Year 13

Alice Confused

Living In The Web

*I wrote this three years back. I do not pretend to relate either to Alice or the stupid ten-year-old who wrote this. No judging, please.*

Large, wide black eyes shut tiredly, the glow of the computer screen hurting their owner. There was an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach, like butterflies, and laughter that never came out. It stuck in her heart, her chest, her throat. She could not comprehend the root of these feelings, anymore than she could comprehend how to find the suspected reason for them.

Alice knew, on a rather clinical level, that it was simply hormones. It was the thrill of being introduced to flirting, to having a half-way intelligent guy dropping hints that he liked her. But to her teenaged and rather sleep-deprived mind, it was . . . more.

There was something about his every word that just called to her. It told her he would be nice, would be humorous, would be a perfect gentleman if they ever met in real life. She did not even know his name, and this is where she cursed Omegle; cursed it for not allowing her to talk to him again.

Her romantically inexperienced mind sprinkled fairy dust and rainbows on everything, making him seem like an angel, like he was The One.

Of course, this was perfect rot. She knew that. Because how could ten minutes of crazy online conversation turn out to be love? It could not, and besides; she was only fifteen. She still believed that though crushes and infatuations were perfectly acceptable, she was not old enough to discern between puppy love and everlasting love.

Just fifteen minutes ago, she had decided to open this new site she had learnt about: omegle.com. It was good for a little boredom relief, and sometimes making friends. Basically, it connected you to a random stranger and you could chat with him or her anonymously. However, the site was notorious for its pervert males who treated the site like it was for porn. One had to sift through a lot of perverts and idiots to find a good conversationalist.

After some time, Alice got bored of talking to airheads and wishing for proper, interesting answers. So she started sending random messages, with distinct crazy undertones. So the fateful conversation had been somewhat like this:

She had started off with a dragging greeting with a little flirtatiousness.

Alice: heeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy, stranger.

Alright, so her fingers had been tired and had refused to get off the keyboard.

Stranger: Hi

A standard reply, and one couldn’t really determine the sex of the stranger through it. So she simply asked.

Alice: M or f?

Male or female, one of the most commonly asked questions. Refer to paragraph about perverts.

Stranger: Age and sex? :D

Obviously the stranger had already sent the question before reading her message. The emoticon after the question could be taken as a sign of amiability.

Stranger: Woah! Hello there, haha.

He had read her question now.