Quiet Enlightenment

Part 1, Chapter 12 - The End of the Fairytale Spring (Part 1)

Monday, June 16, 2014

Three months have passed since that day. William and Elias crossed each other's paths in the hallways of the school, neither acknowledging one another. When May rolled around, Kenton, Elias, and William went up to the podiums and received their certificates without incident.

Charmaine's restaurant opened in April and enjoyed success as everyone had to check out the new gem of the town. For our "heroes", life remained peaceful. And then came June.

"What the hell is all of this?" Mia said as she stared down at the laptop in front of her. Her main (and at a time more powerful) desktop computer was scattered across the room due to a fateful encounter with a failed soda. Elias, being a good boyfriend, graciously gifted her a decade-and-a-half old computer that would otherwise be collecting dust.

"That's programming code. That's how you make games, programs, and stuff like that." Elias said as he looked at the screen from his view next to her.

"This... isn't what I was expecting. I thought that there would be blocks and stuff that you could, like, drag and drop. You know, like on that one cop show where the lady made a 'gooshy' to track a teepee or something."

Mia, despite her best efforts, wasn't an expert at information technology. Most of the time, Elias had no problems deciphering her mangled technobabble. This was not one of those times.

"Well, I guess there are ways to program like that... but this is how the majority of the people wo... don't do that." The boy tried to explain the best he could as Mia found herself clicking through various menus and changing settings at random.

"Hey, look, I changed the letters to be in cursive!"

Elias couldn't help but let out a little genuine laugh.

"Change that back."

"Come on, you know you like it."

"I'm sorry... it's just hilarious to watch you try to figure this out. Are you ready for some actual programming now?"

"No, I'm busy setting this up. Every good programmer needs a... high tab size!"

"Mia, you don't want to change that..."

The look on Mia's face as the increased size of the tabs forced the programming code on the screen to go flying off the right side of the screen finally broke Elias. The normally quiet boy couldn't help but laugh until he had tears in his eyes.

Meanwhile, Kenton sat outside of his house waiting for Olivia to arrive. He couldn't recognize the girl when she came around the corner. Instead of the semi-nice clothes she usually wore, Olivia was decked out with athletic clothes, complete with matching wristbands and a headband.

"You look... uh..." Kenton said as he fumbled on his words.

"What? I wasn't going to sweat in my Sunday best!" Olivia said with a smirk.

"You look like a... yoga trainer or something."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"No... I mean... you look nice."

Olivia giggled and quickly swiped the basketball away from her friend as he was distracted.

"Huh.... Hey!"

Trying to be all smooth, the girl reached up and tossed the ball at the hoop over the garage door. Due to a lack of proper altitude, the ball gave the rim a love tap before coming back down to the pavement. Kenton grabbed the ball on the rebound and gave it a spin on his finger.