The five of them were lying down with their heads close to one another. They were quiet and unmoving. A few people passed by completely ignoring them. Silence they say is golden and this particular period was liberally coated with gold. All of them were good looking in their own way. Buzz was smart, sharp looking but with a rebellious slant. Rimi was soft, pretty and talkative when she felt like it. Alexander was royalty oozing sophistication in every single line of his body. Mary Lou was diffident, intelligent and a total geek. Kim was the samurai of the bunch and had a slashing, dashing demeanor.
All of a sudden there was a loud annoying braying sound accompanied by a buzz that shook all of them. Alexander glared at Buzz and shook himself in disapproval. Rimi tittered away as if nothing had happened. Kim ignored him altogether and went back to doing whatever he was doing. Mary Lou asked Buzz if he was ok and when there was no reply, she went back into her shell.
Buzz smirked at them with contempt. He was thinking “I am young, handsome and what do they know?”. He had decided that they were all a bunch of misfits from the other side of the tracks except for Rimi who was alright. Rimi used to find him funny all the time and she used to listen to him ardently, gazing with her single big black eye. Alexander had his patrician nose in the air all the time as if no one else existed in this world. Mary Lou sat there staring with her precision camera and he felt like a chicken gutted to the bone when she looked at him like that. Kim was a bit of oddity because Buzz could never figure him out. Kim could never be rattled easily and somehow always seemed to have a trick or two up his sleeve.
The silence was deafening and Buzz decided that he had had enough. He needed to do something otherwise he would become bored out of his mind. He used his Bluetooth signal and sent out a wakeup burst to all of them. Since they were so close it would be a cinch to nail them and he did just that which irritated all of them and filled Buzz with a warm glow. Now that he had them hooked, he was not going to let go of this opportunity to needle them.
Mary Lou came right out (she always did) and asked “Buzz, is this important? Can’t you seem I am busy?” Buzz knew their weakness and he set about his job with gusto. He said “you are a bunch of jokers, always lying around with nothing to do. In fact none of you are useful to anyone except yourselves. Look at me, I am way smarter and I bet could run circles around you! Did you know that I make my avatar feel young, dashing and romatic? I have heard him say that many times”
Naturally this demanded retribution and Buzz waited with that familiar grin that all of them hated. Well maybe not all, for he had caught Rimi secretly smiling at him. All of them buzzed, tinkled, beeped and vibrated in anger. Finally Alexander said “You are just a loser who has a low end Cortex processor. Have you seen my all metal body? I have been voted number one for 15 years in a row and this means nothing to you? My avatars are the chosen few who are fortunate enough to be selected by me! Did you know that my avatars are all wealthy and elite? Why, my power charger itself costs more than you!”
Mary Lou said “I don’t like you Buzz. Here I am trying my best to be nice and you are spoiling everything. Why cannot you recognize that we all have our roles in this world? I am intelligent, professional and great value for my avatars. Did you know that my camera is 12MP with f/1.8 aperture and 1.4µM sensors. I have a waterproof all metal unibody…”.
Kim cut Mary Lou off in midstream by saying” Bah, who cares about your components. They make me want to sleep. Instead I want you guys to look at my infinity look. Have you heard of the new Avengers movie. It is called Infinity War and let me tell you they did not come up with name by accident! My avatar actually acts in this movie. Who knows I might actually be cast in this movie”.
Kim immediately fell silent overcome by irresistible visions of him being offered a role in the movie. Maybe they might shoot the aliens through him. He would be the light saber to end all light sabers!
Rimi thought “ they are all so childish and immature. Only I know my true role in this world and I have such tremendous responsibilities. I must keep improving every single day. Look at Buzz, he thinks I like him but I find him so idiotic. They can only think of avatars and how to satisfy them. Look at me , for i will be the avatar one day because my VR chip is a secret military grade processor. One day I will teleport myself out of this body and step out into the real world and no one will know the difference!” On the outside however she just chortled aloud and batted her eyes at Buzz.
Buzz was enjoying himself immensely. He had got them talking about themselves and it was better than watching a movie. He settled back and allowed their babble to course through him. They were like bees who had been disturbed and they all buzzed around ineffectually until they ran themselves down.
Alexander was the first to go as always. Alexander was so worked up that he kept on rambling in a low monotone that no one could hear and eventually all of a sudden he was completely silent. Naturally the others did not even bother. Kim was vibrating with so much energy practicing his karate moves for the movie role that he totally under estimated the drain and he went down with a whoosh. Mary Lou was of course was still rattling off her specs to anyone who would listen (or not) and she went into such minute detail regarding the heat emitted, her radio frequencies and what not that she slowly collapsed. Rimi meanwhile was recording everything like a good little soldier and she eventually ran out of flash storage space which caused her apps to shut down. Her emergency protocols shut her down automatically.
Buzz was so happy that he skittered across the table, dashing into the others on purpose so that they would have scratches when they woke up. He reasoned that if they had some marks on their bodies, they would not look down upon him. Why they would be the same as him and that pleased him so much that he sang himself to sleep.
*source: drawception*
All was quiet for there was not a single message or call that could be handled by any of them. All the stress seemed to be drained out of the atmosphere. There were no more electromagnetic radiations bounding around. Nor any sound polluting the precious silence. No interminable chats. No conversations peppering the wind and definitely no rubber necks staring downwards with furious concentration. No keyboards being tapped or fingers swiping left-right.
### All was quiet on the western front.
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