Before Time (The Time Trilogy Book 1) (4 page)

Birthdays always excited me; a girlish thing, I guess. Even for my own birthday, it excited me to know that I was growing older. Even since childhood, I’d wanted to grow up quickly.

Impassioned:
Ahhh… okay, thanks.

ME:
No worries, anytime.

Impassioned:
Age doesn’t matter at all; I am the same as I was when I was 18.

I laughed.

ME:
Nice.

Impassioned:
Forty-five year old guys can be idiots, you know :)

ME:
45? Sorry I didn’t get that.

Impassioned:
I mean that if age matters, then forty-five year-old guys would be geniuses, but actually they can be idiots.

ME:
Yeah, I totally agree with you. Well, you know, forty-five year-old guys are perverts. They give such lustful looks to young girls.

There was silence from his end. He did not reply.

ME:
Busy?

Impassioned:
Are you?

ME:
You. Are. Busy.

Impassioned:
Actually, I am trying to stay away from popular people, as they already have a long cue of fans waiting.

I laughed.

Impassioned:
Popular people are bored tonight.

He returned to the topic we were discussing before he’d quieted.

Impassioned:
It depends on the accomplishments in life. Consider a fat, bald guy with an average-looking, narrow-minded girl in a middle class society. He would definitely give perverted looks. While a graduate of Harvard Business School, owner of his own company, with a wild-looking wife, would be having a cruise on his yacht when he is forty-five instead of giving perverted looks. I hope that explains it.

ME:
I agree with you.

Impassioned:
My battery indicator shows only thirty percent left, and I am on an airport, so I can give minimal company to popular people.

ME:
Aww…going somewhere?

Impassioned:
Yeah. To Qatar, I have a company office there.

ME:
I see. Long flight, eh?

Impassioned:
Only fifty minutes from Dubai.

ME:
That’s not far then.

I had this bad habit of jumping from one topic to another in the same breath. Dismissing the topic of his flight altogether, I said,

ME:
I’m getting good at trivia.

I was faster than other players, and I knew answers that they did not. After all, using Google to find answers of questions takes some time, even if it’s microseconds.

Impassioned:
Yeah, but for such a short flight, I have to wait for two hours and fulfill all the requirements needed for an international flight. Anyways, your main activity on IRC is trivia, then?

ME:
Not really. My main activity here is to insult people. They got hold of my picture and uploaded on the #Lums stats page. Therefore, I’m going through a tough time these days because of that.

Impassioned:
How did they get it?

ME:
Facebook.

Impassioned:
Who is “they”?

ME:
The admins of the Lums channel.

Impassioned:
I am sure they didn’t get it out of thin air. Some reference must have provided them with your profile ID.

ME:
I guess my name on Facebook has ‘princess’ attached to it, and I did join some of the IRC pages; perhaps they found it from there.

Impassioned:
So, you don’t want it to be there?

ME:
No! I don’t like these lame and stupid people ogling me.

Impassioned:
Babes :) If you don’t want it to be there, then you shouldn’t have it displayed on Facebook either.

ME:
No, my Facebook is my family account.

Impassioned:
In the end, the mistake is yours.

ME:
Still, they made fun of me.

Impassioned:
Do you look funny?

ME:
I am fat, and maybe even chubby.

Impassioned:
If we were heroes in real life, then we wouldn’t be spending so much time in the virtual world.

ME:
Of course.

Impassioned:
Secondly, nobody is sure whether that is your real picture or not.

ME:
But they have no right to judge me. I’m quite better than all of them.

I wrote back heatedly. I was angry at whoever had leaked my picture and put it up there on the stats page of the #Lums channel. I had fought to remove it, but nobody had complied with my request yet.

Impassioned:
I don’t judge people from their physical appearance; therefore, my opinion here would be totally opposite from the rest of the world. You know what; most people with beauty, whether they are men or women, have the blackest hearts. They probably don’t know you well.

ME:
Of course, but I don’t talk to anyone else like I talk to you. I treat them like they’re brainless. To tell you the truth, with the amount of experience I’ve had here, they truly can’t converse on an intellectual level.

Impassioned:
This is the first time I want to have a conversation with you, and this is the first time my charger is in the luggage as well. What a bad coincidence.

ME:
That’s really bad. I was looking around for you yesterday, but you weren’t here.

Impassioned:
Unfortunately, whatever we may think but people do go after physical appearances.

ME:
Yes, they do. That is my personal experience.

Impassioned:
Since I am in the telecom sector, I have a rule that I shut down my laptop whenever I exit the office and NEVER turn it on until I enter the next day. It is important for me to maintain equilibrium between my professional life and my personal life. That is the reason you don’t see me when the night is young.

Although he was telling me about his habits, I was still stuck on the topic of physical appearances.

ME:
A mom also wants to find the most beautiful, intelligent and educated girl for her son.

Impassioned:
Exactly.

ME:
Right, I get your habits, but you weren’t here in the day time either. It made me wonder where you were.

Impassioned:
Correct. I was travelling. Was there something important?

ME:
Not really. I just wanted to tell you that I woke up at 5:30 pm.

Impassioned:
And you already knew that I would be extremely disappointed to know that.

ME:
Yes, I knew that, but still.

I sent him a grin emoticon.

Impassioned:
This would make you a Barbie doll. Anyways, a brave girl like you does not need to talk to anyone at all.

ME:
Hmmm…I wish I was a Barbie doll.

Impassioned:
How many people on mIRC have access to your mobile number and real life information?

ME:
Only one person has my cell phone number and we don’t talk anymore. Some people have my msn email ID. That’s all.

Impassioned:
MSN is not really important. Anyways, one person is all it takes to make you regret something for the rest of your life. You shouldn’t repeat the mistake of giving someone your details again.

ME:
Of course I won’t. He is in the UK, and he won’t do anything to hurt me.

Impassioned:
Hurt is not always physical, and I just asked you how many people from IRC not from the internet. IRC is a curse; I am speaking from eleven years of experience.

ME:
I was telling you about IRC.

Impassioned:
Alright.

ME:
Have you tried Beyluxe messenger or Paltalk messenger?

Impassioned:
I have tried everything that has ever existed. What’s the use of a messenger which will connect you to people who are phony and hypocrites?

ME:
Nice. These days, these people here taunt me that I haven’t got a boyfriend.

Impassioned:
People are always after those who are hard-to-get. No big deal, there.

ME:
Of course, I don’t want anyone. I have a number of people to choose from in real life.

Impassioned:
What do you want, then?

ME:
Why go for fake people?

I wondered about the people on internet being phony.

ME:
I come here because I am bored.

Impassioned:
Would the numerous people that you have the option to choose in real life also choose you?

ME:
Yes.

Impassioned:
Try to speak humbly, you will get more respect.

I grinned stupidly.

ME:
But I will only marry based on my mom’s choice, as she will know what is best for me. I just don’t want to spoil myself for a few minutes, or perhaps days, of pleasure.

Impassioned:
You will marry only if you find a suitable guy, the probability of which is 1% out of 100.

ME:
How can you say that?

Impassioned:
Because I know what is going on in Pakistani society. What is your age?

ME:
I’m twenty.

Impassioned:
Have you been in a real life relationship before?

ME:
Yes, I was. Alright, I’ve got to go now. Mom’s calling me. I hope to see you soon.

Impassioned:
Alright. Take care.

ME:
You too. Take care of yourself, and have a safe flight.

With that, I disconnected mIRC and ran upstairs. My mom was screaming at the top of her lungs for me to come have my dinner.