Funny Short Stories
Skyelights - part 6
'Hi Meredith,' said Skye.
'I've brought your mobile,' Meredith handed it to her, and the keys to her flat. And some flowers which caused embarrassment to them both.
'Any new messages?' asked Skye.
'I didn't look!'
A nurse looked in and attempted sign language for ''Is this visitor really a friend of yours?'' Skye gave her The Glare and she went away.
Skye had been using a large black felt-tipped pen sellotaped to a cane to draw on the plaster of her left foot. She put down the cane and smiled.
'I don't suppose you have any felt-tipped pens on you? Coloured ones?'
'Er, no. Sorry,' said Meredith after some deliberation.
'Never mind, let's see the messages.'
The first message was cheering news from Helen in New York.
'In the 3rd world (the homeless in Los Angeles) when the new driver works and they are online with SkyeLights, a box appears on their screen 'Please upload this driver to the database' - so they do!'
'A program evolves and tests new generic drivers in the background whenever the users computer has the screensaver running,' Skye explained.
Meredith nodded dutifully.
The second was partly worrying - a list of replies to Skye's forum post about online users in Wherewithal, and a personal message from the same forum. Agnes, who'd been having problems with her ISP had gone missing from the forum and people were worried.
And the 3rd message was just frustrating -
'There's a new release of Linux - dial up support is even worse.'
Skye began making lists of things to do, felt suddenly bereft of motivation, and just 'filed' everything in a carrier bag. Meredith was relieved to see it was Tescos.
'So how's the allotment, Meredith?' she asked. 'Something to do with growing food, isn't it?'
Meredith smiled, which proved to be even easier than nodding, and more enjoyable.
♥ ℑ ♥
'You never know you've got it 'till it's gone,' croaked Skye. She felt fairly sure this was a Folk song - or even several - but couldn't really recall the words. It was probably a Country song, too.
Talking of Country - she did recall her older cousin Nick, from Oregon, who'd been imprisoned after one of his many environmental protests. He had been sabotaging chainsaws in northern California, or gas guzzlers in Oregon, she couldn't remember which.
He had to be the most vociferous hater of traffic fumes Skye had ever met, yet the day he came out of prison - which had smelled entirely of concrete, steel bars, stale cabbage and smelly socks (not his) he'd walked straight onto the street, been engulfed in diesel fumes from a passing truck, exhaled at enthusiastically by a friendly priest sucking at a pipe the size of a large coffee cup and burst into tears. Tears of joy and poignancy, even.
'A penny for your thoughts,' said a timid voice. 'Or possibly two cents.' Meredith had arrived.
'Hi,' Skye replied, and continued gazing through the nose-to-tail traffic at the market. The colourful, noisy, smelly market. The bloody gorgeous, awesomely unruly market which had nothing in common with hospitals.
'Are you okay?' asked Meredith, rearranging the Sainsbury's carrier bag between her bum and the damp concrete steps by Tescos. She glanced at Tescos and wondered if she'd get into trouble for not using their carrier bags. She made a mental note to carry one of theirs in future.
'Yeah, sure,' said Skye. 'Never better, in fact.' There seemed to be an argument developing on the market - about carrots, apparently.
Skye hoped carrot didn't give way to stick. Then Urchin and Drainpipe arrived.
'You can always talk to us if you're fed up. About the accident and such,' Meredith persevered.
'Thanks. I'm fine. It's just … while I was in hospital I had plenty of time to think. I'm always too keen to 'sort things', and really I don't see the big picture.
Linux is fine offline, but had no system restore or serious data backup to a second disk. It can't undo all the monopolies of dubious business, because they're always inventing new ones. Skyelights will have the same problems.
Only today I got an email from Helen, there's a bill in the House of Representatives sponsored by the big telephone and cable monopolies - they want big business to pay, like medieval toll gates, to allow visitors faster access to their websites than to the competition.
You may work hard to promote your site on Search Engines, but potential visitors will click and be held up, then click on a 'toll payer' site and get straight through.'
'But you're not fed up?' asked Urchin.
'Nope! Independence is the thing. I've completed Skyelights, which is awesomely simple.'
'Well, it would be. You did it!' quipped Drainpipe. His hair was completely unmanageable since he'd had a shower and he gave up trying to pull it out of his eyes and turned to face the breeze.
'Good point, Downspout! And it's fine for most straightforward PC jobs. It does have system restore and incremental backup of everything you've ever done to a second hard disk. Linux volunteers have made generic drivers for all hardware, for people who need fancier software and printers, cameras etc.
Skyelights and Linux can go on the same PC, even on the same hard disk.'
'Right,' said Urchin.
'So can Windows, you've already got one legal copy.
The Windows operating system costs bugger all compared to the endless 'updates' and applications with built-in obsolescence to turn customers into addicts.
Their plans to keep making everything obsolete only work if you go online or buy new gear. We need online communities to develop to undo built in obsolescence - both hardware and software.'
'Yeah, look at Mozilla - Firefox and Thunderpants,' Drainpipe began.
'He means Thunderbird,' Meredith added; forever worried that she'd get the blame for anything anyone said.
'Also we get 10% cheaper dial up with open market competition,' Drainpipe continued, 'But you'll spend half your life on call centres trying to undo cock-ups. And the other half of your life checking they haven't changed the terms of use AGAIN.'
'And it's about £1 million for an ink refill for my 'free' printer, and £2 a minute for ''dedicated customer support'', chipped in Urchin.
'You've really mastered the art of exaggeration, you know,' said Skye. She sounded pleased.
'Think of the environmental savings of communicating by email and webpage and phone rather than having bloody reps going everywhere in their poxy Audis,' said Urchin.
'Yeah, and bill Gates has just been to ask a few questions in Africa by private jet, funnily enough,' added Drainpipe.
'Great! So what's the problem?' asked Urchin.
'The internet. Don't use any of the dodgy bits. Don't use it much at all, except via the library or Pay As You Go dial-up, until it's sorted. It was supposed to be the most democratic, everyone-can-contact-everyone-and-everything medium ever invented. That's what we need. The answer is political, not geekish.'
'What's new!' said Drainpipe. It wasn't really a question.
'Not much!' agreed Urchin.
'I need to sleep now,' said Skye, staggering to her feet and limping towards home.
'See you later, then,' said Urchin.
'Can I tag along?' asked Meredith.
'Sure.'
♥ ℑ ♥
'This is the only planet in the observable universe that is known to harbour life. It is threatened as never before by the arrogance, extraversion and consumerism of one species,' Skye began.
Meredith beamed encouragement.
'So, am I going to spend my life re-inventing Windoze - the only pencil that you have to re-purchase every time the clocks change? Ditto Linux - the only pencil ever invented that will always be free, and needs ten hours maintenance per day in order to work as a desktop (unreliably)? Or am I going to grab any fucking pencil I can lay my hands on and write? she growled.
Meredith pondered for a while. 'Good question. What are you gonna do now, Skye? I mean immediately, like.'
'I think I'll scour the 'internet politics' forums online. Then start writing.'
'Good idea,' Meredith agreed.
'And you could start a forum or blog to promote the boycotting of any company that attempts to re-invent monopolies online. The Windows 98 Preservation Society & Blog! Every other damned thing reeks of monopolies already.' Skye treated her to a challenging stare.
'We couldn't do that,' wailed Meredith.
'Yes! You can!' said Skye. 'And it's free!'
'Ooer,' moaned Meredith. 'So what are you going to write about?'
'Well, I'm going to try to paint a picture of a serpent, first. Don't even think about asking me why,' Skye replied, seemingly hesitant to give a straight answer.
She smiled, rather unpleasantly. In the absence of any handy technical distractions it is probably time to write about mother, she thought. Or even to her . . .