Cycle of Time

3.1

Two days later, he was back in the city. He had arranged for a small chat with Maya over coffee. As he waited for her, he again caught himself fiddling with his device. Although Uben, was also looking for information on others, he always made it a point not to give away information about himself. But in the virtual world you left traces everywhere, what you searched for itself would be good enough information to profile a person such as him. So he had resorted to consistently searching for a few things like cookery so that he could give a consistent, but fake picture to anyone out there trying to gather information on him. He kept wondering what Maya would find if she looked for him in the virtual world. He was bothered by why he worried that she might not see the true Uben.

Just then Maya glided in through the entrance. She was wearing yellow, and that suited her. She walked lightly, that suited her too.

"Hello there, Uben . Hope I'm not late".

"Just got here."

As they sat down Uben unobtrusively switched of his device, while it was still inside his pocket. Their conversation from last time had indicated she was not into devices.

"So tell me more about your journey to the forest." Maya leaned in closer.

Oh you know, I just wanted to try out being without a device and all that."

"So how did it go? What was the experience like?"

"It was interesting" Uben wasn't used to revealing too many things about himself.

For a moment he went back to his past school, university all wanted him to be like everyone else. He had learned to suppress his curiosity his yearning to experience things different. Instead he had become very logical and analytical.

"Shall we get some coffee? " Uben snapped out of his own thoughts and made the order just as Maya nodded.

"Sotell me more I want to know," Maya wasn't going to let the conversation drift away.

Uben contemplated for a while, he had found the experience novel. He was amazed at how his senses turned on when he turned off the device.

"Well it really was more than just interesting. It was amazing! so there you go." He then when back to the previous day and the story about the tree. Maya's eyes lit up as Uben recollected the previous days experience. As they stood up to go, Maya moved in and gave Uben a warm hug.

It was the first time he had felt the warmth of a hug in a long time. Unlike thoughts, hugs made you feel real. Something he'd wanted to feel for a long time. He suddenly knew that he had been feeling sanitized all this time. Sanitized of feelings! That was why the reading was so exciting , he thought.

"You know the pieces of paper I had dropped that day. It is really a story I am writing", she said.

"I had had figured as much but wasn't really sure, I had half a doubt it was off an old novel ".

"It was that good". He added hurriedly realizing that he may have sounded rude inadvertently.

"Well I want you to read the rest of it as well, and tell me what you think. Maya put a bundle of papers clipped together in Uben's hand as she left.

As Uben tucked the papers away under his coat, Maya was already at the door. She smiled and then she disappeared into the street.