Linux: A True Story: [Cueball talks on a cell phone.] Week One: Phone: Hey, it's your cousin. I got a new computer but don't want Windows. Can you help me install "Linux"? Cueball: Sure.

[Cueball's cousin sits in an office chair with her laptop on her lap. She is on the phone.] Week Two: Cousin: It says my XORG is broken. What's an "XORG"? Where can I look that up? Cueball: Hmm, lemme show you man pages.

[Cueball's cousin crouches on the floor with the laptop on her lap. She is still on the phone.] Week Six: Cousin: Due to auto-config issues, I'm leaving Ubuntu for Debian. Cueball: Uh. Cousin: Or Gentoo. Cueball: Uh oh.

[Cueball's cousin lies on her stomach with the laptop on the floor. On the floor are several pieces of paper and a book. Cueball stands to her left.] Week Twelve: Cueball: You haven't answered your phone in days. Cousin: Can't sleep. Must compile kernel. Cueball: I'm too late.

He smiled at me. His expression was weird, like a mixture between a grimace and a smug grin.

A grinace, if you will. Sorry, but I’m going to keep using that.

“Can I help you?” I asked him. Even tired, I still had attitude. It’s how I made up for my other shortcomings.

I didn’t know this guy, and I immediately wanted him to leave.

His grinace widened.

“Hey,” he said, wielding the same voice as he had during our business transaction. Even when forking over cash for an overpriced latte, he had this sexy kind of smoky voice. Raspy in a pleasant way, bordering on the seductive. All told, I would have liked it under other circumstances, such as hearing it on the other end of a phone call. But as it stood, he was creeping me out with it. “My shift’s over. Mind if I sit here and chat a little bit? Grace?”

My name was written in black ink on the side of my cup. He had written it there himself. It wasn’t my real name, because I don’t give out my real name in settings like these, and exactly because of guys like him.

“I do.”

“You don’t mind, or you—”

“Yeah, I mind. Do you mind?”

His grinace faltered, if only ever so slightly. A simple twitch around the corners of his lips. Typical for his type—physically attractive, well-groomed, superficially polite—he probably wasn’t used to outright rejection. His features were way too symmetrical and sharp for that, and the rest of his silhouette spoke volumes to someone who spent a lot of time in gyms and in front of mirrors.

I’m getting carried away, but I would be remiss to not paint a proper picture.

This is a warning.

I was just slivers of self-control away from breaking out into a cold sweat.

See, I have had a nightmare of this before. Almost this exact situation. It wasn’t a “Chuck”, and Not-Chuck was not as good-looking, and it sure as hell wasn’t in this branded venue. It wasn’t even in the inner city.

It wasn’t real. It had just been a bad dream.

This, however, was real.

The awkward silence in lieu of any reply only added to the dizziness I was starting to feel over all this. My stomach felt like I had been punched in it and my guts and muscles were all knotting up in response.

I was just ready to bolt. I was even telling myself that: splash the latte in his face, and run.

“Sorry, I,” he sighed. “I went about this all wrong, didn’t I? I’ll go.”

So, I didn’t bolt. I was probably more paralyzed than anything, anyway, regardless of what he just said. A deer caught in the headlights, split seconds from getting hit by the speeding car.

“I’ll go,” he said again, tapping the table between us twice.

He slid back out of the booth.

And, you know? Good. I grabbed my bag and jacket and the latte and made to leave, but now he stepped in my way.

Blocked the end of the bench I was sitting on.

He rested one hand on the table, the other on the backrest of the bench. He stared down at me, and his eyes glittered, glinting with something strange.

Predatory.

“I’m sorry, but I just—I have to. You know, there’s these chance encounters in life, and, y’know—w-what are the odds we never see each other again? I can’t let every chance slip away through my fingers.”

I took a shuddering breath and whatever I said next, my voice quaked. Yes, I admit, there was fear swinging in it. Mostly, though, I was furious.

“Chuck, I’m only going to say this once. Get out of my way, or I’m going to scream. Or do worse things to you.”

Other people in the café were all out of earshot. Neither me nor Chuck were talking loud enough to eclipse the surrounding conversations between patrons and people at the counter, so nobody had any clue what situation I was facing here.

He did the smart thing. He backed away, with his hands raised in surrender. He let his head hang, but the grinace stayed plastered to his face.

“Okay, okay, I get the hint. Again, I’m sorry. Can I, at least, you know, if you change your mind, give you my nu—”

“Get out of my way,” I repeated.

Was he stupid? I never wanted to see him again. He had raised so many red flags that I was seeing all red through my growing dizziness. If I was a bull, I was about to charge at him and spear my horns through his fucking heart.

I glared at him with the fury of someone who wished him to drop dead on the spot. I also wanted to run, but I didn’t want to show any weakness.

His slimy presence made it feel like he was the kind of guy who pounced on weakness.

Getting smarter by the second, he backed away another step and afforded me plenty of space to leave. I snatched my items and stormed out of the place, vowing to never return. Maybe not even to this part of the city until I had slept on this once. Or slept on it a thousand times more.

He returned behind the counter where he talked to one of the other baristas in hushed murmurs, and the girl there shot me furtive glances while he did that.

I didn’t even want to know. I pushed my way out of the place, full steam ahead.

Making my way to the bus stop, I both appreciated the bite of cold air as much as I hated it. Though I blamed it all on Chuck. Because of how I stormed out of there, I didn’t have the hands free to sling my jacket on until I reached the bus stop bench, but that cold sensation helped me feel alive. It was cooling me down, because my head was on fire, and spinning a million miles a minute.

Fucking Chuck.

That creep had really gotten under my skin. It had taken him so little to accomplish that.

While I plunked my bag and coffee down on the bench and finally slipped my jacket on, I mentally cursed him and wished all kinds of ill upon him. Maybe he could do everybody a favor and get his dick trapped in between two bricks smashing together?

Fucking Chuck. Made my blood curdle and chills run down my spine, especially as the temperatures clashed and I zipped up my jacket, and—

Chuck was following me.

I noticed him round the street corner that I had rounded. He no longer had his store apron on, no longer bearing any nametag to label him as Chuck. He immediately pretended to not be following me once he spotted that I had spotted him, and awkwardly turned around to hide.

I considered calling the cops, really. But I dreaded him overhearing the call, and how that might escalate the situation, maybe provoking him into more overt and aggressive action.

Instead, I just wanted to wait for the bus.

I plopped down next to an elderly lady whose face was partially covered by a bright blue scarf. She shot me a glance like I had something on my nose, then ignored me. I was tempted to tell her about what was going on. But with all my fire, I was still a deer in the headlights, and my head was spinning, and I was feeling sick.

I was mostly staring down the corner, hoping not to see Chuck ever again in my entire life.

And yet, I could feel his presence nearby. A real nightmare connection.

And the cold, well, it wasn’t really doing it for me. I was not feeling any better. In fact, I was getting dizzier by the second.

This took me back to the aforementioned nightmare. It all bubbled back up to the surface. The Not-Chuck in that nightmare had asked me something so terrifying and relevant that it now began to melt into this slice of reality.

“What would you do if I laced your drink with poison? The drink you’re drinking right now?”

And in the nightmare, it all happened so fast. That Not-Chuck just laughed and watched while I started transforming into disgusting ooze, helpless, melting into a puddle of mud.

But that was the nightmare, and this was reality.

I spied Chuck from the corner of my eye, while the streetlights dimmed. It looked like Fucking Chuck had horns? The streetlights weren’t dimming, my vision was fading. Was it just exhaustion?

Was I hallucinating? Had this creep really spiked my drink?

The bus’s brakes whined as it came to a slow stop in front of us.

But I couldn’t get on the bus. Its doors hissed as they opened, and the elderly lady got on board while I just sat there, stunned. Lost in thoughts and sinking deeper into my dread.

What if he followed me onto the bus, and I fell asleep, and he dragged me off, claiming to bystanders that he was just helping his drunk girlfriend get home?

No, no, no, no-no-nononono—

The bus doors hissed as they closed again and the big vehicle’s engine rumbled, taking off again.

The nightmare of reality was beginning to evolve into something worse than my nightmares.

I got up and staggered and stumbled my way down the sidewalk, past the blurring lights of traffic, and faces of passersby melting into demonic visages.

I had to get away from Chuck.

But the world was spinning all around me, getting worse by the second. This piece of shit had definitely done something to me, definitely drugged me. There was no other explanation.

I felt like stopping and puking, but it didn’t stop. I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

I kept seeing Chuck. In reflections in windows and metal; seeing him in glances I shot over my lurching shoulders. Always following me.

And the distance between us kept shrinking. He was gaining on me.

The rest of the path became a blur. I pushed my way into some random pub. Temperatures clashed again, someone swore at me when I bumped into them, and glass clinked. Warm lights, soft lights, dark corners, eyes on me, and I was sweating like a pig.

Next thing I know, I’m puking out my guts. Wet splashes. Stinging smells, chemical and acerbic.

Next thing I know after that, I’m hugging a toilet and peeling my cheek off a sticky floor tile. Someone was banging on the stall door. Yelling at me to come out.

Checking my phone, I had lost hours, almost my entire night. I felt like I just gotten hit by a truck.

I felt like shit. Saved by a fucking bathroom stall door.