the flooded street. Damn, the water was knee-high. I managed to trudge on despite it. Well at least it wasn't raining anymore. If I weren't so damn hungry I wouldn't be out here in this miserable environment.
After a good 30 minute walk I finally reached the nearest convenience store that was open at this time of the night.
"Hey Gerry!" I called out to the attendant manning the counter. "Hey Dale... whassup man?" Gerry called back out. Gerry was one of my neighbors living over at the dorm.
"Hungry, dude! Got anything to eat?"
"Yeah, we've got some hot coffee and some stale bread. Tell you what man, just pay for the coffee. The bread's on the house. It's gonna be thrown away sooner or later anyway," Gerry told me.
"Gee thanks 'Ger. Could we have the bread heated up?"
"No problem man" and with that, Gerry popped the bun into the toaster. "Nice weather we're having, huh?"
I nodded, then I turned my head as somebody came in and through the door. My eyes opened wide. Barry?
"Hey man, do you guys have any aspirin or something?" Barry Ty said as he came in dragging a guy along by the shoulders. A pretty young lass, whom I knew to be Daphne Aguilar (one of the popular girls on campus), came following after.
"Carsick?," Gerry asked as he took out an aspirin.
"Major hang-over," Barry said as he brought the guy over by the counter. Then he finally saw me.
"Dale-man! Hey, why weren't you over at the party?"
I shrugged and gave him the first alibi that popped into my head. "Err... bad weather tonight. No car, ergo Dale no go to party."
Barry nodded as took some cash off from his wallet and paid for the aspirin and some bottled water. "Bummer man. You shoulda called me and I would've picked you up like I did to these jokers over here," he said as he looked back over to Daphne. "Hey Daph... watcha want?"
Daphne was looking over some tortilla chips and got that. "Barry, get me some coffee, will you hon?"
"Sure thing babe," Barry said then looked on over to Gerry who was getting Daphne's coffee. "And hey, could you get me a coffee too, and some of that bread Dale is having?" Barry said as he paid for the things.
The door opened again as someone else came in the store. It was a pretty young girl, whom I judged to be in high school. Very pretty indeed. She obviously came from a Chinese family, judging by her looks. She had flawless white-alabaster skin, dreamy almond-shaped eyes and rosy-red cheeks. Her jeans were also wet from wading across the flooded street.
"Bianca honey, you're all wet," Barry told the girl. She looked up to him and shrugged. Bianca spoke out, "Like duh. I can't believe you guys left me alone at the car."
Barry walked on over to her, put her arms around her and kissed her on the forehead. "Sorry babe. You were sleeping and we didn't want to wake you up. Alan here had to puke, so we got out. Can I get you anything?"
Bianca nodded and ordered some Coke and a pack of cigarrettes. Barry paid for it and turned his attention back to me.
"Oh yeah, hey guys, I want you all to meet my friend Dale. Dale, this here's Daphne, the sick puppy over there is Allan, and this is the love of my life, Bianca," he said as he kissed Bianca on the forehead again. Bianca rolled her eyes up and lit her cigarrette.
Daphne looked me over head to foot. "Hey Dale, cool shoes," she said as she gave me a wry smirk. "My grandfather had one just like it. He gave it away to charity. Was that where you got yours?" she said in a really catty tone.
Ouch. Yeah, my grandfather has one just like it too. In fact, I'm wearing it. I was at a loss for words.
"Hey Daph, play nice," Barry said as Bianca stuck her tongue out at him. "Pardon her Dale, it's been a long night."
I shrugged and continued sipping my coffee.
Allan appeared to be feeling a little better. He was looking outside when he suddenly spoke up.
"Cool man! Two firetrucks just passed by. Hey, there's probably a fire or something, huh?"
A fire. Cool. Wait a minute, a fire??!!
Gerry and I looked each other eye to eye. "The dorm!!!" we both cried out.
I dropped the coffee on the counter and ran out as fast as I can. The damn flood was still slowing me down. I can already see the smoke pouring out from the dorm's direction at a far away distance. Accursed flood! I have to move faster than this!
Five minutes later, a car appeared by my side and its driver honked its horns. The car's window rolled down.
"Dale, get in. Gerry told me where you lived. We'll get there faster!"
I nodded as a door opened and Gerry motioned for me to get in. I hopped in the car and thanked God for this minor miracle.
Barry stepped down hard on the pedal and the car got roaring in no time. We began speeding up as a tense silence filled the car's interior. 'Oh God, please don't let it be the dorm! Please God, don't let it be the dorm!' I prayed to myself as we came closer to the source of the fire.
We finally came into view of the dorm. I gasped and held my breath.
to be continued...
================================= How did you like the story? If you want to share your thoughts with the author, please feel free to e-mail him via dale@toughguy.net
All comments are welcome, although I can't guarantee an immediate reply.