Programmer of hearts

He clicked his mouse on the unread letter. It was from her. They'd only seen each other once in the capital, and then she'd gone back to her hometown, and they'd started writing to each other ever since.

She felt as if she had known him for several lifetimes. Their meeting had been a mere formality - their bodies had to meet because their souls were old acquaintances. They had so much to say to each other; to recall all the unfulfilled dreams from before and to share the conclusions they had come to in their previous lives.

She thought she knew him. She was fooling herself. He wasn't just a programmer by profession. He was a programmer of hearts. Quite a skilled one too. And she was his new target.

A sharp mind could be extremely impressive. Genius, however, always has some tangent with madness. He had crossed that line. But it couldn't be detected between the lines of e-mails, and that was his trump card. The programmer had imagined he could reprogram any female soul he wished. And this "glitch" in his system had occurred after the only woman he'd ever loved had left him.

Their separation had been painful for him. The virus of despair had burrowed deep into his database and was giving him no peace. He felt betrayed because his source code was failing - he thought he had shown that he loved her, but it still wasn't enough for her. There were no good instructions on how to wirelessly connect two hearts. The magic either worked or it didn't. But it was too hard for his template-filled programmer's head to comprehend.

He had devised a scheme on how to program her perception of him. He'd create a virtual image for her to love, and just before he put the domain to use, he'd disappear, "Error 404. The page you tried to access was not found."

The plan was well thought out. During the day, he worked like a normally extraordinary programmer with a pleasant sense of humor, respected by his colleagues, and a close circle of friends with whom he tried to escape the cliché that computer people are inherently antisocial.

At night, he would eagerly open her newly received letters and consider how to charm her. Everything was going according to plan until one night he failed to log into his mail. And this went on for a week. How many unread letters had he gathered? What was she thinking? He didn't have her phone number, nor had he given her his for security reasons. It was much easier for him to write because he had time to think about his response, and over the phone, his response in a hurry might not be so perfect.

This week he optimized completely. But not in the way he wanted. Suddenly he caught himself thinking his desktop was full of her emails. Her honest feelings ran through his thoughts in his sleep, peeking between the lines and breaking all the codes he'd programmed into his mind beforehand.

He had failed. She had reprogrammed him with her love. She'd installed a new program in him, previously unknown to him. And he had no antivirus program. He didn't believe he could be under the spell of a woman, and from so many miles away, with all that data transfer...

He'd been through hell that week - totally hacked, and when he least expected it. At one point, he started to fear what he was going to read when his email worked again. And he was relieved when he saw he couldn't access it. The result of the search in his system was more than clear: LOVE - unexpected, occurring as quietly as a footnote, but those in the smallest of letters.

A whole week passed. A sleepless one. Coffee stopped working after the third day. The programmer started making stupid mistakes at work during the day. He really felt like a fool. A stupid genius who imagined he could rewrite someone's fate thanks to a few emoticons and links to soulmate videos.

Suddenly, his mail opened. Hallelujah! His hand trembled. 14 unread letters. And a few of hers in between. The last one read:

"I don't know what's going on. Probably what I was most afraid of - that you were just an illusion. You appeared in my life like those spam windows we can't get rid of. And I didn't want to. Everything I was looking for I found in the collision of our worlds. I had dreamed of this collision of energies and thought it would create a new universe - our shared one. Clearly, I was mistaken and we are not from the same planet. Let each continue to live on our own, where the climate is favorable to us. Do not look for me again. I'm going to deactivate this mail. My feelings for you as well. It won't be easy, but I'll try. Goodbye, programmer of my heart..."

He turned black. In one week he lost the only real, not virtual thing he had a chance to have. Out of stupidity or geniality, he didn't know either. But he felt empty. "The page is being processed." And his heart? - How long? Reinstallation? Was there a suitable operating system version for his worn-out hard drive? Formatting? How could he erase her from his thoughts? After all, she, with her smiling letters, reminded him of those initial settings we all have before we experience a few love disappointments. Of the moments when we're ready to open up our social profiles and show who we really are - without parading where and who we've been with. To reveal ourselves by looking each other in the eye. How scary and strange that sounds in today's crippled age of virtual relationships and emotions.

The programmer wanted to find a solution to his real problems in an unreal way. A failed version. Full of programming errors. He was not a good programmer at all. He didn't go to work all week. He slept, drank coffee, smoked, and clicked aimlessly around the Internet.

Until one morning the doorbell rang. It was HER.

- I may not understand programming, but I was able to find your coordinates.

- On the contrary - you reprogrammed me...

And he kissed her. For real this time. And the feeling was incomparable.