RE: Trailer Trash 60, 60 pt 4

/// Rather than a typical 2k teaser... this one is more like half a chapter! A bit over 7k words, or roughly twenty six pages.

    The drive over to the Williams’ place was relatively short and sweet, with Sandra’s Acura pulling them out of one suburb, down Springton’s main street a ways, and then turning into yet another suburban neighborhood. Hannah was staring down at her Gameboy with a look of determination as she hurried to bring her character back towards a Pokecenter, and Tabitha stared out the windows and watched scenery pass by. Rather than ruminating over what a trying day it had been, she was wistfully watching the sidewalk routes through town and just wishing she could run again already.

    The Springton Spirit cheerleader jacket had not been shown to the Macintires after school, because Tabitha didn’t want to get into all of it again—the cheerleading or any of the other school drama—right now. Admitting to Hannah that she had an altercation with some girls at school back then was as far as she wanted to delve into things, because going over things a second time with Sandra would just start getting her worked up again. Her time after school needed to be a bit of a respite from wrestling with all of those issues. Tabitha had felt exhausted all day.

    I guess I just DREAD the possibility that Mrs. Williams has already caught wind of school drama, somehow. I want to say it seems unlikely… but, then again it IS Mrs. Williams. It feels like all of the rumors and stupid gossip in town head straight to her first.

    The neighborhood the Williams lived in was just as upscale as Tabitha remembered from her last visit back after Thanksgiving. Late afternoon light was shining down across tidy lawnscapes and neatly manicured bushes and shrubs, as though this part of town was simply a little more blessed than some of the other areas. Mrs. Macintire pulled into the driveway there beside Mrs. William’s car, but with no patrol vehicle in sight—it seemed that tonight’s dinner would not include either of the officers and instead be a ladies get-together.

    Well, us and maybe just Matthew, I guess?

    “Look who it is,” Mrs. Macintire observed with a smirk. “No, ‘cross the street—you see that SUV, there?”

    “Casey!” Tabitha’s eyes lit up. “Hannah, Casey might be with us, tonight. Matthew’s girlfriend.”

    “Yeah I know Casey,” Hannah nodded, glancing up from her game for a moment. “I’m gonna battle her.”

    “Well,” Tabitha helped Hannah unbuckle her seatbelt. “She might not have her Gameboy with her. I’m sure Matthew will, though!”

    “I can beat Matthew,” Hannah scoffed. “I bet I can beat him, easy.”

    “Hm, is that so…” Tabitha wondered. Is Matthew the type to let Hannah win just because she’s seven? Honestly… maybe.

    Everyone climbed out of the vehicle, and Tabitha couldn’t help but remember that fateful night Mrs. Williams had bustled her inside with a stolen purse full of Aunt Lisa’s heroin. It truly hadn’t been that long ago, and even though the sun had been out all day, Tabitha felt some of that same chill from back then. Noticing that Hannah was too focused on her Gameboy to walk up to the door with them, Tabitha wore a wry smile and walked around the vehicle and put a hand across the little girl’s back to help guide her in the right direction.

    “Good Lord, Hannah,” Mrs. Macintire rolled her eyes.

    “This feels… weird,” Tabitha admitted. “Should we have brought something? A dish? We could have brought a casserole, or, or—”

    “Oh, please,” Mrs. Macintire laughed. “That’d just be embarrassing myself. We only even brought potatoes this past Thanksgiving ‘cause someone is a picky eater and won’t eat real ‘tatoes. Listen, I’m an okay cook, I’m decent enough, but Karen lives for this stuff.”

    “We could have brought some of the steaks,” Tabitha smiled.

    “Maybe some other time when the hubbies are with us,” Mrs. Macintire shrugged. “They’re a lot more into the grilling and cookout stuff. Just—it’s January, still. I couldn’t believe it coming home yesterday and seeing you whackos out in the back yard.”

    “It’s not that bad, this time of day,” Tabitha giggled as Mrs. Macintire rung the doorbell. “Not once the sun’s been out. Almost sixty-ish?”

    “Yeah, unless you’re standing outside forever grilling,” Mrs. Macintire argued. “Plenty of time to get nice and cold!”

    “But,” Hannah spoke up without raising her head from her game. “Grills are hot. So.”

    “True, it wasn’t so bad for us two,” Tabitha grinned. “We were right there in front of the grill!”

    “He’s not even supposed to be eating steaks,” Mrs. Macintire griped. “Doctor Diana’s gonna throw a fit.”

    “Why?” Hannah asked. “Too hard to chew?”

    “Hahh, no sweetie,” Mrs. Macintire shook her head. “Your daddy’s supposed to not eat red meats with saturated fats while he’s in recovery. She said lean meats only—fish, chicken, turkey, are okay.”

    “Oh,” Hannah nodded. “So… he’ll get fat.”

    Before they could correct her, the door swung open to reveal the stout but jolly figure of Karen Williams.

    “You’re here!” Mrs. Williams stepped back to invite them in. “Come in, come in—Matthew invited his girlfriend Casey, as well! You all remember Casey. Hannah, you’re sprouting up like a weed! Sandra she must be a couple inches taller, every time I see her! Tabitha, you’re looking good! We get that cast off real soon, I hear?”

    “Um!” Tabitha put on a smile at the sudden barrage of cheer. “Yes.”

    “Well come in, come in,” Mrs. Williams laughed. “Hannah, I see you got one of those handheld games! Was that for Christmas? Is this new?”

    “Yeah,” Hannah nodded.

    “She hasn’t looked up from the thing in days, seems like,” Mrs. Macintire teased. “Hasn’t even had time for her cartoons!”

    The three were ushered inside, and Tabitha looked around at the furnishings with polite interest. Unlike her last visit here, this wasn’t near a holiday time and an oppressive seasonal display of decorations didn’t festoon every available surface. Instead, the place just looked… nice. A bit more normal, welcome and inviting, it now felt more like an ordinary place where people lived their lives.

    I was half sure she would still have Christmas decorations up! Suppose everything comes down in January.

    Hannah was already at home here, hurrying on past the familiar dining room table where Tabitha had once spread out the contents of her aunt’s purse—it was now set for six with plates and silverware—and passing into the living room beyond. One of the other differences to notice now was that a computer monitor here in the corner was turned on rather than sitting dormant. It was an old, archaic late-nineties computer sitting in a massive wooden corner desk, perhaps part of a home office of some sort. Tabitha followed after her young ward without more than a glance of interest at the PC, while Sandra and Karen had already gotten into gossiping with one another in hushed voices.

    Just please please PLEASE don’t be talking about cheerleading or me stealing Olivia’s boyfriend…

    In the Williams living room, Matthew and Casey were sitting together in front of the couch while holding those peculiar three-handle Nintendo 64 controllers. Cables snaked across the carpet in front of them to Matthew’s game console, which appeared to have been brought out of Matthew’s room for this evening and temporarily set up on the floor in front of them here. When Tabitha looked past Hannah to see the screen, she was surprised to recognize the game—it was a much much older and more simplistic version of Mario Party Celebration. Tabitha had fiddled around with that one a bit in the future, because it was one of the titles packed in with her Nintendo Magi. Seeing the familiar Balloon Burst minigame but this time in ‘nineties graphics’ was a little interesting.

    Although… just because I played Mario Party a little in the future doesn’t mean I’m GOOD at it, Tabitha thought to herself with a wry smile. Actually, I remember being pretty terrible at most of the little minigames, and that was just against the game’s AI opponents.

    “Hannah!” Casey cried out. “Matthew’s bullying me. You have to come help!”

    “Yeah, right,” Matthew said. “It’s a trick, she’s ahead by two stars. Don’t listen to her, Hannah!”

    “I brought my Pokemon!” Hannah said, holding up her game. “So that we can battle.”

    “Oh shoot—Matthew, you should have told me we could battle tonight!” Casey protested. “I left my Gameboy at home. Should I run back over it and get it?”

    “I’ve got mine,” Matthew said.

    “Matthew—” Hannah squared her shoulders and pointed a finger at him. “I challenge you to a Pokemon battle!”

    “Hey, Tabitha,” Casey offered her a wave. “Good to see ya.”

    “Hey,” Tabitha replied with an awkward wave. “Yeah, cool seeing you here.”

    “So, I heard at school that—” Matthew started to say.

    “Nope!” Tabitha interrupted with a weak smile. “Nope, nope. Nope nope nope. What, do you want your mother to hear?!”

    “Hah, alright,” Matthew shook his head. “Just, like. You alright?”

    “I’ll manage,” Tabitha blew out a long sigh.

    “Olivia’s had your back,” Casey gave her a thumbs up. “I don’t know how this one even got started, but. Yeah. At least it’s getting shut down right away, this time.”

    “Yeah,” Tabitha nodded. “It’s just. Exhausting! Especially since it feels like every time the next class starts, everyone wants to bring everything up all over again!”

    “This too shall pass,” Casey chuckled. “This too shall pass.”

    “What will?” Hannah asked. “The kids at school?”

    “The ones I was… arguing with, today,” Tabitha said.

    “Oh, right,” Hannah said. “Tabitha already told me.”

    “Well, I guess you and Tabitha can play Mario Party while Hannah and I battle,” Matthew said, setting down his controller as he lost the minigame match in spectacular fashion, his Mario and several others slumping in defeat as the camera zoomed in instead upon Casey’s Yoshi jumping with a victorious pose.

    “Or—the computer’s on,” Matthew remembered. “Mom was asking if you had an email address or anything, yet. I told her I dunno. If you want, you can sign up and make an account somewhere. Hotmail, Rocketmail, Webbox, Yahoo!—I think they’re all free.”

    “Y-you guys have the internet?!” Tabitha almost gasped.

    “Yeah, we have Earthlink,” Matthew gave her a casual nod. “I’m on a couple bulletin boards, I’ve got messenger. Mom needs it to satisfy her eBay addiction. I’m sure you’ve heard of eBay—s’like a worldwide… garage sale… uhhh auction kinda thing?”

    Okay, so I guess internet is UNCOMMON rather than rare, Tabitha struggled to stamp out the personal bias that had colored her perception there. Hell, he just said eBay is already a thing! Just because I didn’t get onto the internet until I was in my late teens doesn’t mean that’s true for everyone else.

    A multitude of feelings crashed through her one after the other at the prospect of being re-introduced to the internet. Surprise came first and foremost—academically, she knew that the world wide web didn’t sprout into existence right when she started using it in the early two-thousands, but in her mind, personal computers and net access were still an extremely rare thing back here in the late nineties. Perhaps college students studying engineering or ultra-nerd technology enthusiasts might have their own computers and be involved in the internet, but that would surely not include average families like the Williamses!

    She also couldn’t help but feel a little miffed, as if one of her future knowledge advantages had been stolen out from under her. Additionally, upon really realizing how little she knew about the programs and idiosyncrasies of net use back in 1999 made Tabitha feel as though one of her oldest and closest companions, the internet, whom she had been bosom buddies with for most of her life, was at this point in time virtually a stranger to her. Foreign, strange and unfamiliar. Finally, the feeling that coursed through Tabitha in the end was a disquieting sense of longing.

    Like a junkie in recovery who’s suddenly offered a fix! Tabitha thought with a sheepish stretch of her lips. I, yeah, I guess I went from being TERMINALLY ONLINE six to ten hours a day writing or reading or just kinda browsing—or at the very least, CONSTANTLY CONNECTED, plugged into everything still for notifications and updates… to full stop cold turkey NO INTERNET. For like the past six months.

    Tabitha remembered a lot of the Royal Road stories where a modern character reincarnates or transmigrates often glossed over that issue without more than a passing sentence or two, but the cold hard reality of it was that it sucked. It was endlessly aggravating not being able to google things she was curious about whenever they popped into mind. Sitting in the bathroom without a phone or bracelet PC of some kind was obnoxious. Laying in bed at night as the day winds down and not having all of the idle entertainment in the universe to scroll through at her leisure was just… boring!

    And BOREDOM is THE cardinal sin! As a writer, the rule is that almost anything goes—a narrative, a plotline, characters can be ANYTHING. Anything except boring.

     So what if computers right now were retro or slow or connected to the early web only via the screeching horror that was dial-up? Throughout her life, escape into the internet had been her greatest source of comfort. The allure of anonymity, the boundless sea of information and entertainment, and the siren-call of communities and collectives that created the little bastions called fandoms. More than all of that even, the early internet represented so much untapped opportunity that the idea of immersing herself into everything again was downright hypnotizing!

    I don’t have an Alphabet account, Gmail doesn’t even exist, yet. There’s no Paypal, but what would be the point of that, as I don’t even have my own bank account in 1999. Mrs. Macintire brought up getting one started for me, but we haven’t done that yet. I don’t have ANY accounts, ANYWHERE online right now. Total blank slate, fresh start.

    Tabitha had maybe noticed the computer setup here on her prior visit but hadn’t been able to pay it any attention due to the circumstances—Tabitha had just fled from her family in the middle of the night with a stolen purse full of drug evidence. Tension had been extremely high and Tabitha only really remembered sitting stiff and upright, shell-shocked, while the Williams family and their visiting relatives fretted over the situation.

    To really take the time and examine it now, the bulky gray box shape of a computer monitor all but loomed from its position on the sturdy wooden corner desk. The screen was perhaps only twenty inches across and disconcertingly square rather than the wide flatscreen rectangles Tabitha was accustomed to from the future—but, nothing about the thing seemed small. CRT monitors of this era were weighty. She knew from watching documentaries that this thing was a solid, nigh-immovable edifice packed thick with almost sixty pounds of glass; vacuum tubes of astonishing thickness filled with mercury and lead and phosphorus dust as well as a high-voltage capacitor that would retain a veritably lethal charge even hours and hours after the device was shut off.

    Okay calm down, Tabitha. S’not exactly as bad as lead paint or asbestos or anything, and it’s not even like they stop making things out of dangerous and volatile materials going forward. Just uh, yeah I wouldn’t want one of these big chunky retro monitors to fall on me? Good way to crush some toes, looks like.

    Likewise, the computer tower itself was huge, occupying the entirety of a tall cabinet compartment within the desk. The machine appeared archaic to the point of being alien to her, and it took several seconds of staring to begin to identify why. The unfamiliar greebling that festooned the molded plastic were disc drives which might slide out a tray to accept a compact disk at the touch of one of those buttons; this Dell featured two trays for such CDs, and then even a specialized slot just below for inserting floppy diskettes. 

    Guess it’s been a while since I’ve really looked at one? Tabitha blinked. The ones in the library computer lab were smaller and all the ‘desktop’ kind, so it was easy to overlook them as just something the monitors sit on. Wow, and I guess we’re still pre-USB standard? Because, I don’t see a single port. That’s somehow bizarre to me.

    “If you want I can get you online and you can play around,” Matthew offered. “You have a Yahoo! address, or anything?”

    “Um,” Tabitha swallowed. “...No?”

    “Let’s make one!” Casey suggested, borrowing another chair from the table to position it beside the one at the computer desk. “I can help you get it all set up.”

    “Sure?” Tabitha said in a daze.

    Hannah followed Matthew into his bedroom as he searched for his link cable and Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Macintire were talking over in the kitchen, and so Tabitha sat down in relative privacy with Casey at the corner desk. It was hard not to feel a rush of anticipation at being online again, and Tabitha’s mind rushed from one potential username to the other as she tried to figure out what the perfect one would be to use.

    Surely, back as far as ninety-nine ALL of the cool names aren’t already taken? Tabitha suppressed a giddy smile. My very first one was, what? KAGOME85? At Yahoo, I think? In my first year I went through like three different INU YASHA handles, because I was in my very early weeb phase. After that, it was whatever I was using for Gaia Online and Neopets? xXx underscore RELIA BRITEMAGIC underscore xXx, or something equally cringe? I mean, yeah okay I was fifteen or sixteen, but STILL…

    “So…” Casey dropped her voice to a whisper. “Do you know computers? Like, from the future.”

    “Yes, but—” Tabitha surveyed the archaic machine and couldn’t help but let out a laugh. “Well.”

    “So, you know all the ins and outs, here?” Casey’s look turned a little skeptical. “You were uhhh, you were just looking this beauty over like you’ve never seen one before.”

    “The ones I was more familiar with were… quite a bit more advanced?” Tabitha couldn’t help but wince. “I’m um, I’m by no means an expert in retro computing, or anything! This vintage stuff.”

    “Hah, oh okay, this vintage stuff,” Casey chuckled. “Really? So, this brand new, state of the art machine is like, what—like a Ford Model T, to you?”

    “I wouldn’t go that far, exactly,” Tabitha said, reaching up with her good hand and trying out the mouse. “Just—yes, it is quite old. Look! Big mechanical keyboard with the clicky clacky keys. Wired mouse actually attached with a cord, and—look, look at the bottom of the mouse. It has a little trackball inside, wow. Really does look like hard-boiled egg yolk. There’s memes, you know.”

    “Yeah?” Casey rested an elbow on the computer desk and put on a provoking grin. “So, lemme guess, computer mouses aren’t a thing in the future? Computer mice? You maybe have the little laptop touchpads instead, or with the red soft button mouses? Or, motion trackers? How are keyboards not mechanical in the future? Let’s see, they must be—what, holograms? Like the Doctor, in Star Trek Voyager.”

    “Mechanical keyboards actually are still a thing in the future,” Tabitha admitted, stretching her fingers out and putting her hand over to try the keys. “The whole way through the twenty-forties. Just, I don’t think I’d ever used one. They’re supposed to be better than membrane keyboards? More responsive, last longer. I know gamers supposedly preferred mechanical keyboards.”

    “And, the future version of keyboards are ‘membrane’ instead of ‘mechanical?’” Casey asked. “Membrane like, what—organic? Bio-cybernetic, or something?”

    “No, no, it’s just little rubber membranes, instead of the individual mechanical switches, I think?” Tabitha pursed her lips as she tried to remember. “I know they’re slimmer? The keys are, on membrane style keyboards. Definitely quieter! They don’t last as long as mechanical ones though, or at least mine definitely didn’t. I always got the cheapo Logitech keyboard and mouse set, because that’s what I was used to. Walmart brand. Wireless, of course—just about all of the peripherals for PCs or game consoles go wireless right away in the future. Game controllers, keyboards, mouses—”

    “Mice?” Casey giggled.

    “—Hah, yes, mice, but also even little things like headphones,” Tabitha explained. “Coming back to the nineties, it’s fascinating to see everything wired! Cords everywhere, getting all tangled and everything.”

    “Wireless… headphones?” Casey frowned as she tried to picture them. “Okay… but. But how? Wouldn’t they be heavy? ‘Cause, they have to be powered from a battery, right?”

    “Not too heavy?” Tabitha shrugged. “Earbuds have little tiny built-in ones, and I know their charge is good for hours and hours. I think even back in the nineties here they had hearing aids, right? Same principle, I would guess.”

    “Okay…” Casey gave a slow nod. “I guess that makes sense. Kinda. So—everything in the future is remote control? Even game controllers?”

    “Yep!” Tabitha decisively nodded in return. “I think for me, I had to remember—it was double A batteries for my mouse, and then the keyboard that went with it was always triple As.”

    “Remote control speakers, too?” Casey gestured at the boxy pair of speakers nestled in on either side of the computer monitor. “Or, no?”

    “Um,” Tabitha frowned at the speakers in confusion. “No? I don’t think so. Disconnected… separate speakers aren’t really a huge thing, in the future? Or, if they were, they weren’t for me, at least. Maybe just for audiophiles who are real particular about their surround-sound setups? Usually flatscreen TVs and monitors all have built-in speakers, so. Yeah. At least, mine did?

    “Oh Wait! There is one important thing about all of this future stuff that I need to warn you about!” Tabitha leaned in close. “Printers. Home printers are a total scam. Buying replacement ink cartridges for them will cost almost more than the printer itself, and they’re one of those stupid cruddy planned obsolescence things where they’re designed to go dry really fast and need to be replaced. Or, some sensor will see a certain amount of time has elapsed and tell you they need replaced whether or not they actually do or not! Something like that. Also, the print heads and internals will crud themselves up after just a couple uses and throw you into insane rages because yeah, no it’s never ever gonna work when you really need some important document printed out. So. Don’t even bother! Just expect to have to swing by a public library and pay a couple quarters if you ever need something printed. Don’t have your own printer. It’s not worth it.”

    “Um. Okay,” Casey blinked at the sudden and intense vitriol. “Wow.”

    “It’s not worth it, please—trust me,” Tabitha gave Casey a serious look. “Like yeah they seem nice. Why not pick up a thirty dollar printer? Well, I’ll tell you why; because you’ll set it up and use it the first time and everything’s all dandy—then, a month later when you try to use it? Nyeeeh! No can do, it’s gonna tell you to buy a new cartridge of black. How much will that run? Like, twenty nine ninety-nine. And it’ll be good and last… until you need to next use the printer. If you’re lucky. Odds are some other random error will pop up and yeah, good luck with that.”

    “Okaaaay,” Casey chuckled. “And, you said the mouse having a trackball is ‘old-fashioned?’”

    “Yes! Definitely,” Tabitha confirmed. “In the near future those will all change to a laser sensor of some kind. Mousepads like this somewhat aren’t always needed, either. I mean, some people still use them I guess, but I didn’t. My mouse tracked just fine from using it on my bare desk. Or if I was like standing, as in I’d just walked over towards my desk to check something real quick, instead of hunching over to use the mouse on the surface there, I could just—pick the mouse up, and use it on my thigh here like this, it would track all the same just from the laser being able to pick up the texture of my pant leg.”

    “So, again—to you, all of this is super outdated tech,” Casey gestured across the whole desk. “Or, so you claim!”

    “Yes,” Tabitha giggled. “All of this here was stuff from uh, from before ‘my time.’ My first computer I got used to was in um, I think it was junior year Business Technology. Maybe it was senior year? First learning to type, and how to format documents, and whatnot. Even that was on Windows XP! I adored Windows XP. This is, uhh. Looks like Windows ‘98? I’ve never used it before.”

    “Got it,” Casey nodded. “So, in the future it’s Windows X-P, instead of Windows by whatever the year it is.”

    “God, I wish,” Tabitha made a disgusted face. “No, after XP it was Windows Vista, which I hated. Then after that, I was on Windows 7 for a long, long time, before I finally had to upgrade to Windows 11. After that I was just on Android, which is a whole different bag of cats.”

    “Doesn’t make… a ton of sense?” Casey tried to follow along. “So it’s 98, XP, Vista, and then Windows 7 and then Windows 11?”

    “Ummm—” Tabitha wracked her brains to try to remember. “For me? Yes. I do think there were other versions in between, but just, I never got some of those. Windows 2000? That was a thing, I think? Or ‘Millenium Edition,’ or something like that. I know there was a Windows 10, but I never had it—I kept using Windows 7 throughout that period. So, yeah. Honestly? I wish I could’ve stuck with XP instead of having to switch to Vista, but my one computer just… crapped out on me.”

    “How far into the future are we talking, here?” Casey asked, idly fiddling with her bangs. “And—what was this about an android?!”

    “Android was just the name of the operating system, sadly,” Tabitha giggled. “It wasn’t like an actual humanoid robot or C-3PO or anything like that. It wasn’t even a popular OS—my friend Julie was always ragging on me for it. She was team iPhone. It’s uh, it’s a super stupid cultural thing.”

    “How far into the future is this?” Casey asked again.

    “Oh, not far—well, early to mid two-thousands, maybe?” Tabitha said. “I don’t think you’ll see iPhones for a while yet, but iPods should come out either this year or next, and then Apple products in general will be huge, soon. All of that’s eventually leading into phones, though. Smartphones. Personal computers like this kind of fell out of vogue, once smartphones could do everything they could. Like I was a writer, so yeah I did still buy a mouse and keyboard, but instead of a PC, the actual processing was done by my phone, and instead of a big monitor like this, everything just linked up to my wall TV automatically. Bluetooth, it’s um, I guess you’d call it a specialized kind of wireless connectivity? Common and convenient.”

    “Are holograms ever a thing?” Casey asked. “To me, that’s like—holograms are what I consider futuristic.”

    “They are, yes,” Tabitha nodded. “They start off as pseudo-holograms, like um, like 3D screens you don’t need glasses for. Then there were projectors, but they were that sort of tech demo expensive things only for rich people. When they started making them cheap enough to put everywhere, the graphical fidelity actually dropped a ton, so it was all super simplified colors and shapes. Eventually over each iteration they got better and better?”

    “So—are there holodecks?!” Casey demanded. “Like, in Star Trek.”

    “Mmmmnn—sorta,” Tabitha made a face. “Kinda, sorta. I know Disney world had a big attraction that was all about the super-advanced photoreal holograms, but. I never went, too pricey. Or, maybe it was Epcot? It looked neat, from the advertisements? No idea how much of that was just exaggeration for promotional purposes. Sometimes in movies you’d see like, the super wealthy bazillionaires with their own high-resolution hologram suites, but I think most of that was made-up, too.”

    “But, they really do happen in the future?” Casey asked. “Like lifelike… hologram virtual reality?”

    “Yes, with the caveat being it only works like that in extremely specific conditions?” Tabitha smiled. “The thing with holograms is, they project light. One of the big important parts of high fidelity images… is darkness, which holograms can’t create. At all. True blacks and all that, even a lot of the hi-res TVs and monitors struggled with that, and I think only those stupid expensive OLED ones pulled it off. I think. I’m not a resolution snob! Human eyes can’t see in 16K in the first place! Total scam.

    “Now holograms, they can get better and better about light not refracting and bleeding over into parts that are supposed to be dark, but… yeah, it’s never perfect. You can always tell. There’s always some level of bleed, and compensating by just making the defined light brighter just starts to oversaturate the projections. That’s always one of the easy tells as to if something is a hologram or not, the searing brights, the oversaturation.”

    “Huh,” Casey responded. “Guess that’s neat to think about?”

    “It’s um—” Tabitha felt heat rush to her face in a blush. “It’s actually kinda crazy that you believe me. About any of this! I guess I’ve been uh, basically been rambling for a little while?”

    “Wellll—” Casey gave her a smile and propped up one elbow on the backrest of her chair while she brushed back her own bangs and ran fingers through her hair. “I guess that… yeah, nah? I don’t really believe it.”

    “You… don’t?” Tabitha froze.

    “So yeah, here’s the thing,” Casey hurried to clarify. “S’not like I don’t like talking to you, or going on about all this, or—yeah. Just. I’m two years older than you, I’ve been around the block. The future stuff, it is fun to talk about. Entertaining! But…”

    Casey made eye contact with Tabitha and held it for a long moment, eventually pursing her lips as if deciding something to herself.

    “But, listen, Tabitha. You don’t need it,” Casey said. “Not really. The whole future thing. You’ve, yeah you’ve clearly put a lot of thought into things, and that’s really cool! Just, I uh, I worry that? Well, I think that. You know. You come from a uh, a poor background, you really want people to like you. When you get all into interesting stories, like the future stuff—it’s like suddenly for once, people are actually listening to you. And that’s addictive. I just, like I worry that you might get yourself too into it and let it get into like, obsession territory?”

    Tabitha was now blushing so furiously that it was a struggle not to turn away or hide her face.

    “Hey, hey—it’s totally cool!” Casey assured her. “I really do get it. It’s like—yeah, with Alicia. She loves all this stuff. She was telling me the other day in Art Club, uhh about how malls are all gonna go out of business because of web stores, about how in the future everyone’s crazy about yoga, or something. That—”

    “Just yoga pants, not really yoga itself, per se,” Tabitha laughed, dropping her face into her palm. “The style of… athletic stretchwear in general. I mean…”

    “Okay, cool,” Casey nodded quickly. “Cool! I mean that. And like—you I think, you really latched on to this, ‘cause for once maybe it felt like people were listening to what you had to say. For Alicia, she’s the same way. She was telling me how, because she’s from Fairfield middle and didn’t know anyone, and because she’s black, her first few days here at school, no one would give her the time of day. No one would really just come up and talk to her. You were the first one to take that initiative and try reaching out to her about something, and so… basically whether or not she really believes you about the future stuff, she’s gonna believe you. You know?”

    “Oh my God,” Tabitha sighed in total embarrassment, scrunching her eyes closed. “It’s—”

    “Okay well what I mean to say, is, that you don’t need the future stuff story,” Casey explained. “You’re cool just the way you are, you don’t need to uhh, to be ‘special,’ or have something interesting unique thing about you, for people to like you. You’re cool; people can just like you for you. I like you! I just worry, like now with you and the whole cheerleader thing, that you have this like… subconscious compulsion? That you’re trying really really hard to be this certain way you imagine you need to be, instead of, I guess just learning to be yourself? Sorry, shit, I’m really bad at this.”

    “No, no—I—” Tabitha let out a small laugh. “I just—”

    “No, for real, I was the same way when I was your age!” Casey assured her. “Hell, maybe I was even worse. Probably way worse. Just, yeah. For me, it was, uhh, well back then the Art Club had all these cool seniors who were like these badass punks, I really really wanted to be cool with them. I tried so hard! Looking back now, it’s funny. Now, here I am basically in their position, except I’m still just this random dorky me. You know?

    “Anyways,” Casey cleared her throat and tried to quickly change the subject. “Like I said, the future is really rad, and that you put so much thought into all of it—also really rad. It’s awesome. I mean that. Okay? Just, I hope you won’t completely obsess over it or let all that get in the way of, like, the here and now. If that makes sense? Long have I watched this one, as she LOOKED AWAY. To the future. To the horizon. Never her mind on WHERE SHE WAS. HMM! WHAT SHE WAS DOING!”

    They both broke into a small fit of giggles at Casey’s Yoda impression—the older girl’s laughter was rather contagious. As mortifying as this surprise heart to heart was, she found there was plenty to appreciate in the perspective the girl was offering. Tabitha did maybe dwell on the future too much, and going on her long rants to vent about this or that or how things would be in the future really didn’t progress things here where she was in the present. It wasn’t productive, not like she wanted to imagine it was, and lingering on with gripes and complaints about a future she couldn’t let go of was maybe having too much of an impact on who she was here and now.

    “I… yeah, thank you,” Tabitha said as her smile began to dim. “I do appreciate all of that. That’s… something I’m going to have to put more thought into. But, also… Casey, what if, by some crazy chance, I really am from the future?”

    “Then in that case, you tell me?” Casey shrugged. “Because then, you’d be the one with all the answers, you’d be the one to have everything already figured out.”

    “Hahhhh…” Tabitha let out a big sigh. “I… I really wish that were the case.”

    “Yeah,” Casey shrugged again. “But, like. I don’t hate you going into all of the future life stuff, that’s super cool! I’m sorry I don’t believe it, or that I can’t believe it, just. What can I say, I don’t. I’m a skeptic at heart? I mean I go to church, but I don’t think I really have belief there, either. Faith or whatever, not like some of the others seem to. Then I hang out with some of my super atheist friends who are all outspoken against religion, and then I’m a skeptic about them NOT believing. It’s weird.

    “Maybe I’m just a very contrary person? I uhh, I totally didn’t mean to like, rain on your parade here, or talk down to you, or be all no you’re full of shit and everything you say is phony made-up lies, I just, I feel like you got really into the swing of this story, for a bunch of reasons, and maybe started to lose sight of why or what got you hooked into it in the first place? I dunno! Hah. I think, look at the end of the day, what I’m saying, is. You should forget about cheerleading and all that bogus trying to be cool or stories to get people to like you stuff, and just get into art club with us! Yep. We can appreciate you for who you are. This was all secretly leading into my join Art Club spiel!”

    “Duly noted!” Tabitha grinned. “I do want to also do art club. I’ll try to do both, if I can. Both Alicia and Elena are important to me.”

    “And—just so you know,” Casey paused to give Tabitha a serious look. “The uhh, all the I’m from the future stuff? The cheerleadery crowd isn’t gonna be into that. At all.”

    “The cheerleadery crowd?” Tabitha laughed. “I, uh. Yeah. I figured! The future stuff isn’t something I generally… advertise, or anything. Just, it came up with a few people, and… yeah. Elena is actually still really against it.”

    “Okay, cool,” Casey nodded. “I’m not against it, though—it’s super cool to talk about. Hell, me and Matthew spend a lot of time just kinda wondering and speculating about this or that. To a uh, to a lesser extent, it’s a super completely normal thing to talk about. Just, maybe not to go as far with things as you have. No offense, or anything!”

    “I get it,” Tabitha bobbed her head in agreement. “I get it.”

    “You know,” Casey regarded Tabitha with a big grin. “I was gonna ask you to like, prove it, prove you’re actually good with computers and type something. But, conveniently, you can’t really type while your hand’s in that cast, huh. How convenient!”

    “I’ll be able to show you soon!” Tabitha smiled back. “If you want. Mechanical keyboard or not, I’m fast. Not even boasting—that’s just decades and decades of experience! Hah. I was a writer, and even more than that, I was a forever online loser who spent a lot of her free time chatting with people.”

    “So, I take it your family has a computer?” Casey looked at her with interest. “‘Cause, if you do have Yahoo! Messenger already, you should add us. I’m Cinnabun underscore nineteen-eighty-two. Can you believe it? The name ‘Cinnabun’ just by itself was already taken. Now there’s some bullshit.”

    “The Macintires I’m living with don’t have a computer, no,” Tabitha shook her head. “My family in the trailer park—definitely not. No way could they afford one.”

    “So, you learned to type, you got into computer stuff, what, at school?” Casey asked. “I think I remember you used to chill in the library every day at lunch, where all the computers are.”

    “Hahhh—” Tabitha let out a bitter laugh. “I mean. It’s the nineties, I highly doubt they have each of the dozen or so library computers hooked into some landline dial-up connection. I think those are all hooked into a little local network with some games and educational resource stuff.”

    “Uhhh—no?” Casey gave her a strange look. “The school has hi-speed internet. Like, not just our school, all school districts do. Kentucky’s the very first state to have hi-speed internet for every school district. Since back in ninety-five, I think. It was a huge deal? That’s where I got started on the net with everything, my parents didn’t even get a home computer ‘til last year.”

    “Haha, what?” Tabitha stared at Casey in disbelief. “That’s—no way.”

    “Yeah way,” Casey arched an eyebrow. “You can ask Matthew.”

    That’s impossible. That can’t be—HIGH SPEED, back in these times? So, so you mean to say, I could have been just BACK ON THE INTERNET, right away, every single day in the library?! Whenever I glanced over, none of the other kids were ever using browsers! They were all just playing Oregon Trail, and in Word documents and stuff! I, I could have been—

    Tabitha cast a blank stare at part of the desk as the numb feeling of shock began to subside. What could she have been doing with her time? Spending all of it on the internet like a recluse? Would that have been better, would her second try at life have really changed and been different from the first? Would she have made time to play with her cousins, sit with her grandma at the sewing machine, or started to reconnect with her parents? Would Tabitha have put so much time into exercising or self-improvement over this past summer, if she knew she could instead ride a bike to the Springton library and spend every possible minute online?

    “O-oh,” Tabitha felt so mortified that she could just curl up and die. “I, hahh, I guess that um, I guess that that’s a… fortunate misconception? In fact, it’s probably better that I didn’t realize that!”

    “Tabitha,” Casey reached up a hand and patted Tabitha on the shoulder. “You’re not from the future.”

    “No, no I really am! I’m just—well,” Tabitha couldn’t help but give Casey a helpless smile. “I’m just an idiot? I-I just, I didn’t realize. Being from the future doesn’t mean I know everything! My first time through, I was—well, I even still am a very deeply flawed, completely normal human being! I can’t remember everything!”

    “Okay, Tabitha,” Casey gave her an exaggerated nod. “Yeah. Uh-huh.”

    “Maybe you’ll start to believe me a little bit once Episode One comes out! Star Wars!”

    “Pssh, yeah right,” Casey rolled her eyes. “That’s why I didn’t believe you back then in the first place! It’s Star Wars, it’s gonna be completely awesome. There’s zero percent chance it won’t be. It’s Star Wars.”

    “You know, It’s thinking like that that led to the sequel trilogy turning into such an incoherent mess!” Tabitha shook her head in teasing dismay. “And, the prequels? Hah! Well. You’ll see. You’ll see.”

    “I won, I won, I WON!” Hannah popped into the dining room from around the corner, dancing and hopping in delight. “I totally beat him. Fair! And! Square! Fair and square!”

    “She totally cheated,” Matthew laughed, following her in to stand behind them. “A Gengar? C’mon, that’s totally cheap.”

    “It is NOT!” Hannah gasped. “Matthew! It is not!!”

    “You guys get an email set up already?” Matthew leaned over Casey’s shoulder to see the screen. “What name’d you pick?”

    “No, not yet,” Casey swatted his stomach. “We were talking.”

    “This whole time?”

( Previous, 60 pt 3 | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, 60 pt 5 )

/// I've done the Tabitha trying to explain the future thing several times already in the story.

Some readers find it fascinating, some find it infuriating, or a total chore to read through. I wanted to write this one in this way because... to me, it's interesting! I feel like it shows both similarities as well as contrasts because of the different way Casey reacts to things, it provides an opportunity for Tabitha to show her (not infallible) perspective on things, and more than anything I feel like this here for the most part is the most realistic way someone in 1999 would treat someone claiming to be the future.

Alicia? She rolls with it with enthusiasm, because she wants to believe, even if she has her doubts. Elena? Flat out cannot bring herself to entertain the idea, because she decided it's impossible. Casey just sees a younger girl pouring her heart out about things that don't quite add up or make sense, and she's like--man, yeah that was me just a few years ago!

/// Teeth are okay and eating pretty normally. Back in for the final part of this root canal tomorrow. Then, the day after that I've been conscripted by the church lady to help one of the other new members scrub down all the mold off the walls at a new place he's moving into. Between semi-obligatory church stuff and dental trips my schedule has been hectic this month, but I'm really really trying to get all these different chapter sections punched out.