Ficlet: Modern Love
Modern Love
Everyone thinks PC is jealous of Mac, or maybe they just think he should be. But PC’s been around the block a few times and seen apples rise and fall like Newton never even existed. He knows a mid-life crisis when he sees one.
It bothered him that they had gotten wrapped up in this rivalry that everyone wanted to exasperate between them because the truth was that PC liked Mac.
He still remembered a night in a bar after a trying week of one too many hard reboots, drunk on chemical fumes, when Mac had been a shoulder to cry on. Not literally, of course, but PC had leaned into him and breathed comfortably, the warmth of their cores making them hum in tune. He felt safer in that moment than he ever had in Safe Mode.
This wasn’t 1984 anymore and they’d both grown up so fast but PC was sure Mac was the same at heart, the same basic components changed with time, but fundamentally the same. The same as his.
It was 2010, for heaven’s sake, a modern world of high definition, three dimensional imagery, a googolplex of information moving warp speed through both of them, overwhelming oceans of choice, demand and opportunities for failure.
No one else would ever be able to understand exactly how that felt and PC wasn’t wiling to go another year without Mac knowing how he did.
It was 45 days into the year and PC had yet to work up the courage, when he opened the door and was stopped cold at the sight of an apple sitting perfectly centre in his doorway, red-skinned and flawless.
He picked it up, the edges of the sticker curled against his thumb as he read the label. He flattened a trembling finger over the heart-shaped logo, the word McIntosh bolded in his mind.
Then he took a step.