he gray tray matched his mood. The service vacs in the cafeteria seemed more dour than usual—perhaps dishearted by the sudden savagery of winter. He emerged from the line, tray laden with the bounty of machine-agriculture: corn fries, soyloaf sandwich, corn-cake dyed red #5, and corn-syrup soda.
He halted just past the line exit, a pang of loneliness cramping his gut. He had been sitting alone for months, reviewing reading flashcards, in avid pursuit of Sol. But now there was no Sol and he didn’t know what he wanted anymore. He thought about Billy and he wondered how he’d spent the last several months.
He scanned the cafeteria’s four-seat-square tables and saw Billy sitting alone on his ‘screen, a big shit-eating grin on his face. It warmed Isaac’s heart and he walked, pulled by the light of a friendship he’d forgotten.
Isaac set down the tray and slid onto the round seat, smiling at Billy and giving him a force-tap.
“Hey dude how’s it going,” said Billy still wearing his grin. He guffawed at a joke encountered in his pict communication, eyes animated but without focus.
Throughout the last week, Isaac had time to reflect on the depth of their relationship, what had gone wrong, what had gone right, and how they could move forward together. His pict to Billy braided these three strands together into an emotional and experiential soundtrack that was beyond words, the visuals resolving into colorscapes that were vibrant, possessed of subtle shadings. Isaac almost wept sending it forth.
He looked at Billy, but Billy was nodding, turned to the side, his food forgotten, engrossed in a hilarious dialogue that was located in another dimension, eyes manic and slightly glazed, hair disordered. A mole stood out on his temple against skin that shone faintly, unwashed. Isaac could see that the pict was unopened, and it went unacknowledged while Isaac gnawed at the heart-red cake without appetite. There were many vidgames where when you slew your opponent, you ate their heart and gained their strength. Isaac knew how Billy’s tasted, for they were often matched against one another.
He stood, abruptly without appetite, and walked to the chain of conveyor vacs that lined up to bear the trays away to the diswasher vacs. He looked into the vac’s eye as he took his tray but it shone like oil glimpsed in the depths of an engine, churning rhythmic, darkly sealing over cogs and gears.