Tomma

      Eric Ludus of the air soccer team was a big man on the Atraville campus. He had scored the winning goal in that recent close game against their archrival, and now, as he swaggered across through the Student Center, all eyes would turn to him as he walked passed. He liked that, especially when he saw Shayla Sagasu's eyes watching him as she walked through the crowded Student Center. Shayla was the popular reporter for the Atraville Atlas, who to him was beautiful perfection housed in a dazzling figure with long black hair. They locked gazes for a moment while Eric's heart pounded. Was that just a tiny smile on her face? Should he do it? Should he ask her to the Kyla tonight? But she looked too perfect, and he didn't know what to say, so his legs just kept walking.
      As he left the Center and Shayla behind, he saw the myriads of other students whispering, murmuring, and pointing as they passed by.
      "Eric, hey Eric!"
      There was Joli Beau through the maze of eager faces and following eyes, coming towards him on the walkway, laughing and smiling. Joli was fun. She threw the best parties. Her beauty was certainly not a match for Shayla, but she was had the greatest personality of anyone he had ever met.
      "Are you coming to the Kyla tonight," Joli asked him. "It'll be a bomb!"
      Should he ask her? Should he ask her to go to the Kyla with him tonight? She was practically asking him, and it would be so easy. But his feet just stood there and all he could think to say was, "Yeah, I guess, I'll be there."
      "Great!" Jolie returned, smiling spiritedly. "Then I'll see you there." With a swish of her mop hair, Joli was drowned in the sea of admiring faces. Eric had missed his chance again. But then again, he still wasn't sure if he wanted that chance.
      That evening, Eric left his dorm room, took the magnavator down to the ground floor, and walked alone from the South dormitory tower to the Plaza that was the Kyla. The Kyla was a row of shops south of the Atraville campus, named after the most prominent shop, which was an old-time coffee shop that it turned into an energy drink bar. Throngs of students were packed into a standing-room-only crowd in the shop called “Kyla Coffee”, even though it didn’t actually serve any coffee anymore. Why was everybody packed into this one shop when there were seven or eight other shops bars establishments where they could go?
      Eric squeezed through the crowd to see if he could find out what was the attraction.
       “Look, its Eric Ludus.”
       “Protons, he’s such a top quark.”
       “Eric, hey Eric! Good you made it!” It was Joli waving to him from one of the tables. Eric waved back, but as he pushed his way further into the shop, he heard other, different words.
       “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
       “Yeah, and what kind of weapon was that?”
      They were voices from the crowd directed at Joram Contendo, skinny and not particularly athletic, with black hair and thick eyebrows that went clear across his face. He could never be an athlete; he could never be an air soccer star. But then, Eric could never have done what he had done.
       “Anyone can do it,” Joram said to them all. “It was just as Professor Veritas had said, it was the yagi, it was the sanctus energy. They’re powerful weapons...”
      Then Eric saw her, sitting next to Joram. He had seen her before, but not like this. He remembered Tomma Torstig as the disturbed freshman physics student who hung around with Nick and Joram, with hair that was long, blond, oily, and very dirty, and who he thought might punch him in the face if he so much as said hello. But she was different. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, but there was a gracious smile on her face that said everything without her speaking. It was when Eric locked eyes with her that he knew he had to ask her.
      "Would you like to join me for a drink?" It was so natural. He had asked Tomma before he had even thought about what he was doing.

Narration by Howard Douglas; based on discussions with Tomma Torstig.

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