Tomorrow Today—The Series:
1. And now... I know
2. The Database
3. Prestigear

P R E S T I G E A R

“Na, c’mon, let’s go out. We need to have fun sometimes, right? Besides, I think your skin could use some moonlight. C’mon, man!”
“I don’t want to, really. Thanks. Gotta hang up. Catch u later.”
“Later? When? You have locked your self up for...” I hung up the line form Jeff. He is indeed my best bud but at that time, I really needed to be alone.
After the database that he showed me from his friend’s research, I felt strange. I know that the database was only a toy for that Tomorrow Today company which Jeff worked for, but still, that toy left me in a state of great shock. The personality recognition which was supposed to show me the one matches with mine showed that I was the only one who actually did. I jumped into conclusion that I would not find a soulmate in this world. Jeff confronted me that I interpreted the toy in the wrong way. I should have seen love as something to bind the two different personalities instead of does that to the similar ones.
That was where Jeff and I stood on the other side. Why bother being with someone who does not like what we do? Doen’t everyone want to share things with someone who has the same idea?
All the thought led me to nowhere but the withdrawal of myself from the society. I locked myself up in my room. I lived by the deliveries I ordered from fast food restaurants. I gained wight several kilos thanks to McD and Burger King. I spent my days questioning the destiny of no one but myself. I felt low. So low that only myself could appriciate me.
I started to recall the days when my friends criticize the things thatI did. Why that hat? Why stripes? So formal? What’s with the chain around my neck? What’s with that anyway? Didn’t I look cool with that? I took it off the first day of my self-retreat. I felt insecure.
I was sitting on my couch and playing a guitar when suddenly I felt a very great need for a glass of orange juice. I got up and headed to the refrigerator. I thought to myself that I didn’t need any glass. I could just drink it directly from the cartoon.
My refrigerator is next to my door. So i went there. I approached it and suddenly I heard:
“BANG!!! BANG!!!” That sound stopped my heart for a moment.
“Who’s outside?”
“Jeff. Open up!”
“Go home, Jeff!” He was the last person I need in me-myself-and I time.
“I ain’t go anywhere. You know that.”
“I sent you home once and I will do it again!” I shouted at the door. I was very shocked with tha bang bang on the door thing that I hated him somehow.
“I got you something. At least let me throw it inside. Then,..I ‘ll leave.”
“Hey! I am not Hannibal and you are not Starling, okay!!!”
There was a silence—a total silence.
“Jeff? Are you there?” I said that standing still by the refrigerator. Should I approached the door and go find out if he was still there? But he might bang the door again to shock me just like in any common horror movie. Should I? I shouldn’t. Besides, the noise has gone, anyway. But,..would he be waiting outside to catch my hand and forced to get in?
“O, c’mon, Na. Such stupid thought only belongs to you! He is a busy busy nerd, right?” I talked to myself.
“Shit, I hate all this.” I decided to approach the door slowly. Real slowly like an obese turtle.
“Jeff?”
“Stupid!! You shouldnt’ve said his name!!” I talked to myself again like a broadway star in a movie.
I have decided to shut my mouth and just approached the door. I put my right ear really close to it. Really close that my ear literally touched the door and felt the cold of a steel.
Quiet.
I reached for the door key and turned it around. The door was unlocked. Then I reached the handle and slowly opened it. Will his face showed up and scared me to death? My heart was beating and it was beating faster. I move the door and...


I sat down on my couch again. The small thing that looked like it was wrapped by a third grader was on my hand. I opened it like a second grader would. There was a note:
“Damn you for not opening the door. I know that you wouldn’t anyway. Since I didn’t wana spend my time useless going from my place to yours, I prepared a back up plan. I wrapped this PRESTIGEAR for you. Use it for your own good. Na, you are not that low!!!”
That’s it? Nothing else but that? No manuals? It’s not that I have never tried gadgets from him without manuals, but,.. Oh, well. At least he was nowhere near me to call me moroon or anything like that.
The panel was very obvious. And why does Jeff like using panels anyway? Why not button or anything else? Well,..I switch it anyway. And what happened??? Nothing. A big nothing.
“Finally you failed, too, Jeff.” I said to myself happily. You are not the one so successfull, anyway. I mean, I was the one winning the school debate, Jeff. I was the one getting that while you locked yourself up in your mini lab. Nothing spacious about that compared to my apartement. And I was the one doing lots of dancing during the parties we attended, Jeff. Mmm parties. Suddenly that sounded fun.
I got up and walked to my room passing this very big mirror I had. I stopped a while and looking surprised. What I saw was amazing. There was this man with a very sexy lean body in a white tight shirt. He had this messy hair that shouted “Let’s play!”. He was wearing a pair of tight black shorts that curved his butts. Great strong legs support his standing. Wasn’t that what girls wanted? And I bet a chain would look good around his neck. I ran directly to my drawer and took the chain. I put it around my neck and went back to the mirror.
“Mmm...I am ready to play.”
I took a bath and went out and got better.



It’s all in the point of view
—Je—