The Net Of Love

by Thomas L.


The boy returned home with his heart happily beating. He was tired, since he covered half of Budapest. He’s been anticipating this moment for more than 6 months when his savings will pay for his internet connection and the world will open before him. The often heard, almost slogan came into his mind: “The information superhighway will become the most heavily traveled road of the next century.”

What he felt was not quite happiness, but an emotion far more unique and noble played around his throat. He was proud to have broken out of the gray circle of dusty commonality. With the help of his computer he can even soar to places that have never before appeared on his mind’s horizon.

Ten p.m. The adventure is about to begin. He typed in his nick and passwords and in that instant it felt as though the sparks of his soul had just landed on the stage of night. He was ecstatic when he typed in the first address and the www page actually crackled onto his monitor. “This is fantastic. From now on I can be on the net as long as I want and never be bored. There are millions of pages waiting to be discovered!”

That is exactly how it was, at least for the first month or two. Then he felt that he needed something else. The holes he felt in his soul were not patched by the adventures. He was about to lay aside the magic net when he discovered something. Someone, from among those who were up to now, in the background shadows for our hero simply said: chat.

The fabric that had meant the world had once again became fully charged with excitement. It was true, he never experienced this before. He could talk with people ‘live’, who as himself, sat hunched over a plastic box filled with microchips and typed their questions and answers into tiny windows.

Time, once again, as a heartless thief had taken the fire from his eyes….that is, until suddenly a small blue square flashed. It was a girl who asked for help, and kindness over-flown from her words. It did not take much for the boy’s soul to comprehend perfect harmony. In this impersonal, yet in some ways far more personal world, two souls have touched.

The mirage of unlimited freedom had buckled his heart, into which an unexpected thought moved in: LOVE. He felt love toward someone he met only a few days before, and with whom he was able to exchange merely a few words, even those over a monitor.

Someone he’s never seen. The keyboard revealed virtually nothing, yet the girl, that sweet butterfly, gave away part of her unblemished soul with every stroke of a key to that other heart who, with increasingly concentrated purpose whispered between bit-per-second that word which for humanity became overused, schematic, yet at the same time still represents the paradise of dreams.

Why should we always organize through the cool etiquette of reality? Why does the power appear silly that combined beauty with beast, and the soul with the soulful? Could it be that two people, two such individuals who perhaps never would have met had they not been caught in the elements of modern life, could it be that they are in love with each other?

A mere few hours of in-depth conversation, but the human emotion does not recognize the lifeless combination of time and distance. Emotions refuse to allow themselves to be pressed into the mold of the everyday routine, they don’t give in to the flooding emptiness and forceful attack of lifelessness. Treatherous waters for sure, never knowing who and when will show their real face or when they will hide behind a pleasant mask. But the girl was herself. The boy felt, he knew that his net-shine can not be false, can’t be fake. They met every night spending all possible time together.

This feeling was not present elsewhere: the boy was surrounded by his internet friends, and there was the Girl but still, his soul was afraid. The echo of emptiness, the cold buzz of evil always woke him from his sweetest dreams, fragmenting peaceful moments. These two souls still found each other. Found each other in the fabric of a world-wide net and in such a fashion that would never have been possible in the real world.

The same monitor that used to be seen as the surface for boring characters of a text, at this moment came to represent Life. Real Life. The few currents of electricity, the micrometer’s worth of magic that was constructed by thoughtful, expert hands and the hundreds of ilometers of telephone cable, like some kind of a vein as a warm life supplying vein in the body, tied to each other the boy and the girl, on that stormy, and netted night.

Based on his own experiences written by Thomas L.