| His name was David, and I picked him off
the student list because he had the same last
name as me and I found it amusing that a small
school such as ours had two students with my
surname. He was married and 39, I was 18 and
looking for human contact.
I sent him an e-mail asking where he was from,
which course he was taking. I snooped a little
in his home directory, /home/CN889/davidk. He
snooped in mine, although neither of us knew we'd
been violated until later, when it didn't matter
anymore. He found the directory I'd forgotten to
restrict, the one where I kept my random thoughts
and rambling poetry files. I copied some of his
scripts into my /bin directory. I didn't
even know which face in the hallway was his,
in the beginning. He knew one of my brothers,
I knew one of his neighbors. We talked non-stop
using the unix based intra-school e-mail and missed
each other on the days our labs didn't coincide.
He'd use lines from my poems in conversation, it
made me blush that he'd remember them long after
I removed the files. I teased him about his grey beard.
We never touched each other. I would
have if he would have, there was nothing to stop me.
But he had a wife and the first move
was up to him. He had kids and the first move was
one that didn't exist. I'm glad he chose not to make it.
The year ended. We finished school. And
that was that.
| 
