the system is down

Danger! Danger! Danger!

Viki said to Blue, "you know it is times like these I pretend it's 2003 and I don't own a cellphone."

When the system is down and you don't have to go to work, what do you do? I usually check the weather and look at my Viki and wonder if she is just flashing red in your temporal lobe to the neon illuminating sign Danger! Of course, the neon is sparking and she's is about to twitch. Wait, I cannot check the weather cause its connected to the system.

Vikki was more adventurous than me so I knew what she wanted to do. Go hiking like is '03? She and I said that aloud at the same time. Even when the system is shorting out, nature can provide. So we went a hiking in the nearby woods. Looked for chokecherries to eat. We found 'em by the handful. As a treat we fed each other them one-by-one. We smiled and gave each other chokecherry kisses. Our pockets were overflowing with chokecherries as we wandered back to our townhouse. We came across a chap and offered him chokecherries.

"Naw thanks Blue, had my fill wandering around with the system down myself," said neighbor Ned.

The system is down. The system is down. If you say it out loud it is like to need to say it twice. Blue gushed a chokecherry smile. Vikki gave the same smile back and they wondered about the next move. Blue always wondered more about the next move than Vikki. As they crossed the threshold to into their townhouse they both waved at neighbor Ned and said in unison, "Say hi to Megan and the kiddos for me."

Ned looked back and said, "don't forget to reset your password."

The reset was implied. The system went down with infrequent frequency. Everybody went back to work at home and logged in at home and changed their password. Vikki was getting pissed she had to change the password ever-so slightly to get it to be accepted by the system. It started as "unicorn". Then "Unicorn". Then "Unicorn5". Then "Unicorn5&". Then "Unicorn567&". What will it be next? Whatever the system adjusts for to ensure you are human. The system knowns if you change it too much you will not remember it when you have to go to work. The system knows if you don't change it you cannot go to work. Work. Work. Work.

Seems like there might be something to those that live in the woods. They don't have to change their password. They don't have a password. Nature can provide was a thought Blue had. Vikki thought that she could live in the woods if Blue was around. They looked at each other simultaneously with their chokecherry smiles and nodded in agreement. They went back to the woods.

Blue and Vikki didn't have kids or pets. They had a neighbor they saw from time to time. If Ned didn't report to the system that Ned and Vikki were missing, then no one would miss them.

Ned did not report them missing. Blue and Vikki ran through the woods and met other woodlanders. Woodlanders is what they called themselves; those that live outside the system that is.

Blue and Vikki were happy in the woods. They knew how to live in the woods from prep school and just being a human. Vikki was more defensive in meeting other woodlanders than Blue. Blue was more artistic. Blue always went farther and farther into the woods than the others. He was searching. He didn't know for what he was searching for, but he wanted to make it for Vikki.

In the system, Blue always applied to art festivals. He would get in and that would set a deadline to submit his work. He would submit and sometimes win. It was how he felt like he mattered in the system. Vikki was the opposite. Probably why Blue felt like he was a good balance to Vikki in the system.

The last arts festival Blue applied to he did it sharing a booth with Vikki. Blue was looking forward to that. Now that they were woodlanders, Vikki was the only thing he felt like needed and mattered. Blue liked living outside the system. On the wander he was on he saw it. Vikki would dig it. Blue held it in his hand -an agate.

If Blue was in the system, he would have tile sawed this agate and made it into a table top of some sort. As a woodlander he just had a rock. He said it back to himself. He just had a rock. He wandered back to the camp amongst the woodlanders and handed it to Vikki with the same cockamamie chokecherry grin that they left into the woods. She gave the same grin back.