It was a small house at the edge of
a jungle and inside was a wild mess of junk. Oh, it was
furnished modestly—carpeted flooring here, dining set there, couches arranged
together. However, there was also the electronics. There were the two hand-held
game systems, the 3 video game consoles, the blinking wireless internet modem,
the various storage devices, the blueray player, the 4 smartphones, the
gigantic television, the 5 laptops—one on the kitchen counter, three on the
coffee table, and the last on the rug—and the miles and miles of cable. Yet of
all these, the sovereign among them was the gleaming computer that sat
enshrined in a room of its own. Everyday the children would come home and race
to be the first to use it; hair pulled, shins kicked, faces slapped, all for
the chance to sit and glare into the abyss of its screen. Often, the youngest
child, a girl, could do nothing but sit and cry as her elders always got to the
computer first.
One day the girl’s elders were out
replacing their cell phones, leaving the young girl alone to peacefully use the
computer. She happily browsed for hours over her favorite sites. The sun was
mighty that day, shining brightly through the window. The young girl got up to
draw the blinds, but paused for a moment in front of the windowpane to view a
peculiar sight. All her life she had lived at that small house by the jungle
and had grown accustomed to the vegetation. But on this day, a strange dirt path cut its way through the
trees. What’s more, far down at the end of the path she could see an enormous tronkon nunu, its branches waving to her
from the darkness. She drew the shades and walked to her father, questioning
him as to the origins of the strange dirt path. With a look of bemusement, her
father explained there was no dirt path, that the jungle was as it always was.
She urged her father to come with her to the window and see for himself, which
he gladly did. Her father drew back the shade and looked out, but no dirt path
could be found. He chuckled lightly and patted the young girl on the head,
waving it off as an innocent child’s prank. Confused, the young girl resumed
browsing the internet.
The next day, they young girl was
again lucky enough to have the computer all to herself, and she took her time
browsing. As in the day before,
the sun was mighty, shining through the window directly on the young girl. She
inched towards the window to draw the shade, apprehensively recalling the
mysterious dirt path. She peeked out at the jungle once more, and again saw a
peculiar sight. A chubby, little koko
stood five feet from the window, his head cocked to the side, looking directly
at the young girl. After a few seconds of staring at each other, the young girl
decided to try to chase the bird away. She put her hand before her and made a
shooing sound and motion. To her surprise, the bird bent forward and bobbed his
body up and down, mimicking her. She shooed him away harder, but the little
koko stayed put, bobbing up and down harder than before. She was about to shut
the blinds and turn away from the window, but thought she saw the koko gesture
with his mouth; it looked like he was showing tongue at her. Looking again at
the bird, he indeed did open his mouth and poke his tongue at her, so she stuck
her tongue out in retaliation. This tongue showing competition carried on for a
few moments until her confused mother entered the room. The young girl
explained the situation, but when they both peered out the window, all that
could be seen was the empty yard and the jungle behind it. Brushing it off as a
young child’s active imagination, the young girl’s mother smiled and walked off,
listening to an mp3 player. Bewildered more than ever, the young girl drew the
blinds and went off to her room.
That
night a storm raged outside, winds shook the windows and thunder clapped
through the sky. The young girl had trouble sleeping, and tossed around in her
bed. The darkness pressed on her heavily. She heard her bedroom door give a
long and slow creep. With her heart racing, she got up to close it, the
darkness still bearing down on her and the winds threatening to crack the
window. The door of the computer
room was ajar, and a faint glow came from behind it. The young girl heard faint
noises, too, that at first sounded like a rat tapping its nails on a tin roof.
When she got closer though, the young girl undeniably identified the tapping
noise as someone typing on the keyboard. She inhaled sharply; everyone in her
house was asleep. A gust of wind threw
the door open, revealing the room to be empty, and the computer to be off. And at that moment a bolt of lighting flashed
in the window, tearing along with it a horrendous crash of thunder. The girl
ran back to her bedroom but her foot caught on something and she was dragged to
the floor. The thing slithered around her whole body, coiling tightly around
her neck as she struggled to break free.
The glow from the computer room was back on, but red this time. It
illuminated the room enough to let the young girl see that it was electrical
lines entangling her.
The
young girl let out a blood-curdling scream and sat up. Strangely she found
herself in the safety of her room. It was all just a dream, she convinced
herself at length, and nervously shut her eyes to sleep again.
Days
past and things were normal for the girl and her family. The elders always got
to the computer first, but this was because the young girl had become tired of
fighting over it. On a day when
all her siblings were out replacing their laptops, the little girl was starting
towards the computer room when she saw through her open back door the chubby little
koko. He twice jumped in and out
of the doorframe then turned abruptly and ran towards the jungle. The young girl raced after him. She was
outside under the powerful sun and remarked at how gracefully the trees danced with
the flowing wind. Ahead of her she could see the koko run down the dirt path.
She followed after him, giggling as she did. Finally she saw the koko stop in
front of the giant tronkon nunu, whose branches still waved at her. The path
was not as long as she thought it would be, and the surrounding trees were
quite to her liking. Off in the distance she could hear her elders noisily
arriving home. Through the computer room window, she watched as they fought to
be the first to use the king computer. They pulled, kicked, and slapped to earn the right to stare
into the abyss. The young girl showed her tongue at them quietly and then
turned to play with the chubby little koko.
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