Matteo Cimellaro
The marble echoes from the tennis shoes of the employees. The guys next to me chew loudly on egg sandwiches smeared with ketchup and discuss the pub the night before. They tap their company cards and walk through the gates. The security guards glance up without breaking conversation.
On the first floor, there are six security guards. One guard sits behind a plastic window with speaking holes and an opening at the bottom to fit company cards and identification. Raj at the desk stares at me like he always does, this same blank barrage of boredom that greets me every morning. The rest of the guards stand near the body scanners with batons, bulletproof vests, and paper cups filled with coffee.
“You need to go through the scanner.”
“I need to go through the scanner?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I’ve been here all week.”
“Let me concentrate.”
“What? I’m the contractor working on the new game, Missbruk. I’ve been here at the same time all week. We have nearly the same conversation every day. There’s Jeanne working the same scanner I walked through yesterday.”
“The scanner,” he leans forward with eyes closed and bending into the window so that his breath becomes visible on the clear plastic.
“You need to go through the scanner.”
“Do you not remember yesterday? I’m the guy with the garlic sauce all over my shirt at lunch. I didn’t notice until I was in the washroom upstairs.”
“There’s a lot of people that work here. You expect me to remember everybody? Food messes and all?”
The doors at the top of the stairs open — it’s Tony Giraldi, my department manager. He’s holding a yellow stress ball with the company name emblazoned on it. Tossing it between his hands he methodically squeezes it while anticipating the next pass.
“Michael? Michael fucking Turner is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“I need some advice — it’s Matheson. He’s deep into Missbruk.”
Missbruk means addiction in Swedish, Tony told us one Monday afternoon, my mind vapid from the first day. An addiction to perfection is an addiction to success, he said, Matheson understands it. But David Matheson didn’t respond barring the clicks of his keyboard coming from the back of the office where he sat alone, practically unmoving.
The floor upstairs has a dark grey carpet with red arrows pointing in different directions, all referring to different departments, different areas of the game’s internal life being altered, adapted, coded, stripped down, built up, perfected.
“I said do you want a cappuccino?”
Tony is bald with a tight, striped baby blue dress shirt, with two top buttons open. Depending on our team’s workflow he may unbutton one or two more by the end of the workday. With Tony, the lazier we are, the more stressed he is, hence the yellow ball he adopted two years ago at a company retreat in the Gatineau Hills. It is the sweat that is the most pronounced thing about Tony. Added stress, added perspiration. In high doses, a shiny, sweaty forehead concentrates all my attention.
“A cappuccino — Rachel is going to make me one. Do you want one? I need you focused today Michael, focused. I’m stressed as hell today.”
Tony’s forehead is reflective and varnished as if he’s been playing basketball with his stress ball again, using the empty trash can as the net.
“Oh boy, if your head is out of the game today. I told you, man. Focus doesn’t wait. Focus does not get distracted. Focus does not procrastinate. What does focus do?”
“Focus does.”
“Focus does, thank you. Success is about persistence, persistent focus. Don’t lose focus. It’s all in the focus, Michael. All in it. If winning is our goal, then it’s all focus. Pro athletes, philosophers, Tesla, Steve Jobs, all had one thing in common — focus. Great shirt, love Pendleton. Do you meditate, Michael?”
“Makes good sense, Tony. I’m going to sit at my desk now.”
“And the meditation? Trance-like states of focus. The Buddha, Dalai Lama, Lao Tzu — do you know anything about this, Michael?”
“No, not really.”
“Good because I know too much and it’s not helping. I need you Michael. Matheson’s gone off the edge, flew the coup, blank deep stares into code and screen.”
“What do you mean? Like he’s not working anymore?”
“He’s not doing anything anymore. Not eating, not sleeping, not making any weird grunts like he usually does when he codes. David sits at his desk and stares into his screen. I come into the office he’s there, I leave the office, still there. The janitors complain, I tell them don’t bother him. It’s been three days, Michael. The Buddha meditated for seven weeks but he was developing an intricate internal system of ethics and thought. He was developing a philosophy, a religious system, not code for a video game.”
“What if code is the new philosophy? The new religion?”
“Michael, be serious. We need Matheson. He’s indispensable.”
Three weeks ago David joined the team and developed Missbruk at such a rapid pace nobody even had a chance to meet him or his new code.
Tony and I make our way to David’s secluded office while sipping our cappuccinos. Opening the door, Tony coughs. It smells of a heavy musk, like dead uncirculated air.
“Open a window,” I say.
“I’m opening a window.”
Tony opens the window and moves over to David’s head and grabs it so it’s angled towards me. His face is cold and empty and he stares not into me but almost past me while putting heavy resistance on Tony’s grasp. Tony lets go of his grip and David’s head jerks back into the screen.
“See — nothing. Only pure focus.”
“Have you tried turning the computer off?”
“No, what if his progress doesn’t save?”
“It autosaves every 30 seconds. That’s why you hired me, to develop that.”
“Stress disrupts deep flow, my internal focus.”
The computer makes a hum when it is turned off and the coding screen goes black. David awakes with a deep gasp for air.
“Tony, good morning. How long was I out for? I’m starving. Mike can you get me a meal replacement from that mini fridge behind you. Can you give us some privacy please, I only want Tony to see this.”
David turns on the computer with Tony behind him and they both look into the screen, stationary and static. I’ll leave them to it for the morning.
Matteo Cimellaro is the News Editor at The Ontarion, and graduated from the University of Guelph in 2017 with a philosophy major and English minor.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons