Super Pals! 💖

I was in a dream.

I knew it was a dream because Snowball was there and she wasn’t even trying to do anything that might inadvertently get me and/or what little remained of my reputation killed.

She was sitting on a soft, green bed of freshly cut grass so I sat down next to her… onto a bed of nails instead. “Owwww! Dammit!” Stupid dream logic. “Why the heck do I have to be the butt of damn near every joke, even in my own head?” This was just sad.

But Snowball just smiled and patted the grass next to her. Carefully this time, I sat next to her. A cool wind was blowing. She was munching on a popsicle in spite of it. From nowhere, she procured another one, still in its wrapper, and handed it to me. I didn’t refuse.

“Are you alright?” she asked once I was finally situated and eating my share.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I was looking out into the distance along with her now. It was foggy and nebulous, a swirling mist of indistinct gray. That vague substance surrounded us, quietly, namelessly. I thought that maybe it represented my future. Or my state of mind maybe. My reluctance when it came to giving the Super Secret Love Diary 💖 a name.

Or maybe it was just some sort of dream representation of all the fluffy pillow innards my pet chupacabra had strewn about the other day after destroying the living room couch. Who knew?

“The super slap hurt way more than sitting on those nails,” I told Snowball. I glanced over again. The nails were now gone. “Hey, Snowball. Can I ask you something?”

She laughed. “You just did.”

I took that as an ok. “You’re not the real Snowball, are you? You’re just a figment of my unconscious, super-slapped-silly mind, right?”

“Mhm. That’s right.”

“So maybe you can help me find the answer.”

“Answer to what?”

“To the question.”

She just cocked her head to the side, as if puzzled. I couldn’t help but think that she was a lot like the real Snowball. My subconscious had done a good job capturing her, I felt. Come to think of it, this Snowball was, like, simulacrum +1, right? A dream of a robotic replica of a clone of the real deal. A branch of a branch of a branch. Three layers removed. However you wanted to put it.

The thought struck me that even though the real Snowball was a copy of a copy, she was still a complete, real person, all her own. All of a sudden, I felt like I wanted to be nicer to her. Even if she made my life harder sometimes. And I also felt like as long as I knew her, she’d always continue to surprise me. Maybe that was ok.

That was how I felt, inside that dream, for some reason. Sometimes — most of the time — you can’t help how you feel. I decided then and there that when I woke up — if I woke up and didn’t, you know, end up kicking the bucket thanks to this stupid super slap — I would be truer, even if just a little, to my own feelings.

I looked at the Snowball in my dream. She looked back.

Unlike the real Snowball, the Snowball inside my head was no real person at all. So I thought that, unlike the real Snowball, she wouldn’t be able to surprise me.

She did anyway. That Snowball — you just never know with her. Even when she’s just a character inside your head.

She surprised me by telling me something the real Snowball had told me a long time ago. Something I thought I had forgotten. “It’s ok,” she told me. “You can take a step forward. That’s what I think. I think that sometimes, it’s ok to follow the path that’s been laid out for you, and then take just one more step. Tread just that much more ground for whoever comes next. Add just a little more to what has already been achieved.”

I thought she was done, but after a second, she smiled and added: “ One small part of your own story, however modest. Just one thing. A single trace. One tiny piece of something you love. If you think you can add something of your own to what has already come before, then it’s worth a try.”

Suddenly I laughed. Deeply, like I hadn’t felt myself laugh in ages. Even I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because I hadn’t even asked her my question yet, but somehow, some way, I got the impression that this was her answer. It felt good, laughing like that for a change.

“Hey, Snowball?”

“Hm?”

“Are you really just a figment of my dreaming mind, or…?” I was starting to get the feeling — no, not just a feeling but a belief, the dream sort of belief, a conviction that comes from nowhere but that you know must be true — that she was actually…

My thoughts trailed off, lost, as if swallowed by the nameless mist.

She smiled again, strangely and meaningfully.

#

“... And the next thing I remember is waking up here. And, well, I guess you know the rest.”

I looked right at Replica, my little sister, expecting her to say something, finally. She had been entirely quiet, just sitting and peeling an apple by the window of the hospital room this entire time as I told her my story. Now that I think about it, she may have just set a world record for slowest peeling of a fruit of all time.

Silence. I blinked at Replica a couple of times from the clean, white bed. I was looking at her expectantly. She was looking at me like I was mentally impaired. When she finally spoke, all she said was, “Why the heck did you just tell me that story?”

“Seriously? Cause I thought you might be interested, that’s why! I’m your brother, for pete’s sake. Weren’t you at least a smidgen interested in the crazy adventure I went on? Or concerned for my well-being?” Sure, I may have started explaining this entire ordeal to my sister, who was there when I awoke in the hospital, unpromptedly. And sure, I may have belabored and overaccentuated some of the details, rounded a few bends more slowly than I could have. But I was her older brother, dammit! Didn’t she care at all?

I was almost afraid to ask.

Still, gratitude where gratitude was due: she was finally done peeling the apple, and now she was slicing it into bite-sized slices. “Thanks for the apple. I’m starved. Really thoughtful of you to peel that for me.”

“This is for me, dumbass.” She popped one of the apple slices into her mouth.

Aw, come on! Can’t a guy catch a break? I was just super slapped, for crying out loud!

“But I’m starving here! I feel like I haven’t eaten in an entire day!”

“You haven’t. You got knocked out on Friday, and it’s Saturday night right now. Just count yourself lucky you have such good friends. They were the ones who brought you here. Fence and those two weird girls. And that weirdo talking book thing. Personally, I would have just left you in the bathroom in the woods if it was me.”

Jesus, that stung. Still, Replica was right about my friends. I really thought that. Fence and Snowball — at the end of the day, they were my pals. No matter how much Snowball got under my skin sometimes. Or even all the time. Before, I hadn’t really been sure how to feel about her. I made a big deal about hating her, but I didn’t really. I never had. I just didn’t exactly know what my own feelings were. Couldn’t sort out my own thoughts.

But I decided then and there that I liked her. Not, like, like like. Just, like, like. She probably wasn’t going to like that, I thought. And she probably still wasn’t going to want to take no for an answer. There was also the whole “marrying me without my permission” thing that we’d have to sort out. But everything in its time. We’d work it all out eventually. If we could start as just being pals for now… well, that was fine by me.

And then there was Snowcube and the Super Secret Love Diary 💖. Maybe it was just the good mood I was in for some reason, but I kind of thought that me and them would one day be pals too, probably. No, not probably. I was sure of it. Somehow, I just knew. In my gut.

Speaking of which, I was still hungry.

“Can’t I at least have the peel?” Too late. As the words left my mouth, Replica was already in the process of tossing the red spiral into the trash. “Never mind. Man, you’re annoying. You know, you didn’t say a single word while I was telling my story. And it was a wild story too. Didn’t you have any part of it you were curious about?” That was Replica for you, I guess. She had an incredible capacity not to care, especially about me.

“There was one part that kind of concerned me.”

“Which one?” Finally. Something to work with that wasn’t just her deadpan expression of sheer indifference with occasional flashes of minor annoyance. I was all ears. “Well? Go on.”

“What was all that at the beginning about wearing my underwear to school?”

“Gulp. Uh, w-well, about that, err, you see…!”

Luckily, we were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Oh.” Replica perked up. “I think your friends are back. Which means it’s time for me to get going. I was just here supervising you while they were out. They’re really the ones who have been by your side the whole time.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t think I’ve gone all soft or anything. Mom made me do it. She didn’t want you accidentally getting a bloody nose because you picked it for five hours straight in your sleep again like you did that one time.”

Before I could even think of a half-decent comeback, she was already gone, replaced by three — no, four — people I wasn’t at all displeased to see. Fence. Snowball. Even Snowcube and the Super Secret Love Diary 💖 were there. At the sight of them, an involuntary smile spread across my face. They were the ones who had brought me here, Replica had said. Had seen to my safety in the end. They had stayed with me, and were going to continue staying with me.

Yeah.

Yeah, despite everything, even if they had actually caused this to begin with, I really did love my pal—

“Oooh, you're finally awake, Comb! Hey, what’s this do?” Snowball ripped a random electrical cord out of its socket, causing the bed to fold in two — with me still in it.

“Jesus Christ, put it back, put it back!” I screamed from the midst of a sea of bedsheets and a sudden snapping rush of pain in my back.

“Ouch, dude. Are spines supposed to make that cracking noise?”

After a few painful minutes and some help from Snowcube, they managed to get the bed back to normal.

Yeah. I loved my pals. I stood by that. No matter how hard they sometimes made it to do so.

“Hmph. I believe some thanks are in order.” Snowcube was the same as ever. I told her thanks for fixing my bed, and for helping get me medical attention even if it was partially her fault I needed it, and that I forgave her for coming up with the whole kidnapping plot. Snowball did too.

“I’m sorry for taking away all your time at school, Snowcube,” she said. “We can trade off from now on. Or better yet, we can both go together! Then we can wear the same thing every day and be super twins! And I hope all of us can be friends from now on.”

Snowcube just “hmph”-ed again, but I could have sworn I detected the faintest hint of a smile creeping to her lips. In any case, she didn’t seem opposed to the idea at all.

“Don’t forget about me,” said the Super Secret Love Diary 💖. “I can’t be with all of you at school, but don’t count me out after dark.”

“Guess all’s well that ends well, dude,” Fence remarked.

“Yeah. But there’s still something else. One final thread that hasn’t been tied up. One last piece of this story that hasn’t been puzzled in. Remember?”

The group fell silent, until the Super Secret Love Diary 💖 said, whispered almost: “You… you mean you’ve thought of a…?”

It was exactly what I meant.

“It’s good to see you, Fence. Snowball. Snowcube. And…”

I took a deep breath and turned to the hovering diary. That nameless cosmic existence. That naturally occurring artificial super intelligence who had everything but a name, and who had entrusted me with giving it one.

I had finally decided.

It was worth a try.

“... Yuki 💖.”

THE END