Breaking the Silence

November 5, 1999 Friday

Last night I had a dream with Sidney in it.  That’s not too strange, on the face of it.  They still happen, sometimes.  Nothing spectacular happening. I hadn’t had one in a while, but it in we briefly talked;  perhaps I was grabbed by some special twist of the imaginary words I made up out of thin air.

I have wanted to email her the last week or so to see how she’s doing, but I haven’t exuded enough effort to get on the campus Ecom server and write a quick message.  I would take up a correspondence with her again if she would like to.  If all I would get if is a “Fine here” (good possibility), I’d rather not go the trouble that will probably bother me again for a little time.  But I was willing to take that chance, and I wouldn’t know know until I tried.

So after Geography, with an “Ah hell, okay, let’s get this over this,” nervousness, I walked to Corbin to type out a quick hello.  At least ten minutes later alone was spent penning the crucial first sentence.  One flickering white line would creep along the top unsteadily, to be quickly deleted, again and again.  Fun!  But I finally got it out and touched on my semester so far in a brief seven or so lines.  Not too much, not too little, I hoped.  Then came the last barrier, the electronic guardrail of reconsidered best intentions: the “Do you wish to send message?” command.  Did I wish to send… Stop sweating, hands!  I hit “Y” before I could have anymore time to pull my finger back from the brink, and oxygen once again returned to my head.  Done.

For enjoyment’s queasy sake I checked my e-mail around 6:30.  Honestly, I had given myself a 30% chance of getting a response.

She had written back, but Ecom couldn’t display the message for some reason.  There were no lab helpers around, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.  And even though I would like to read what the girl has to say, since it has been a year since any kind of contact, I guess I can wait until the morning.  After all, the important thing is that it is there, waiting in my mailbox.

And tomorrow is the Alpha Sigma formal I have wanted to stop time itself to avoid.  It seems an eternity since that whole cockamamie was cooked up by everyone but me.  But Tom wants me there, so there I will be.  Just Friends Kim called tonight she’s looking forward to it, and that her, Taryn, Tom, and I are riding together to the dance in the Quad Cities.