quiet night

Crickets chirped loudly outside the household, through the window in that bizarre time void that two in the morning tends to be. A stack of people sat on the couch, and one off in a chair to the side. In the midst of it all, one of them flipped lazily through a list of channels on the TV in front of them, though no one particularly seemed interested in watching at a time when all that was on was reruns of sitcoms from the 70’s and hour-long infomercials.

The man in the middle of the couch kept his third eye locked on the girl to his left, watching her aura for any sign of anything unusual. He had been tasked to do this by one of his girlfriends, the girl’s twin, as she had business with the Regent tonight. Dark gray and light blue in even amounts, shifting slowly and sluggishly. No change, as far as he could tell. She looked down, and started twisting at a platinum band around her ring finger. A tiny smile crossed her face and a shock of vivid blue flared up. That was cute.

To his right, his other girlfriend talked softly with another young man, their other housemate. He didn’t understand too much of it, but it sounded like Hunter things. Their cellmates, and what was different between the two. It was kind of nice to see that she had become more comfortable with him lately, as they had gotten used to each other.

Eventually, the one wielding the remote settled on a late night movie airing. It was something from the early 80’s, looked like, about some kid who hacked into the US government to play a game and almost caused a war. Sometimes it hit him that this was what the world looked like when he was a kid. Computers were brand new and hackers were fascinating. How surreal.

He felt a movement from his right and looked over with all three eyes. Dark gray, light blue, and a new color, lavender. The colors had changed from sluggish to mottled and shifting. Suddenly, he was alert. This suggested that something was wrong, and after how depressed she had been…

“Hey, Ros...” She finally spoke.

“Yes…?”

“I have a question. It’s kind of a heavy one.”

“Go on? I’m all ears...”

“See, I’ve had a kind of a realization. The realization that nothing I’ve ever done, nothing I’ve ever thought is important, except for this one, and I need to get it out of my head. Are you ready for it?”

“Go ahead..?” Oh no, here it came.

“What if dogs had a newspaper?”

“...”