A much-needed interruption

Arthur was on a coding rampage. For most of the week, the keyboard tapping was interrupted only by his most urgent necessities, some of which were done in front of the screen. All these sacrifices would be worth it – the lack of leisure and sleep, the stiffness of the neck and shoulders, the constant ordering and speed eating of junk food, usually in front of the workstation. Like a cruel and hungry deity, his current project demanded tribute, but a great boon awaited Arthur at the end.

Everything started when he came across a recorded lecture on a psychic and social phenomenon called mirroring. It was a technique for building rapport in conversation by imitating the posture, breath, tone, tempo of the other. Latter on Arthur discovered that in indirect conversation such as chats or email one could also build rapport by mirroring phrases, words, style and even emoticons. This negotiation trick had served Arthur well in his profession and even personal life and now he wanted to tailor it into a phone application. He had made a word recognition algorithm, something similar to the detested yet massively used autocorrect, but his algorithm could mirror phrases, words and subtlety imitate a communication style derived from sample chats and emails.

Now he was meticulously checking the code for bugs and errors. But it was not just the development, Arthur had a solid idea for the testing, the production of the application as well as how he would pitch his creation and market it. He saw the whole process crystal clear like a beautiful flow chart. This was similar to the pipedreams of parents, who shortly after the birth of their child see it walking, talking, acing exams, winning scholarships and trophies, graduating the University, getting a MBA, securing a lucrative position, marring and having children of its own.

It was not only the process. Arthur foresaw the benefits the app would bring. He saw satisfied users in the thousands who negotiated deals, secured positions and drilled valuable information all because of his hard work. It is amazing how one can dream vividly, whilst still doing complex tasks like coding. As it is customary for dreams, all the success was amplified in the imagination’s multidimensional landscape. While Arthur was merely crosschecking the code, all the wonder that it would bring was exploding with pomp in the backend of his mind.

This was during a sunny March morning. The aroma of blossoming plums cheerfully entered through the open window along with the sounds of birds and passing cars. The green drapes casted a thick shadow on one half of the room, where Arthur worked like a shade-loving insect, while the other half bathed in fantastic spring sunlight. As he stood there relaxed in his chair, as the keyboard was tapping and the birds were singing, everything in front of Arthur went black.

The script vanished and was replaced by the reflective darkness of a turned off screen. Arthur was frozen with shock. All his feelings disappeared like scared off birds, leaving him an empty vessel, motionlessly standing and staring at the reflection. In the last few days with the constant work and sacrifice, he scarcely had the time to look in any mirror. So for the first time in a while Arthur so himself – a tiered middle-aged man obsessed with success. His eyes baggy, his chin a dense chaparral, his gaze empty, a wasteland. He was spellbound by his reflection for he felt that it was not he who was in the dark screen, but rather a stranger who felt very familiar. A messenger bearing important news.

As he stood there, empty like a frontier, his mind started spontaneously presenting him with memories and fancies. At this point, the mirroring app did not even exist. It was only he, Arthur who thought of his boyhood in the town of Kalofer where his grandfather had a vineyard, of the little neighbor girl Nelly, who was his first crush. He remembered high school, the fresh paint on the façade, which faced the street, and the old flaky old paint on the back of the school where they played soccer. He remembered his first job selling books in the Christmas fair. Then he remembered Dona, his last girlfriend, he recalled the years spend together and their hard and prolonged breakup. From then on, the carrier of a senior developer was all that he had.

His mind turned once more to Kalofer, but in later years when the house was forsaken and the vineyard was lost in prickly shrubs and high grass. How he went through all the details in selling the property, a few meetings, a signature here, a transaction there and as if a heavy iron door had been sealed shut. He would never return to his grandfather’s house. The place where he grew up, where he spend the first four years of school, where he went on lazy summer vacations first with his parents, then with friends, lastly with Dona.

All this remembrances were pure and distilled in a nearly empty conscientiousness, devoid of sadness or joy. This was a much-needed interruption for Arthur. A meditation forced upon him by circumstances. His gaze remained fixed at the reflection, two tiered eyes staring back at him from the dark computer screen. A serendipitous meeting between Arthur and Arthur. It came in a flash then faded away like vapor in the cool spring air. With an unexplainable feeling of satisfaction, Arthur turned on the computer to see if there was any damage to the code.