Rajneesh takes a deep breath before begins his confession.
The first time I saw her was on her on-site visit to the engineering department. It was a few days before or after Valentine’s day. I know that because William had asked for my permission to work from home the whole week. Everybody knew he would be in Hawaii instead, spending Valentine’s week with his boyfriend. But I let him go anyway, pretending that I don’t know work-from-home means surfing-from-Hawaii. I even stepped up to cover his on-call shift myself, so that those two lovebirds could have their mind free, to celebrate their love without worrying about the problems at work.
Knowing that we will have a special guest visiting that day, I had already instructed my team to hold their farts for a while. Out of an abundance of caution, I even gave Felicity a day off. We had been told that the visitor has passed all the security clearances and that she is the daughter of Senator Honestman, a major shareholder of the company and its upcoming Uranus universe. What they had not told us was that she has one of those foxy eyes made of Black Hole; they have a gravitational effect that no gaze can escape them. She was not sexy though, in any particular way. I am not saying she was ugly. No. But, sexy? Nah. Except for when she smiled; the little up and outward curves around the corners of her lips. I call it the Mona Lisa smile. I liked that. It was cute. But, sexy? Nah. It was just OK. I also liked her lips—.
“Rajneesh,” Michele yells, pointing to the hologram of the ticking clock that appears before him.
Ah, OK. Anyway, the bottom line is that I was not attracted to her.
I just did not know why I felt a strange pain on the left side of my chest when I saw her with Senator, standing next to Michele’s desk. It must have been because of those spicy burritos I had eaten for lunch. I felt better when she expressed her humility for the perfection in my creation. Lynda was just so excited about all the possibilities that Uranus would create. Fascinated by the level of sophistication in our work, she was inquiring of the required colleague education that would enable her to join my team. She must have recently graduated high school, I gathered.
She then whispered to Michele something about how much he hated high school. I was not eavesdropping at all. No. It was just very hard not to overhear their conversation. She was saying that she wants to be the first to try out the beta release of Uranus. She wanted to gift it to some asshole named Ryan.
“Which Ryan,” Ryan asks.
I don’t know. Some douchebag from her class. Who else in your class is named Ryan?
“None,” Ryan responds, brows knitting.
Oops. Anyway, Michele started showing her a demo, explaining how Uranus works—and of course, falsely claiming all the credit for its design.
“Excuse me!” Michele barks.
Oh. Did I say that out loud? Whatever. I do not think Lynda was listening to her nonsense anyway. With the Mona Lisa smile on her face, Lynda was immersed in the hologram of the demo itself. The demo of my creation. Suddenly, she stood up from the chair, her gaze still glued to the hologram. Stretching out her hands toward the demo of Uranus, she approached it as if she was hypnotized. With every feature that Michele showed to her, the smile on her face became wider and wider, and the Burrito ache in my chest grew bigger and bigger. It was all over my body.
And in that moment, a beautiful picture was inspired to me; that her searching hands have reached me; that she and I are together; and she is looking up at me, smiling; and she is happy; and I am happy that she is happy. And in the moment, I felt how meaningless life would be without that picture.
Before I knew, I found myself stepping toward her. My legs were no longer under control of my consciousness. All I could do was play along. And I thought to myself, why not? After all, I am the creator of the world she admires. She should be thrilled to meet the creator, to appreciate his art, to admire him, and who knows, perhaps to love him too. Yeah, she would, I thought.
My confidence pumped up, I approached her. I thought I would present myself, let her know I am the creator of the world she is in love with, and give her the pleasure of witnessing me and my greatness, my glory, my… preeminence.
“Hi, I am the creator,” I said humbly but got no reaction. She was all immersed in Michele’s presentation about my creation; why would not she? It’s not her fault that my creation is a mesmerizing marvel. “Excuse me,” I said after clearing my throat. Still no reaction. I eventually had no choice but to touch her on the arm. Her skin was smooth like a water snake. It is not my fault that her shirt was sleeveless.
“Pervert,” Michele says, following that with a pretend cough. “Oh. Did I say that out loud?”
“Give him a break, would you?” President tells Michele.
“Sorry,” Michele says.
One knows he must have stepped too far in the wrong direction, when a man like President backs him up.
Where was I? Yeah. I touched…ah…her purse. Yeah. Her snake purse. The shoulder strap was shaped like a water snake.
“Yes,” she said while turning back to me, her arm, I mean her purse, separated from my hand. The cute smile disappeared from her face the moment her gaze fell on me.
Have you ever dived into a cold plunge after a hot sauna? When there is a moment that the temperature shock actually stops your heart. And you wonder if your heart is ever going to beat again. And you kind of wish that it did not. But when it does, you find yourself farting. It’s strange, I know. We, software engineers, actually call it the fartpool in our department. Anyway, that is how I felt when she treated me like that.
I came back to attention. The weight of her arrogant, condescending gaze was still on me, crushing me like a piece of trash paper.
“I am the creator,” I said with a hoarse voice after swallowing hard against the lump in my throat.
“Yeah, so?” she said, a lack of interest obvious in her voice.
It was then when her daddy long-legs shoved himself between us, his back almost toward me.
“Have you visited the graphic design section, sweetie?” he said while pushing me on the chest like I am some sort of sexual predator. Like I even care to have sex with his precious daughter.
“Let me introduce you to graphic designers,” Michele said while taking her arm away from me. “You’re gonna love them.”
Before I knew she was gone, and I was left alone, hanging there like a sad dick losing its erection. The patronizing sideways look that my engineers were giving me was simply unbearable. I even could swear I heard one of them sneer.
Just a few minutes earlier, I was sitting in my cubicle, minding my own business, doing awesomeness, worriless, free from care and sorrow. And one denial later, there I was, a zombie, possessed by an obsession. What I did not mind having before, like an extra dessert after Thanksgiving turkey, now I had to have it, I needed to have it, more than oxygen to breathe.
She was gone, so was the ache in my chest. It was replaced with a gaping hole. A hole that I could not rest until I fill it up with something. There, right there, I had a new purpose in life: making Lynda Honestman fall… in love, I mean. With me, of course. Then I wrote—
“So then you wrote this horrendously unpredictable code?” Michele spits.
Then, I wrote love…