Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 20:59:31 +0800
From: Dale de Leon <dale@toughguy.net>
Subject: A Day Gone Wrong 3

			A Day Gone Wrong

Chapter 4: Rainy Days and Fridays

KRAKATOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!

The thunderclap boomed across the whole sky, as winds buffeted the trees
with the incoming squall's mighty force.

I cringed as the sudden noise came from out of nowhere and startled me.
Boy, I hope Barry's party is held indoors... tonight is no night to be out
partying.  Heavy rains were blanketing Kanluran city and already I can see
the rising levels of flood water threatening to engulf the little strip of
space where my dormitory was located.  Brrrr.... it was friggin' cold.

I took out my ratty old blanket and covered myself in it.  It was dark
inside the little cubicle that had to make do as the room that I shared
with four other guys.  Two of the other people were working scholars, and
were out this time of night to do their chores.  The other guy was probably
out somewhere getting laid, or so he kept on bragging to the rest of us
roommates.  As for me... well...

I switched on the lamp placed on the little table that I had to share with
the other guys and opened my books.  I began poring over the commands
needed to encode a program in Visual C++.  You'd think it was a funny
thing... me, someone who's been a farmer all his life, majoring in
something so technical as a Computer Science course.  Funny thing or not,
that was what I had wanted to take.  I guess it came from listening to
Uncle Romano, who was a lawyer from the big city.  Everytime he came to the
province, he would always drop by and impress on me and the rest of his
nephews and nieces that, "...Computers are the wave of the future, mark my
words.  Someday, if you want to find jobs that will take you all around the
world, I guarantee to you... a computer profession would give that to you."
The rest of my cousins would just listen attentively and say their
customary Oooohs and Aaaahhs and go back out and dream of working a
nine-to-five job in a bank somewhere in the city.  Not me.  I took a
special attention to whatever Uncle Romano told me.  Among all his
siblings, Uncle Romy was the only one who had managed to get out of the
rural life and make a name for himself as a lawyer.  I looked up to him.  I
thought that if he could do it, then surely I could too, if I only gave it
a try.  And if the man said computers were the way to go, then surely
computers were the way to go.

The only computer that I had seen back in Sitio Maringgit was the really
old 286 model in the basilica's convento.  Some rich haciendero had donated
it when he upgraded to something more modern.  Mostly, the 286 was used to
encode documents for the masses held and for printing dot-matrix
announcements, streamers and posters.  At first, nobody could make heads
nor tails about it, since no one knew how to operate a computer.  So it
just sat there on the office gathering dust.

I had passed there one day as I was going to file a registration for a
nephew's baptism.  My eyes alighted on the computer and immediately I saw a
window of hope alighting on me.  I approached Bro. Joseph, one of the
convento's administrators.  "Uhm.. Bro. Joe... I was wondering if I could
perhaps... uhm... take a look on your computer?"

"What?  Oh that.  Why tell me Dale... do you know how to use it?"

I knew it was a sin to tell a lie, especially if to a priest, but surely
God would understand if gave a little fib as an investment for my future.
"Err, yeah.  I could."

"Marvellous!!" Bro. Joe cried out.  "We've been trying to find someone to
help us use it.  Perhaps you could help the convento out by coming here
every once so often to work things out for us?  That is, if it'll be okay
with you.  We can pay you for your efforts with a little sum."

Would I?!  "Why sure Bro. Joe.  I'd love to help you out."

"Good, good.  Tell you what... come over here by tomorrow morning and we
could get started on a letter that I'm sending to the Archbishop," Bro. Joe
said.

"Alright.  I'll see you then," I told him.

After finishing my business with my nephew's baptism, I hurriedly ran to
the high school library to see if there was anything I could use to
crash-learn what I can about using a computer.  I was so excited and guilty
at the same time.  What did I know about computers?  I was deathly afraid
of doing something and destroying it.  I have heard that computers were
very complicated and expensive equipment.

That night, as I went back home, I began introducing myself to the
wonderful world of MS-DOS, Wordstar and Lotus 1-2-3.  The words all looked
like gibberish to me, but thankfully I had my intellect and my sheer guts
that helped see me through until the following day.

The day came at last.  Trudging along the dirt path which led to the
convento, I could hear my excited heart go
thumpety-thump-thump-thumpety-thump.  This was it.  I was going to be a
computer man.

Bro. Joe led me to the little cubicle where the 286 was located and handed
me a few documents and letters which he wanted me to print out.  "Here
Dale.  Just complete this and give it to me when you're through."

I looked straight at his eyes and considered confessing my sin right then
and there.  I wasn't a computer man.  I was just a farmer playing at being
a techie.  It wouldn't be that much of a big deal if I came clean, right?

Then from out of nowhere, Uncle Romy's words came back to me.  "Computers
are the wave of the future, mark my words."  I gulped.  If I don't do this,
I will never get a chance to be part of that future.

I grinned nervously at Bro. Joe.  "Alright Brother.  No problem."  No
problem.  Right.

With nervous fingers I tried to locate the power switch.  I found it and I
turned it on.

I'll never forget the beautiful sound of a CPU humming itself to operation,
nor the wonderful feeling of knowing that so far, the computer wasn't going
to explode nor send a nuclear warhead to Russia.

I typed my first words on the dusty keypads of the console.  Right on the
spot of the blinking cursor where a green "C:" was located I began to type
those magical little passwords to a bright, shining future: "WS"

The Wordstar program came into operation.  I whooped loudly at my own
cleverness.

Four hours and a half later, give or take a million errors and a thousand
curses to be confessed at the penitentiary box, I had typed my first 3
paragaph letter.  From that day on, it became clear to me.  This is what I
wanted to be... a professional computer man.

Three years later, and I'm sitting here in a cold room, wrapped in a
blanket and freezing my nuts off, while studiously trying to make sense of
how to make a random number generator program.  I groaned to myself.
Visual C++ was a far cry from the initial DOS commands, QBASIC program and
Turbo Pascal applications that I had taught myself to use on that dinky
little 286.  The situation was compounded by the fact that I had no
computer to practice on.  Life was a bitch.

Well, I guess the only thing that I could do was to deal with the
situation.  I turned over a new page and struggled to make sense of all the
technical words that were crammed into it. *Groan*

I bet the party over at Barry's was a lot more fun than a random number
generator.


Chapter 4: Coffee Would Really be Good right about now.

3:00 A.M.

It was a damn cold morning.  I had already gone over my Virtual C++ book
over and over again until I was pretty sure that I understood all the
concepts.  By tomorrow afternoon I'll be stopping over the university's
computer lab to debug this sample program that I had formulated.

*Sniff* A smell of something burning wafted through my nose.  Those
crackheads over at the next room must be sniffing something illegitimate
again.  *Yawn*

I'm so sleepy!  No... correct that... I'm also very hungry!  My stomach was
rumbling so I checked my wallet to see if I have enough dough for some
sustennance.  Forty bucks.  Good enough.

Putting on some raingear, I went out of the dorm and negotiated my way down
the flooded street.  Damn, the water was knee-high.  I managed to trudge on
despite it.  Well at least it wasn't raining anymore.  If I weren't so damn
hungry I wouldn't be out here in this miserable environment.

After a good 30 minute walk I finally reached the nearest convenience store
that was open at this time of the night.

"Hey Gerry!" I called out to the attendant manning the counter.  "Hey
Dale... whassup man?" Gerry called back out.  Gerry was one of my neighbors
living over at the dorm.

"Hungry, dude!  Got anything to eat?"

"Yeah, we've got some hot coffee and some stale bread.  Tell you what man,
just pay for the coffee.  The bread's on the house.  It's gonna be thrown
away sooner or later anyway," Gerry told me.

"Gee thanks 'Ger. Could we have the bread heated up?"

"No problem man" and with that, Gerry popped the bun into the toaster.
"Nice weather we're having, huh?"

I nodded, then I turned my head as somebody came in and through the door.
My eyes opened wide.  Barry?

"Hey man, do you guys have any aspirin or something?" Barry Ty said as he
came in dragging a guy along by the shoulders.  A pretty young lass, whom I
knew to be Daphne Aguilar (one of the popular girls on campus), came
following after.

"Carsick?," Gerry asked as he took out an aspirin.

"Major hang-over," Barry said as he brought the guy over by the counter.
Then he finally saw me.

"Dale-man!  Hey, why weren't you over at the party?"

I shrugged and gave him the first alibi that popped into my head.
"Err... bad weather tonight.  No car, ergo Dale no go to party."

Barry nodded as took some cash off from his wallet and paid for the aspirin
and some bottled water.  "Bummer man.  You shoulda called me and I would've
picked you up like I did to these jokers over here," he said as he looked
back over to Daphne. "Hey Daph... watcha want?"

Daphne was looking over some tortilla chips and got that.  "Barry, get me
some coffee, will you hon?"

"Sure thing babe," Barry said then looked on over to Gerry who was getting
Daphne's coffee. "And hey, could you get me a coffee too, and some of that
bread Dale is having?" Barry said as he paid for the things.

The door opened again as someone else came in the store.  It was a pretty
young girl, whom I judged to be in high school.  Very pretty indeed.  She
obviously came from a Chinese family, judging by her looks.  She had
flawless white-alabaster skin, dreamy almond-shaped eyes and rosy-red
cheeks.  Her jeans were also wet from wading across the flooded street.

"Bianca honey, you're all wet," Barry told the girl.  She looked up to him
and shrugged.  Bianca spoke out, "Like duh.  I can't believe you guys left
me alone at the car."

Barry walked on over to her, put her arms around her and kissed her on the
forehead.  "Sorry babe.  You were sleeping and we didn't want to wake you
up.  Alan here had to puke, so we got out.  Can I get you anything?"

Bianca nodded and ordered some Coke and a pack of cigarrettes.  Barry paid
for it and turned his attention back to me.

"Oh yeah, hey guys, I want you all to meet my friend Dale.  Dale, this
here's Daphne, the sick puppy over there is Allan, and this is the love of
my life, Bianca," he said as he kissed Bianca on the forehead again.
Bianca rolled her eyes up and lit her cigarrette.

Daphne looked me over head to foot.  "Hey Dale, cool shoes," she said as
she gave me a wry smirk.  "My grandfather had one just like it.  He gave it
away to charity.  Was that where you got yours?" she said in a really catty
tone.

Ouch.  Yeah, my grandfather has one just like it too.  In fact, I'm wearing
it.  I was at a loss for words.

"Hey Daph, play nice," Barry said as Bianca stuck her tongue out at him.
"Pardon her Dale, it's been a long night."

I shrugged and continued sipping my coffee.

Allan appeared to be feeling a little better.  He was looking outside when
he suddenly spoke up.

"Cool man!  Two firetrucks just passed by.  Hey, there's probably a fire or
something, huh?"

A fire.  Cool.  Wait a minute, a fire??!!

Gerry and I looked each other eye to eye.  "The dorm!!!" we both cried out.

I dropped the coffee on the counter and ran out as fast as I can.  The damn
flood was still slowing me down.  I can already see the smoke pouring out
from the dorm's direction at a far away distance.  Accursed flood!  I have
to move faster than this!

Five minutes later, a car appeared by my side and its driver honked its
horns.  The car's window rolled down.

"Dale, get in.  Gerry told me where you lived.  We'll get there faster!"

I nodded as a door opened and Gerry motioned for me to get in.  I hopped in
the car and thanked God for this minor miracle.

Barry stepped down hard on the pedal and the car got roaring in no time.
We began speeding up as a tense silence filled the car's interior.  'Oh
God, please don't let it be the dorm!  Please God, don't let it be the
dorm!' I prayed to myself as we came closer to the source of the fire.

We finally came into view of the dorm.  I gasped and held my breath.


to be continued...


=================================
How did you like the story?  If you want to share your thoughts with the
author, please feel free to e-mail him via dale@toughguy.net

All comments are welcome, although I can't guarantee an immediate reply.