A Shanty for Mr. Gates

When facing East, the verdant foliage set an imaginary perpendicular line against the sky. Shadows graced the well-kept drive. Manicured mosses calmly waited for the hired gardener to come on Tuesday. An odd tonka-truck was strewn across the lawn—blown to bits—evidence of burning—plastic refuse melded to the charred grass. Someone had shit on suburbia and this Golden Gardens home-plot was no longer the nicest on the block. This ill-fated lawn statue, however, was only the beginnings of experiments, scheming and longing for another world.

Sally, Daniel, Hwan, Robbie, and Pola all enjoyed the normal things kids on their block did. They had squirt-gun fights, they went to the aquarium, they even put on a joint-family garage sale. Chris was different. Although he was the most handsome of all of the Huffren children, he was not interested in pleasing the old ladies who gave the children snickers and jollies. If he was thoughtful and talented, no one knew it because he was always off with his shadow. He spent many hours a day tinkering with the mechanics of mayhem. Once he found a giant old computer—it contained the memories of the “greatest generation”: The Oregon Trail, Chips Challenge and Tetris. The aura was so alluring that Chris set up the old 286 heavy-box monitor up in his room. He built a shrine around it and kept it from the prying eyes of his siblings. Nobody new about it except for his red cat, named “Ona-Ro-CKindenMark.” He meowed a lot, sang at the moon and pretended that he was Chris’ guardian.

Chris grew into a perfectly affable computer nerd—in Japanese his nickname was “Otaku” (obsessive nerd—as defined by Ar). He was always getting on his mothers nerves because he would not perform the sitar or sing for any of the family picnics on the lawn—instead he rebuilt motherboards in his room. Chris’ mother made Martha Stewart look like a Wal-Mart Shopper...in fact, she shamed all of the other women on the block. They called her the Queen. Chris thought she was very domineering. When Chris was 15, it was decided that he could travel to a Microsoft conference to pursue his dream as a programmer.

At the conference, in Bellevue, he saw the most beautiful thing he had ever set vision upon. She was dressed professionally, and she had something amazing set neatly across her left breast. It was a pocket-protector. He had never seen this before. And then he realized that each one of the presentors had one of these. He inched up towards the stage, and like one rising out of the sea, he climbed up on stage. Mr. Gates was disconcerted at the offense of a non ppwp on stage. “Seize that boy,” he ballyhood. But the terse moment had reached fruition. Chris had met his destiny—his boyhood and nppwp status could not stop his lips. A melody of love came over him like a bad Disney soundtrack, and the middle-age computer programmer, slightly more attractive than the average reader would imagine, received the dream of an angel from another world. Their lips met firmly...but no sparkling enshrouded him...no destined transformation. What she felt was a hand stealing away her sign of definitive yesness. Her pocket protector was gone. He had it and he was never going back to where he came from. Everywhere else the pp is considered a sign of shame, but in this new world it was freedom—he could live forever with his parents and siblings but that meant nothing without this. Mr. Gates decided to let him wear the pocket protector on the condition that he solve the R&D problems with windows XP. “If this system is not at 100%, you will have to go back to living the life of an ordinary boy...more than that, your eternal destiny and immortal soul is at stake—we will banish you to the sea of Copenhagen and turn you into stone if you do not complete this mission,” Mr. Gates said. Chris burst forth in song, revolutionizing XP, wearing a gold plated protector and forgetting about the black-clad programmer who eventually fell for someone else and sailed the rippling blue to Tahiti.