text: It was a cold and stormy night. Okay, not like the one in that Edgar Allen Poe dude whatever story, and this isn’t some kind of metaphorical thing either. Alright? It was literally cold and stormy. You know? It was like 50 degrees or something. And outside it was windy and thundering and stuff. Oh, and by the way, it’s Minnesota so it can be any season. And by that, I mean it’s any season you want it to be so you can imagine this short piece, and it’s any season in this piece itself. That’s not specified. But if you want me to specify it, let’s just say it’s fall. Late September. Or early October. The year? 2020. Alright, back to it. It’s a cold and stormy night--we’ll stick with present tense from now on--it’s a cold and stormy night. And this guy- his name is Link- Link is sitting at the library, reading off the screen of his laptop that he bought with his graduation money he received earlier in the summer this year. Which means he’s a freshman. Poor freshy. I remember those days. He’s not partying, which you might expect a freshman to do on a Friday night at 11pm. He’s studying and being a good student, like he should be. Link’s eyes scroll through, word for word, the passage of his digital Biology 112 Textbook. Every word he reads is set into his working memory, and he hopes he can go to sleep before midnight and get enough hours in bed so that working memory is cemented into long term memory. He’s also listening to some music to help whet his mind. Beethoven. A classic. A beautiful classic. Seventh Symphony Allegretto. While the rest of the tables are desperately empty, another young Freshmen by the name of Oscar sits in a chair a few tables behind Link. Oscar twirls a deck of cards, maneuvering several split sections between the thumb and index and middle and ring finger of both his hands. If he was doing this sleight-of-hand trick any faster, he would look like fucking David Copperfield. But he’s not. He’s a fucking nerd. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s what his best friends call him: a straight-up nerd who watches anime and hentai and hasn’t gotten any action because he’s just too damn shy to talk to the girls who might have been interested in him. Oh, and yes there were a few. Oscar never forgets the night he could’ve gotten some from that girl at the bar, when he and his friends all snuck in underaged. That stupid bouncer. What a joke. Oscar looks up from his deck when he quietly slams the deck flat between his palms. He sees Link. But he’s not looking at Link. He’s looking at Link’s laptop. It’s a MacBook Pro, retail price of over two-thousand dollars. He’s always wanted one. He still does. In his backpack is that boring, four-year old hand-me-down HP laptop from his older brother who just graduated college. It’s not even Full-HD and it only boasts 4 Gigs of memory. The damn guy can’t even play a good game of League with his buddies. He glides his poor 12/20, glasses-assisted eyesight over the thin bezel and the sleek touch-bar. The quality of the screen is so clear, almost so clear, that Oscar could read the words on the screen from thirty feet away. Okay maybe not that good, but a hyperbole is needed here. Oscar knows what he must do. He stares at the back of Link’s head, his vision piercing through to the other side and locking onto Link’s eyes. Link takes a sip of his water. Sorry, forgot to mention earlier that he has his water bottle next to him. He presses his chapped lips against the bottle’s crown and lifts it just enough to let the stream of cool, vacuum-sealed water trickle over his tongue. It’s so quiet in the library that even the reference desk attendant can hear the relieved sigh of Link’s quenched thirst. Link sets the bottle down and behind him approaches the enemy. A black sweater and a pair of dark blue jeans sits up from its seat. Oscar takes a brave journey forward, the deck still in his hand, and stops at the opposite side of the desk of Link. He plants his midnight blue shoes into the carpet flooring. He clears his throat. He licks his lips. Link looks up and his resting-bitch face says hello to Oscar. “Wanna, wanna see a trick?” Oscar says, his heart beating through his chest. Link looks at the deck of Bicycle cards, noticing the glaze of light that reflects from the card’s coat. He looks back up at Oscar and says nothing as he returns to his studying. “Uh, o-o-Okay.” Oscar clears his throat again. Loudly. Very Loud? Very Loudly? Which one... Damn. I dunno, I’m not Reed Richards. And Microsoft Word isn’t putting that blue line under any of them. Whatever. Something more important is happening. Oscar fans out the deck with his left hand, sparing equal room for each of the fifty-two cards. Then, with his right, he pulls one straight out from the deck and sharply reveals it. It’s a Jack of Diamonds. “You see this card.” It’s not an interrogative statement; he’s not asking Link if he sees the card. It’s declarative. “Commit this card to memory.” He brings the card in front of Link’s screen and slowly waves it in a circular motion, as if attempting to hypnotize him. It doesn’t work, but it steals his attention. “Commit it,” he repeats. Link looks up at Oscar, his face still unamused. Instinct then draws his eyes to the card, and they bore over the glazing coat. Cool white and hot red. Jack. Diamond. “Okay. I’m gonna make this card reappear somewhere.” Oscar takes a pause and then whispers. “Somewhere you won’t expect.” All of a sudden, and I mean really all of a sudden, Oscar flicks the entire deck of cards into Link’s face. The cloud of white, black and red disappears just as Oscar grabs the MacBook Pro off the desk. He takes off, but not quick enough, as Link jumps up from his seat. He’s right behind him, stride for stride, even as Oscar begins pulling down chairs as obstacles. The pursuing Link leaps over the first chair, and then the second, but stumbles as the momentum of his jump brings him too close to the third. He presses on and locks his eyes on poor Oscar, who has been running in the wrong direction and only now notices the wall and its windows from fifty feet out. Outside, the storm continues to batter the sky with Zeus’ rage. Inside, however, Oscar faces Link’s rage. Link catches up to Oscar just before Oscar can attempt to cut the corner of a table and gives his best Muhamad Ali impression. The towel flies in. Oscar, absolutely rocked, stumbles back and then falls. There’s a crack heard, but it’s not Oscar’s body or Link’s MacBook Pro that is still clutched to his chest. It’s his own laptop. The pathetic HP has met its defeat. There goes twenty-four gigabytes of high-quality porn and an entire summer’s worth of Minecraft mods. Oscar, still conscious but barely, lies on his backpack, his arms unfolding and relinquishing the two-thousand-dollar beauty. Link leans over, his fist shaken but ready to deliver another blow. Instead, he reaches for his MacBook and opens it. The screen is intact, the buttons still in place and the reading still as boring as it was before. Link looks at Oscar in disgust and turns around. “Wait!” Oscar shouts with a groan, barely audible. “Hold on!” His words turn Link around, somehow, and he slowly and dramatically, I might add, lifts a hand up. It’s shaking in pain, but he’s able to extend his index finger to Link’s hips. “Check your pocket. Jeans. Right side.” Link raises an eyebrow. Barely. He reaches a hand into his pocket and feels his iPhone 7 Plus, his old but reliable friend who he let down by dropping several times. But something else is resting against it. Something flat. Something smooth. Link’s eyes squint in confusion. He pulls out the phone and he turns it around to reveal... Oh. It’s just a stupid card from the tech desk. Link looks at Oscar and shakes his head in disgust. He returns to his desk and begins packing his belongings. He looks around to see if anyone might have seen the commotion, but the only other person there is the reference desk lady, who is too far away and too focused on her own homework. Link prepares to leave but glances one last time at Oscar. He’s is still pointing at Link. His eyes are weak and the strength in his hand is brittle, but his glare and index finger is intense. Link turns around and leaves the library. Fast-forward! Link arrives and stops at the door to his four-bedroom apartment, only to hear music coming from inside his living room. And moaning from upstairs. And a bed banging up against the wall to the beat of Queen’s “Another one bites the dust.” He shakes his head, sighs, and relieves the keys from his backpack. He unlocks the door and then opens it, welcoming himself inside to royal red Hue lights and Gavin DeGraw’s “Finest Hour.” Eyes turn to him and as he closes the door. “Yo, let’s get this guy a shot,” David, one of Link’s three roommates, says. Link barely takes a step inside and David approaches him with a shot glass in one hand and a bottle of Hennessey in the other. “What’s all this?” Link asks. “My sister Lisa. You remember her. She got pregnant, and so we’re throwing a party for her. She’s right over there!” David says, pointing to her. “She don’t wanna drink because the baby and all, but yo, it would mean a lot if you take a shot for her.” Link sighs in regret. “Alright.” “Eyy, my man, yo!” David throws a hand over Link’s shoulder and the two walk towards Lisa. “Ey, Lisa!” Lisa turns around and reveals a barely-noticeable baby-belly. “Ey, you remember Link, right?” David says, patting Link’s chest twice. “Oh, hey Link!” Lisa says. “Hey,” Link answers, exhausted of the party already. “Alright, I guess I’m taking a shot for you cause your brother wants me to.” “Oh, no, that’s okay,” Lisa replies. “No, all my other roommates did,” David interrupts. “Link’s gotta take one too.” Link faintly listens to their conversation but is more focused on pouring himself his own shot. He holds the spout steadily over the cup and once it’s filled to the rim, he stops. He lifts the shot-glass up and his eyes meet Lisa’s. “Alright, to you and your kid.” He takes the shot and once the taste of alcohol hits him, so does time. Shot. Shot. Another shot. That’s right: he’s drinking underaged. Admit it, you all did too. And, hey, for an eighteen-year old, he’s strong. I guess that breaks the image of the good boy he is at the library. “Yo, slow down!” “This guy’s so fucking lit!” “Back to back!” “Yo, this my song. Turn the volume up!” “Ay, you good, bro?” “Ohhhhhhh!” “No, we just played that song!” “Nah, he’s good! My boy’s good! He’s good!” “You need help, bro?” “Yo, it’s your ex.” “Link, we need to talk.” And that’s all she wrote. Not really. But that’s the last thing Link remembers hearing: his ex. Nine hours of sleep later and the sun slips through the blinds to kiss him good morning. He’s lying in his bed and atop his sheets. He’s still fully dressed. Surprisingly, there’s not a sign of puke or a bag anywhere in his room. Good job, my man. Good damn job. Link peels his eyelids open. He takes in a deep inhale through his nose and opens his mouth to part ways with his exhale. He turns to his left, right and then back to his left before fighting his hands under his pillow. No phone there. He sits up and looks around himself. While he can’t yet find his phone, an inviting glass of water sits on his desk which extends perpendicularly from the head of his bed. The water’s not cold anymore, but right now it sure looks like Benjamin fucking Franklin on pale blue. That’s a hundred-dollar bill, by the way, for those who don’t get the reference. You know? Because they updated the bill? Anyways, Link sits up from his bed and extends a hand for it. And it sure does taste better than Hennessey. Three large gulps is all it takes to finish the glass and with a satisfying sigh he moves to place the glass back on the desk. But something catches his eye. An orange post-it note sits flat against his desk, which was hiding under the glass just five seconds ago. He looks towards his stack of post-it notes to see that it’s been meddled with. And one of his pens is out of place. He sniffs heavily to clear his nose and then stands up to trade the glass for the note. It’s written in fine print with handwriting that he recognizes from his past, and from his heart. “Hey Link, Rose here. ‘We couldn’t talk last night. ‘I left something for you. ‘Check your pocket. Jeans. Right side.” ​Link raises an eyebrow. Barely. He reaches a hand into his pocket and feels his iPhone 7 Plus, his old but reliable friend who he let down by dropping several times. But something else is resting against it. Something flat. Something smooth. Link’s eyes squint in confusion. He pulls out the phone and he turns it around to reveal... another post-it note. It’s folded, almost wrinkled. Rose’s recognizable handwriting reads... “You’re gonna be a dad. ‘If it’s a boy, I like the name ‘Jack.