METANOIA

STORM

Following the lead of the first, a second wayward droplet flew past Silas' left ear and landed on his luggage. He slid languidly to the right, leaning onto one of the ticket dispensers. As he lifted his foot to hammer the carcass of his business trip, a petite young woman walked into the glass hut with her poodle. She yanked the poodle's leash as Silas' foot kissed his belongings. The unexpected jerk forced the poor animal to make an impressive vertical leap, as the woman glowered at Silas before taking a seat on the bench furthest from him.

(No, this was not the lady who was meant to be the love of his life, but don't worry — she'll show up).

Silas saw she was intimidated and thought, "I need a shave." His complexion was slightly darker than tan, but the curly black beard really made a world of difference. In the eyes of the average Joe, his chin fur put him in a very large ethnic pool of "Middle Eastern people" — an ethnic group viewed as potentially explosive, in more ways than one.

The disheveled look probably didn't help either. His unkempt suit, muscular physique, Steve Jobs glasses and oversized suitcase were sending all sorts of mixed signals. He looked like a hobo who had just robbed a yuppie. A little vagrant perhaps, but he wasn't a complete eyesore. His sly grin intensified at the little exchange between him and the frightened girl, which didn't help her relax.

This girl with the poodle quickly created a category for Silas in her head. This type of overgeneralization is a pathetic outcome to the problem of ever increasing idiocy. The constant categorization shackled people into a dialectic of extremes. Spectrums faded away, and people became lithographic caricatures of what they once were. Silas seemed volatile; ergo, he must either be a vessel of evil or a degenerate. Silas certainly wasn't a pillar of integrity, and there were aspects of him many would consider flawed. Yet, his apparent shortcomings were scattered amongst other traits the ubiquitous social super machine may deem virtuous or valuable.

And he now had 6% battery life.

She arrived: Stacy, the girl he was meant to start a conversation with. A conversation that would spark their relationship. A conversation that will now be lost forever.

A tall blonde woman in her late twenties (perhaps early thirties) with a weather worn but attractive face stormed into the hut. Perhaps once a protagonist; Stacy's role in our story was now vastly diminished. Silas would never even learn her name.

Stacy was cursing to herself as she fussed with her wet curly hair. Wearing tacky leather pants and a jacket, she looked like she jumped out of a discount reenactment of "Grease." She took a quick look at the two in the hut. When she was certain no one was paying her the attention she felt she deserved, she raised her voice slightly and said, "Fuck."

That's when Silas noticed her desire to be noticed more than anything else. To him, this was the opener — not a Freudian slip, but a direct suggestion. He had a knack for reading a woman's mind, but ask him how his feelings were toward women, and he would be reduced to a dumbfounded infant. He was neutralized in this polarity to the stereotype of a womanizer.

This was also his downfall. Just by looking at her for a split second, Silas could gather enough data and immediately formulate the road map of what he needed to say, and how he needed to act, to get in bed with her.

She too had the same roadmap at hand. For some, it had become a knee-jerk reaction. All his lines had been honed by diving into the vaults of pickup artists. Looking at her, he only saw an opportunity, and anything else he might have felt about her that lurked in his mind he threw aside. Selective processing, as he called it, helped him maintain calm distance.

Stacy was an experienced player in the game of seduction, and she noted Silas' brief moment of attention. She floated toward him with slightly raised shoulders, like a predator approaching her prey. She stopped about a foot away from him and turned to the ticket dispenser next to Silas. Stacy was barely looking at the screen as she purchased the ticket, and as a result, she got the wrong one.

As the wrong ticket dropped behind the glass screen, Stacy repeated "Fuck!" in exasperation. She keyed in a new ticket and, after her moment of failure was behind her, she turned and looked directly at Silas. Directness had become the mating ritual of an over-sexed, disconnected generation; though, it was more honest.

Her early arrival was another lame attempt by the universe to send Silas back on his journey. His greatest weakness, the promise of an "easy pounding," as he called it, lay right under his nose.

He looked up from his phone over the rim of his glasses and acknowledged her with a nod. Gazing straight into her eyes, Silas inhaled the overwhelming fragrance of her discount wholesale perfume. He imagined the tramp stamp she would have on her back, and which formula would earn him a place between her thighs.

Information was like reading stones of lithomancy for him; a personal Nirvana. He breathed in all of it. When he had enough information, he could predict the future. In his trance, he was Laplace's Demon, but with bigger balls.

When he was content, imagining precisely what would happen over the next few hours, he let it all go. Silas had better things to do; this was not a good time to get sidetracked. He waited for those magical three seconds, in which talking to the person before you is appropriate, to end. To the disappointment of Stacy and even more so to fate, he looked back down at his phone — at his own reflection again.

Had that arrogant droplet of water not landed on his phone, this would have been the point when his phone would take its dying breath, and we'd get to know this woman a lot better. Now, texting his friends rapidly, Silas was busy figuring out where to go. He had never found out his friends' address. Now, an unfamiliar determination coursed through his veins - a will to get things done. It was revitalizing.

He had 7% battery life.

The droplet seeped through the microscopic gap between his phone and the screen, sheltering itself from the outside elements.

Or worse...