Quang was lonely, which had a veil of irony hanging over it. You’ll find out why in a bit. Also, I should probably point out that Quang wasn’t his real name. His real name was Geoff Tompkins, but he’d had to change it as part of an initiation ceremony that may or may not have actually happened. Again, you’ll find out more about that as the story progresses. That’s the point of a story.
Geoff had always been something of a lonely soul and had spent much of his adult life trying to understand the mystery of that thing that we call love. He’d read best-selling books on the subject, such as “Women are from Wigan, Men are from Grimsby”, and “50 Ways to Stop Your Lover Moaning”. They hadn’t provided the slightest bit of insight. He’d tried hanging around single-parent support groups to find the answer, but, not only did this not make any sense, it was actually a bit creepy. He tried everything he could think of to investigate the matter - he had a great imagination, so this was a lot of things – but he got no closer to an answer.
The sheer scale of Geoff’s obsessive quest eventually led him to joining a secret society, whose purpose was to worship and understand love. Don’t ask how Geoff managed to join the society, as it was really secret and I don’t know. The society is so secret that some experts believe that it doesn’t actually exist at all. Indeed, one rumour persists that an argument erupted between someone who thought they were a member and weren’t, with someone who was a member and didn’t know it. It was all rather confusing.
After several years of suspected membership, Geoff had begun to think the whole thing was a damp squib. He felt no closer to an answer and, if anything, was lonelier than ever. Part of the society’s methods involved making yourself lonely in order to reach the spiritual plateau required for enlightenment. This is the irony of which I spoke earlier. Just as Geoff was about to revoke his membership and join the RSPB, he received a mysterious telegram (yes, they still exist) declaring that he had successfully joined the elite 14th-level of the society. From that point on, he would be known as Quang. He didn’t like being called Quang, but he didn’t like to make a fuss.
Let’s flash forward a few months. Quang was in a remote training camp, somewhere near Anglesey. He’d spent 4 days locked in psychic combat with an angry wasp. He felt physically and emotionally spent and was looking forward to a couple of days downtime, maybe going wakeboarding with the guys. He returned to his cell for a nap. As I’ve already said, he was right tired. To his amazement, his mentor, Mow, was sat cross-legged on his cot. Quang was a bit miffed, but decided not to show it.
“Ah, my young apprentice,” said Mow. “You are ready to break the final curtain. Are you aware of the ROMCOMputer?”
Quang was indeed aware of it. Everyone in the society had heard of the ROMCOMputer – the ultimate source of all love and romance. Many believed that it was a myth, something made up by a disgruntled employee of a well-know, high-street pharmacy chain, as a prank. Now, it seemed that the legend was indeed a reality.
There was no time to lose (actually, there wasn’t a rush at all, but Mow liked to keep things dramatic), and Quang was rushed into the meditation chamber\table-tennis room. Before he knew it, Mow was leading him into a guided trance. The corporeal world was soon a thing of the past, as Quang floated like a butterfly and stung like a seaside umbrella vendor. What happened over the ensuing days is so bizarre that it would melt your tiny brains were I to recount it now. Quang completed a series of tasks within the dream realm that took him ever closer to the ROMCOMputer. The most normal part of the quest involved driving a clockwork memory-barge anti-clockwise on a canal of spectral-lava around a throbbing egg-moon. Crazy days.
At some point, Quang emerged from the fiction-womb into a mighty desert. It was a mighty desert with a whopping, great big computer smack bang in the middle of it. I don’t want to exaggerate, but the computer was at least a trillion-storeys high. It was massive. Quang had arrived. He flew over to the pulsating tangle of circuitry and instinctively honed in on the user console – a humble monitor and keyboard on the face of a gigantic behemoth. He stared blankly for some time at the dusty keys. What would he ask, on this momentous occasion? The question had to be perfect. After careful consideration, he decided upon: WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON’T HURT ME, DON’T HURT ME, NO MORE. His fingers trembled as they hovered over the required letterage. He cautiously began to type. Nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing. He rapidly pressed number-lock on and off – nothing. He frustratedly started to bash alt-ctrl-del over and over. The console remained dormant. In utter frustration, he angrily smashed his fist against the monitor…
To his surprise, his fist went straight through the alleged display device. It was made of paper. He excitedly started to rip a hole in the side of the device – the whole bleeding thing was made from paper! It was somewhat intriguing. With a man-sized hole carefully torn, Quang stepped inside.
The interior of the ROMCOMputer was tiny, like a reverse-TARDIS. It was a room the size of two elephants. In the middle of the room was a chair. Sat in the chair was a beautiful woman. Gadzooks! Quang grinned. Could this really be happening? He had been on a quest to find love, within the bowels of a ROMCOMputer, and there he finds a woman of the most rare beauty? It was almost like the plot of a romcom. Surely this couldn’t be a coincidence. Could it be that he was here to find love with this divine creature that sat before him? He gingerly approached.
“Excuse me,” said he. “My name is Quang. What is your name?”
Barely a flicker of recognition fluttered across her serene countenance.
“Please,” he continued. “I’m here to find out the meaning of love. Are you the meaning of love?”
This time, there was the faintest of reactions on her perfect visage. Her succulent lips parted as she began to speak.
“0101011101000001110101000111010110,” she said. “01011000111110010110110110110111000110101.”
Quang was stunned.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“010101010010100011001111010010100110000111011010,” she replied.
Quang’s mouth fell agape. It seemed that she wasn’t a woman, after all. She was a stinking computer. This wasn’t very useful to Quang, it has to be said. She was fit, though. It seemed that although the ROMCOMputer controlled all romantic entanglements in the multiverse, she was not capable of conveying what any of it meant. Quang was well pissed off.
He decided to leave and rapidly rose through astral layers at a far quicker speed than is advisable. He knew the risks of getting the psychic bends, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to get the hell out of there. With a blink, he was back in the physical world. Mow stared expectantly at him.
“Fuck off,” said Quang.
It was time to go. If he had a membership card, he would have thrown it in Mow’s face, but he didn’t have one. The society was too secret for that.
Geoff left the commune. He would try joining the RSPB, instead.
