I haven't done this in a while, eh?

Read.


Minesweeper

By TK


Nick arrived at the office on the dot every day. He would first enter the building and be greeted by the smiling face of Ms. Dora, the secretary; she was a kind-hearted middle-aged lady with a plump belly and a ridiculously cordial voice, but everyone loved her all the more for it. Nick would always give her a big smile of his own and briskly nod at her as he voiced an enthuisiastic "Good morning."

Next it was up the elevator to the sixth floor, where Nick's office was. He'd come off the elevator and walk past the office of his boss, Mr. Hagan. Mr. Hagan would always look out at him, smile, and offer a jovial "Looking sharp as usual, Nick." Nick would always nod and reply, "Morning Mr. Hagan, not looking too shabby yourself." And Nick would walk on, always smiling to himself, knowing that Mr. Hagan was looking older and balder by the day.

Then he would reach the end of the hallway, where he would walk by the cubicle of that guy. Nick did not know his name because he was always facing away when Nick looked into the cubicle, so he couldn't see his nametag. He had never spoken with the guy, either. And it was precicely this that kept Nick so interested in the guy. He knew just about everyone in this building, from the janitor to the president of the company, but he didn't know this nameless guy in the cubicle outside his office. And even wierder, niether did anybody else. No one even knew what his name was. The best answer he had ever gotten was "He just keeps to himself all the time." Of course, Nick had never seriously looked it up - he certainly could have found out from Mr. Hagan but he never bothered. He secretly sort of enjoyed the mystery of the nameless guy in the cubicle outside his office.

The oddest thing about this fellow, though, always came at the end of the day. It happened every single day. Nick was always the last to leave the office; his duties demanded such, but it was okay with him as his pay was fantastic and he didn't have a wife or kids to worry about getting home to. He would always finish up his business, stand up, get his things together, and walk out the door. And there would be that cubicle, now empty, but for one thing: The computer was always still on. Screen and everything. No screensaver, either. And there was always just one single window open on the screen: A finished game of Minesweeper. The little yellow face at the top was always wearing those happy sunglasses that symbolized the player's victory, and all the mines would be clearly marked with those cute little flags. It was always an expert game, too.

Nick really had no idea why the game of Minesweeper, or the nameless guy for that matter, intrigued him so much, but it had become a constant thing for him, a very regular occurance. It was almost like a part of his life now; seeing that finished game of Minesweeper would be a nice reassurance to him every evening that he was still in reality.

One day, Nick woke up right on time to get to work. He dressed quickly, ate breakfast quickly, and was out to his Porche in no time. The drive to work was smooth and easy, totally devoid of any traffic frustrations. It was a fantastically smooth ride.

Nick was greeted by the smiling face of Ms. Dora as always when he came into the building that day. "Good morning," he said brightly to her as he walked past. He reached the elevator and brightly tapped the "up" button. It came quickly this time; there was almost no wait for the doors to open. It was definately Nick's morning.

"Looking sharp as usual, Nick," Mr. Hagan called to him as he walked past his boss's office.

"Morning Mr. Hagan, not looking too shabby yourself," Nick replied with a smile, and continued walking.

And then, as always, he walked past the nameless guy's cubicle, and sure enough, there was the nameless guy, tapping furiously away at his keyboard. Nick walked on into his office, sat down, and flipped the switch on his computer. It was time to get down to work.

The day passed quickly; Nick's work was not challenging today and he enjoyed a very pleasant lunch. All day he was surrounded by smiling faces, all day he was in the best of moods as he quickly and efficiently did his work and looked good doing it the whole time. And then the day ended, and Nick's work was finally done. It was dark out, and Nick got up, stretched, and silently congradulated himself on another day of work completed.

He was whistling a little tune as he opened the door to his office and stepped out into the corridor. There was only one more part of his day to complete, and it would be just as easy as the rest had been. Nick's head turned toward the entrance to the nameless guy's cubicle, and then he stopped in his tracks and his jaw actually fell an inch or so.

The screen was off.

It was odd that he was so shocked, but Nick had worked here for three years and in all that time, he had never gone by here at the end of the day without seeing a completed game of Minesweeper. He could not resist the urge; he must step into the cubicle and explore it. He slowly stepped forward and for the first time in his life, Nick stepped into the cubicle of the nameless guy.

The nameless guy was there, lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, a handgun lying on the ground a few inches from his head. It was quite obvious from the hole in the back of his skull and the way his hand was ever so close to the handgun how this had happened.

Nick stepped back a few paces in shock and digust. He felt he was going insane. For some reason he had never imagined that the nameless guy had been suicidal.

And then, he remembered the screen being off. It was crazy, but he simply had to turn it on and see if there was a finished game of Minesweeper there. Somehow it was important. He stepped slowly up to the screen and pressed the button. It slowly lit up, and what Nick saw was not a game of Minesweeper at all, but an open word document containing only one phrase in big block letters:

"I HATE MINESWEEPER."

... wow. Quite profound, and well-crafted, as always... good to see you writing again, I can't wait for more. :)

that was well written. . . but it seems like its a well written story about nothing.

rude-inverse said profound.

which one is it?

the worst thing about it was, after I read the part about the guy playing minesweeper constantly, I knew what was going to happen to him. " =/ "



still liked it though. Why was he playing Minesweeper anyways? His suicide seems a bit like a non sequitur.

Okay, allow me to elaborate a bit on the whole Minesweeper thing. I was actually inspired to write this story BY playing Minesweeper. It just so happened that I was in a particularly glum mood while I was doing so... in fact, that's pretty much the only mood in which I ever play Minesweeper for a few reasons. It's a game that is uber-demanding on the logic part of your brain, which really forces total concentration, and thus it is a fantastic way to take your mind off of things that are bothering you. It's also an amazingly effective way to waste enormous ammounts of time because it takes so long to actually win, but you can just sit there going at it again and again because it's so easy to instantly restart after you die.

That's the way it is for me, anyway. So I was just playing Minesweeper, and during my breaks where I'd go get mountain dew and maybe look at a web site or something, I kept thinking about how millions of people were out having fun and I was sitting at home playing Minesweeper and mulling over my problems. That got me thinking about all the indications that you can see that people aren't doing well that you just never, ever notice. The ammount of evidence in constant finished games of Minesweeper from a guy who spends his whole life alone, to me, is astronomical, but I never would have thought of it until that night of Minesweeper-playing. It's really just a story about how subtle and wierd the indications can be that something is wrong with someone.

Also, I expected that most people would figure out the nameless guy in the cubicle was going to commit suicide. That was never meant to be a shocker, it was actually sort of meant to be a way of making the intent of the story more clear, but I guess it didn't work.

you see? I would have thought the guy just liked minesweeper.
o_O

but theres another question, if the suicide was fairly obvious, and the story is about subtle signs of suicide , then that would explain why the suicide didn't help clear up the intentions, at least to me.

subtle signs shouldn't be obvious, namely.

Well what I mean was that I was trying to create a very typical suicidal character so that the point would get across more that the Minesweeper had been a sign of that.

oh. then it was very clear. lonely guy. odd repeating behavior.

ok. I thought there may have been something else to it. like this other guy I know wrote a story going against generalizations and the like, and it was very obvious how it was going to turn out, and I thought there was more to it, but there wasn't.


He said it was a throwback story, since those sort of things aren't written often. . . . like me and fables.

nice, that was really well written. I like your writing style.

<font face="lucida calligraphy" size="2">Finally got around to reading it. ^_~

Interesting... I really didn't know what to expect given some of your other stories/conversations. (The lonely guy will actually turn out to be his twin brother who was abducted by aliens and will force him to answer meaningless hypothetical questions! =P)

Reading the story makes sense in looking back over it, but like in real life, I suppose many people don't notice signs of depression until after such an event occurs...

Hmm, I'll have to write a story about hypothetical situation questions, now that I think about it ^_^