22 (c)
Title: A Brief History of Hemingway and STRING THEORY
Previous
David is having a crisis. He’s torn between calling Alexis for help and just trying to figure it out by himself.
“Ugh, go away!” he yells at his screen in agitation.
His face is red, part of it is from his frustration but it’s also from this pop-up ad that he can’t seem to get rid of. David tries the Ctri+Alt+Del buttons again, even though that hadn’t worked last time. He tries scrolling down so he can at least be spared until the ad plays out, but it just scrolls down with him.
“Fuck off.” He glares at the half-naked man on his screen. “Or put some clothes on, Jesus.” He starts randomly punching keys on his keyboard, hoping that one of them would magically end his pain, but nothing happens.
David huffs. “Fine.” He sits back in his chair, and crossing his arms, he glowers at the screen and waits for the ad to finish.
It takes him a few seconds to realize that the last few frames are repeating, almost as if-
David tries moving his mouse around. Nothing happens.
Now he’s just outraged. It was stuck. And his computer didn’t even have the common courtesy to at least freeze his window as well; no, it was just looping the last few frames of the ad.
“I hate you, Underwear Man,” he mumbles, averting his eyes and holding his finger down on the Power button.
~
Cesc had unceremoniously shoved his laptop at Tomáš before he had left for his classes that morning.
“Prerequisites for who I should pick out for you?” Tomáš had asked.
“No,” Cesc says shortly. “I trust you, I don’t trust me so just fix this.”
“This?”
“My love life, or the fact that it doesn’t exist, just make it better.” He had left looking so glum that Tomáš had actually felt bad for him.
Going through the profiles at Love Konnections (he shakes his head at the name), Tomáš is beginning to understand why Cesc had such a hard time finding someone decent on this site, Tomáš had been on the site for an hour now and had yet to come across anyone he even liked a little bit. He’s beginning to wonder if Cesc had been too hasty with Jack, or how he had even found Jack on this site.
When he feels a headache coming on, he decides to check out one more profile before taking a break. All the profiles were starting to blur together and he can’t tell one from the other.
He actually blinks at the profile he’s reading. He scrolls up to the username: d.silva, and pulls the laptop closer to make sure he isn’t imagining things. Hemingway, Marlowe, Shakespeare- okay, he was being disparaging about the latter- but he had quoted Hemingway, Tomáš can forgive that.
He’s sort of excited now. This d.silva person sounded nice, and he was cute enough to fill in Cesc’s shallow requirement, so he clicks on ‘Message’.
Except he doesn’t really know what to say. He supposes that he can just wait for Cesc and let him do the messaging, but Tomáš isn’t really sure Cesc can be trusted and despite his insistence that he didn’t care, Tomáš doesn’t truly believe he’ll go for d.silva; for all he knew, Cesc had already come across his profile and dismissed it.
So Tomáš writes the first thing he can come up with:
No one thinks Marlowe is better than Shakespeare because he isn’t. ;) But you alluded to Hemingway, so there’s hope for you yet.
Tomáš rereads it, cringes at the emoticon- but he feels like Cesc would have added that in- and hits ‘Send’ before he can change his mind.
~
After the pop-up ad fiasco, David decides he’s not going to go on Love Konnections for the next two weeks. He has already made plans to meet Jack next week, and he gave Jack his e-mail address, he sees no reason for him to be on the site, at least until he meets Jack; and he secretly hopes that meeting him means he won’t have to go on it ever again.
David has made himself comfortable on the couch, ready for Hollyoaks to start, when Mata appears from his room.
“Can I borrow your laptop?” he asks. “Mine’s dead and I just need to send an e-mail off really quick.”
David waves his hand at him, as the Hollyoaks theme song starts. Mata drops on to the couch next to him after he gets David’s laptop.
David squeezes the couch cushion he’s holding. Lynsey is such a bitch, he thinks, feeling that flicker of annoyance that he always does whenever she’s on the screen.
“Hey,” Mata says from beside him. “You have a message from that dating site.”
David glances at him. “Jack?” Wait, that can’t be right. Jack would be watching Hollyoaks too, not sending him a message, and anyway, he has David’s e-mail. He realizes that he hasn’t signed out from Love Konnections, which is how those notifications are still coming through. He’ll change that after Hollyoaks.
“No, someone called atomicesc.”
David ignores him. Hollyoaks was on, it wasn’t Jack, so it wasn’t important.
“No one thinks Marlowe is better than Shakespeare because he isn’t,” Mata reads out loud. “But you alluded to Hemingway, so there’s hope for you yet.” He laughs. “Oh, snap, you just got told, David.”
David looks up then. “What?”
Mata gestures at his laptop. “The message from that atomicesc person.”
David stares at Mata. Someone had gotten his Hemingway reference. His stomach does this strange fluttering thing, which has never happened before. Not even with Villa.
“Give me that.” He snatches back his laptop from Mata, and rereads the message in disbelief.
“You’re smiling.” Mata moves closer to him, as he clicks on the username to check out atomicesc’s profile. “Oh, he’s cute, I guess.”
David feels confused. There’s nothing that suggests atomicesc read Shakespeare or Hemingway, he doesn’t understand. If he had come across his profile, David probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance aside from noting that yes, he was, like Mata said, cute.
They didn’t really have anything in common, aside from maybe watching football, but David isn’t too invested in that. But that message was clear, there was no way to misread that.
He clicks ‘Reply’.
Shall we agree to disagree on Marlowe vs. Shakespeare? I would argue, but everything is easily forgiven when it comes to Hemingway. You’re on the right geodesic, atomicesc.
“Oh my god, you are such a dork.” Mata pokes him in the ribs.
David closes his laptop and goes back to Hollyoaks, but he has a hard time concentrating.
~
“You realize you don’t actually get to date this guy, right?” Marouane asks as Tomáš checks the messages on Cesc’s profile again.
Tomáš gives him a look. “I know, but why hasn’t he replied? Cesc’s picture is adorable, and my message was witty.”
Marouane laughs and pulls Tomáš towards him. “Proud of yourself, are you?”
Tomáš starts to argue back, but then Marouane kisses him, and he sighs contentedly. He pulls away when he hears the door, and Cesc walks in, still looking gloomy.
“What’s wrong?” Marouane asks him, as Tomáš hits ‘Refresh’ again.
“I messed up my experiment today,” Cesc says, sticking out his lower lip. “Stupid Samir was there and saw it too. His experiment went perfectly, as he was kind enough to point out. I hate that kid.”
“No, you don’t,” Tomáš says. “You’re always calling him to complain about your projects and when you need help.”
Cesc scowls. “Well, I hate him today.” He worms his way in between the two of them and rests his head on Marouane’s shoulder, who pats him on the head. He looks at his laptop on Tomáš’s lap. “Any luck?”
“Uhhh…” Tomáš frowns at the profile in front of him. d.silva was online, why wasn’t he replying?
Cesc sits up and shrugs. “It’s okay, it took me awhile to find Jack.” He takes the laptop from Tomáš and is about to navigate away, when he gets a notification.
Tomáš perks ups, and he leans over. “He replied!”
“Who?”
“Open it, hurry!”
Cesc opens the message and reads it, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. “Who is d.silva? And who is Marlowe? Why is he-” He stops and stares at the screen. “He used geodesic in a sentence!”
Tomáš looks up at him. “You’re smiling.”
Cesc waves him off as he gets up and takes his laptop into his room.
Next
Previous
David is having a crisis. He’s torn between calling Alexis for help and just trying to figure it out by himself.
“Ugh, go away!” he yells at his screen in agitation.
His face is red, part of it is from his frustration but it’s also from this pop-up ad that he can’t seem to get rid of. David tries the Ctri+Alt+Del buttons again, even though that hadn’t worked last time. He tries scrolling down so he can at least be spared until the ad plays out, but it just scrolls down with him.
“Fuck off.” He glares at the half-naked man on his screen. “Or put some clothes on, Jesus.” He starts randomly punching keys on his keyboard, hoping that one of them would magically end his pain, but nothing happens.
David huffs. “Fine.” He sits back in his chair, and crossing his arms, he glowers at the screen and waits for the ad to finish.
It takes him a few seconds to realize that the last few frames are repeating, almost as if-
David tries moving his mouse around. Nothing happens.
Now he’s just outraged. It was stuck. And his computer didn’t even have the common courtesy to at least freeze his window as well; no, it was just looping the last few frames of the ad.
“I hate you, Underwear Man,” he mumbles, averting his eyes and holding his finger down on the Power button.
~
Cesc had unceremoniously shoved his laptop at Tomáš before he had left for his classes that morning.
“Prerequisites for who I should pick out for you?” Tomáš had asked.
“No,” Cesc says shortly. “I trust you, I don’t trust me so just fix this.”
“This?”
“My love life, or the fact that it doesn’t exist, just make it better.” He had left looking so glum that Tomáš had actually felt bad for him.
Going through the profiles at Love Konnections (he shakes his head at the name), Tomáš is beginning to understand why Cesc had such a hard time finding someone decent on this site, Tomáš had been on the site for an hour now and had yet to come across anyone he even liked a little bit. He’s beginning to wonder if Cesc had been too hasty with Jack, or how he had even found Jack on this site.
When he feels a headache coming on, he decides to check out one more profile before taking a break. All the profiles were starting to blur together and he can’t tell one from the other.
He actually blinks at the profile he’s reading. He scrolls up to the username: d.silva, and pulls the laptop closer to make sure he isn’t imagining things. Hemingway, Marlowe, Shakespeare- okay, he was being disparaging about the latter- but he had quoted Hemingway, Tomáš can forgive that.
He’s sort of excited now. This d.silva person sounded nice, and he was cute enough to fill in Cesc’s shallow requirement, so he clicks on ‘Message’.
Except he doesn’t really know what to say. He supposes that he can just wait for Cesc and let him do the messaging, but Tomáš isn’t really sure Cesc can be trusted and despite his insistence that he didn’t care, Tomáš doesn’t truly believe he’ll go for d.silva; for all he knew, Cesc had already come across his profile and dismissed it.
So Tomáš writes the first thing he can come up with:
No one thinks Marlowe is better than Shakespeare because he isn’t. ;) But you alluded to Hemingway, so there’s hope for you yet.
Tomáš rereads it, cringes at the emoticon- but he feels like Cesc would have added that in- and hits ‘Send’ before he can change his mind.
~
After the pop-up ad fiasco, David decides he’s not going to go on Love Konnections for the next two weeks. He has already made plans to meet Jack next week, and he gave Jack his e-mail address, he sees no reason for him to be on the site, at least until he meets Jack; and he secretly hopes that meeting him means he won’t have to go on it ever again.
David has made himself comfortable on the couch, ready for Hollyoaks to start, when Mata appears from his room.
“Can I borrow your laptop?” he asks. “Mine’s dead and I just need to send an e-mail off really quick.”
David waves his hand at him, as the Hollyoaks theme song starts. Mata drops on to the couch next to him after he gets David’s laptop.
David squeezes the couch cushion he’s holding. Lynsey is such a bitch, he thinks, feeling that flicker of annoyance that he always does whenever she’s on the screen.
“Hey,” Mata says from beside him. “You have a message from that dating site.”
David glances at him. “Jack?” Wait, that can’t be right. Jack would be watching Hollyoaks too, not sending him a message, and anyway, he has David’s e-mail. He realizes that he hasn’t signed out from Love Konnections, which is how those notifications are still coming through. He’ll change that after Hollyoaks.
“No, someone called atomicesc.”
David ignores him. Hollyoaks was on, it wasn’t Jack, so it wasn’t important.
“No one thinks Marlowe is better than Shakespeare because he isn’t,” Mata reads out loud. “But you alluded to Hemingway, so there’s hope for you yet.” He laughs. “Oh, snap, you just got told, David.”
David looks up then. “What?”
Mata gestures at his laptop. “The message from that atomicesc person.”
David stares at Mata. Someone had gotten his Hemingway reference. His stomach does this strange fluttering thing, which has never happened before. Not even with Villa.
“Give me that.” He snatches back his laptop from Mata, and rereads the message in disbelief.
“You’re smiling.” Mata moves closer to him, as he clicks on the username to check out atomicesc’s profile. “Oh, he’s cute, I guess.”
David feels confused. There’s nothing that suggests atomicesc read Shakespeare or Hemingway, he doesn’t understand. If he had come across his profile, David probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance aside from noting that yes, he was, like Mata said, cute.
They didn’t really have anything in common, aside from maybe watching football, but David isn’t too invested in that. But that message was clear, there was no way to misread that.
He clicks ‘Reply’.
Shall we agree to disagree on Marlowe vs. Shakespeare? I would argue, but everything is easily forgiven when it comes to Hemingway. You’re on the right geodesic, atomicesc.
“Oh my god, you are such a dork.” Mata pokes him in the ribs.
David closes his laptop and goes back to Hollyoaks, but he has a hard time concentrating.
~
“You realize you don’t actually get to date this guy, right?” Marouane asks as Tomáš checks the messages on Cesc’s profile again.
Tomáš gives him a look. “I know, but why hasn’t he replied? Cesc’s picture is adorable, and my message was witty.”
Marouane laughs and pulls Tomáš towards him. “Proud of yourself, are you?”
Tomáš starts to argue back, but then Marouane kisses him, and he sighs contentedly. He pulls away when he hears the door, and Cesc walks in, still looking gloomy.
“What’s wrong?” Marouane asks him, as Tomáš hits ‘Refresh’ again.
“I messed up my experiment today,” Cesc says, sticking out his lower lip. “Stupid Samir was there and saw it too. His experiment went perfectly, as he was kind enough to point out. I hate that kid.”
“No, you don’t,” Tomáš says. “You’re always calling him to complain about your projects and when you need help.”
Cesc scowls. “Well, I hate him today.” He worms his way in between the two of them and rests his head on Marouane’s shoulder, who pats him on the head. He looks at his laptop on Tomáš’s lap. “Any luck?”
“Uhhh…” Tomáš frowns at the profile in front of him. d.silva was online, why wasn’t he replying?
Cesc sits up and shrugs. “It’s okay, it took me awhile to find Jack.” He takes the laptop from Tomáš and is about to navigate away, when he gets a notification.
Tomáš perks ups, and he leans over. “He replied!”
“Who?”
“Open it, hurry!”
Cesc opens the message and reads it, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. “Who is d.silva? And who is Marlowe? Why is he-” He stops and stares at the screen. “He used geodesic in a sentence!”
Tomáš looks up at him. “You’re smiling.”
Cesc waves him off as he gets up and takes his laptop into his room.
Next