"I have a soul?" she thought to herself, and to no one in particular. (Jenni believed other people could hear her thoughts, and while sometimes she addressed them to someone, this time she was just too genuinely surprised to get specific about it.)
"Ahem," said the soul-tugger, "Down here."
In the dimly lit realm of the metaphysical, Jenni's soul looked down past its woefully stretched-out sleeve and gasped. Before it sat a moderately brainless and dangerously lonely child, its helpless face and large-eyed, blank stare artfully--yet ominously--illuminated by the glow of its computer screen.
As Jenni's soul watched, the scene shifted. There was the child in its own cheerfully lit home, looking for companionship and attention in unmoderated chat rooms, innocently typing and LOLing away, when what can only be described as an appropriately dark metaphoric shadow shaped like a hulking, creepy-ass, pathetic man holding a four-pack of a malt beverage appeared in the doorway, severely compromising the once cheerful lighting in the room.
"Help me," the child said.
"Fuck yeah, I'll help you--help you out of your virginity!" the shadow shaped like a big ol' nasty predator said.
"Dude. The kid was talking to me." Jenni's soul asserted.
"ROTFTNLAABIS," the child sputtered. (That means rolling on the floor totally not laughing at all because I'm scared. Seriously, these kids and their secret codes.)
"Don't worry. I got this!" Jenni's soul bellowed.
"You don't really strike me as a virgin, but shit, I'm obviously lookin' for it any way I can get it, so, yeah, all right, baby. I want to hug u and touch u naked and put my thing in u. Ur so pretty," the predatory shade said. "U like Mike's Hard Lemonade, right?"
"Shuh shuh she was talking to me," the child managed to stutter.
Just as quickly as it began, it was over. Jenni's soul tried to make sense of it all by speaking out loud.
"Huh. I wonder what that meant?" Jenni's soul pondered, "An oddly genderless child...a grown-ups' beverage in crowd-pleasing flavors...a talking shadow that shaped like a guy who wants to fuck kids...hmmm. This one's a puzzler."
Back in the physical world, Jenni read a story about Miss America bravely luring internet predators as part of her "internet safety for children" platform.
"I know what I must do," Jenni and her soul said, at the exact same time.
"You owe me a Coke," Jenni and her soul said, at the exact same time.
Two Cokes later, it was ON.
To be continued...
1 comment:
I can't wait for the next installment.
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