Episode 2: Tag
I start my day the same as every other day. It begins with making a pot of coffee. While it brews, I check my blood sugar levels (diabetes; thanks, Dad), take my medications and vitamins and check it off in my bullet journal. Then, I head into the shower. Five minutes in and out. I don’t understand people who spend more than five minutes in the shower. I mean, unless you’re a girl and you have to shave miscellaneous parts.
By the time I’m done drying off and getting dressed, the coffee is ready. I sit down in my favorite armchair to check emails and socials. Sometimes, I don’t know why I bother. The people on my socials aren’t friends, exactly. But sometimes they have something good to post. Mostly, it is just gibberish. I usually scroll until I find something from one of the coder groups I’m in. Or if I see a Fork/Knife post I can comment on and help someone out, I’ll stop.
If I allowed myself to, I could doom-scroll like that for hours. But my limit is half an hour. When I first started limiting myself to half an hour, I had to set an alarm. Now, it is a habit and I just stop.
After that, I pull out the bullet journal and flip through the pages. I review what got done yesterday, move the things that didn’t get done to today’s list and check for appointments. I rarely have appointments, but I check anyway because if I don’t, I’ll likely forget all about it. And it’s a good thing I do because today I have a meeting with my supervisor at work. It’s just a review of my work, and I know it will be boring and a waste of time, but it’s non-negotiable as far as Fork/Knife Corporation is concerned. Everyone who works at FKC has to have a meeting every three months.
I flip the page and jot down some lines about how I’m feeling, what the day was like yesterday, and some things I want to do with my side project. My bosses have no idea what I’m doing, and I’d likely get in trouble for doing it without approval, and I know my supervisor would tell me it is a waste of time. Even though I don’t break the rules for the most part, I started it anyway. I couldn’t get the idea of this little side quest out of my head.
I’m a coder at FKC. My name tag says “FKC-COD97987” (COD for coder and 97987 for my employee number) but my name is Tag Martin. I’ve been working here since I graduated from high school, and I don’t think I’ve heard one person at FKC call me by name yet. It was my only goal in life when I graduated. One of the main reasons that I wanted to work for FKC was because I loved the game so much. At that time, the game had only been out for a couple of years, but it was successful already. I played at least a few hours a day every day after school. It was an escape from living with my crazy aunt and her boyfriend.
They were my guardians after my parents died in a car crash, but guardians was a very loose description of what they were to me. They didn’t do the normal parental things like making dinner and taking me to soccer practice and helping with homework. I don’t know if they even graduated high school. They were too busy drinking, doing drugs, and coming up with scams to get more money to drink and do drugs.
For the most part, I got a bed to sleep in (a mattress on the floor next to the cat litter box and cat food in the back entrance of their trailer), and sometimes there was food in the house. Not always. I was just as likely to have to go down to the Dipsy Shipsy fish and chips shop and skulk until someone left food on their plate after they left. Then, I’d have to be stealthy and scoop the food into an old margarine container that I carried in my backpack before Doris, the cranky waitress with the limp, turned and caught me in the act. Fortunately, she was old and had bad eyes, so most often, I got away with it. Even if I got caught, she’d just kick me out and then forget about it the next day.
Honestly, I had to be pretty desperate to do that. I really hated it. But if you’re hungry you do what you gotta do.
And that was the other reason I wanted to work at FKC. They gave all of their staff a room, meals, and a safe place to spend their evenings. I didn’t exactly have a lot of money left over after paying for room and food (it was automatically deducted from our cheques), but I wasn’t stealing leftover plates of soggy french fries from the Dipsy Shipsy anymore, either. And I had a bed with legs and clean blankets and no bed bugs or the smell of cat litter. So, privacy was one of the things I gave up. FKC was allowed to search my room at any time for drugs, alcohol, and weapons (which were strictly against their policies). But it had only happened to me once. I kept my nose clean and focused on my work.
There was the potential for friends at FKC quarters. Lots of people live here. And there are huge common rooms on each floor with televisions and gaming systems and snack machines. Uncomfortable, rock hard, couches give everyone a place to sit. Most of the other staff members use these rooms after work each night. They laugh and have a good time and hangout until lights out (10 PM each night; also non-negotiable).
I tried to make friends when I first started working here. I really did. I figured a bunch of programmers, coders, and graphic designers were probably my kind of people. We’d have lots to talk about. Right? But not so much.
When I hung out with them, I was overwhelmed by all the noise. If I tried to single someone out, they looked at me like I was just weird. Which I am. I’ve always known that I was different from other people. I laugh at the wrong times, or don’t laugh when I should. I correct people when they make mistakes (I’d want to know if I said something that was wrong; I don’t like to sound stupid). And I either don’t talk at all or I ramble on about my favorite topics (coding, coding, and more coding) for too long.
I have tried to change my ways. But I can’t help it. It’s just who I am.
I have thought about leaving FKC many times. But where would I go? What would I do? Coding is what I know and what I love. And here, I am safe. We have everything we need here. To remind me of that, there’s a plaque under my TV that says, “We give you everything you need.”
And it’s true. Besides food, shelter, and a job, FKC also provides us with free education. That’s how I became a coder. When I came to work here and signed the contract, I really didn’t know much of anything besides being a gamer. They hired me as a tester. I played the games. I tried to hack them. Found the glitches. It was fun. I couldn’t believe I was getting paid to play Fork/Knife. Then, my supervisor encouraged me to take some courses at Fork Knife University. Of course, it would cost money, but it could automatically be deducted from my earnings, and then I could move up in the company and make more money.
Now, I’ve found the job I love, and I’m already one of their top coders, so I really have no need to take new courses. But I love learning things when they interest me, so I’ve taken graphic design courses, management courses, marketing courses, and more. I’ve even taken some server maintenance and upgrading courses. I could probably do most jobs at FKC if I wanted to.
My life is full. It’s busy, and it’s predictable. I like that. I don’t want to ever worry about what the future holds for me again, like when I lived with my aunt. I have every need I might have fulfilled.
But there’s a nagging feeling that something is missing. I don’t know what. There’s a twinge in the back of my brain that activates when I see two people at the end of the hall kissing in a dark corner, out of sight of the cameras (romantic relationships are not allowed at FKC as they would be too much of a distraction from jobs and usually lead to drama). It gives me a poke when I see a bunch of people joking around in front of the gaming stations.
I push it away with the current course I’m taking, the game, or making plans for work. But it’s getting harder and harder to push away.
My supervisor is the one who got me thinking about my side project. He’d be annoyed if he found out that I was doing it at work but…still, it was his idea. He told me I needed to relax. I needed to step aside from the game and touch some grass. As if that were possible in our city of concrete.
And that’s what gave me the idea: I would create a side game in Fork/Knife where I could be in nature. I would create a peaceful place where I could get away from all the loud noise, go for a walk…and touch some grass. Ok, virtual grass.
I would hide it so well that no one would ever find it. It would be my safe haven from the outside world.
