Gaming

   The video game presentation was going perfectly. Everyone in the arena was talking about booth number 45 and its very interesting game. Of course, as many games in exhibition, it was a virtual reality game. People put on some glasses and that was enough to immerse themselves in a very big and interesting world. The people at Rakami, the company that had created the game, were very nervous about the reception of their new product but after one day, they had to be confident everything was going to be just fine with their sales.

 The second day of the expo, they were named the game to be looking for, Lines formed from an early hour to try out the game and Rakami had to send another console and copy of the software in order for people to try it out. And even with two copies, it wasn’t enough to show everyone willing to try the most fascinating game ever. Or at least that’s what the people in the booth started calling it after the very warm reception.

 The truth was that Rakami had been born very recently, not even five years ago. It had been a group of friends who had decided they wanted to create the game they wanted to play. In other words, they wanted to make the best video games in the market by making the players and integral part of them. Of course, the player is always the most important part of the creation process, but these guys wanted the future gamers to be very involved in their creative process.

 The first thing they did once they gathered to work together, was define what everyone would do. It was a small group of four people: three men and one woman. The men were mostly fluent in programming and designing and she was very good at marketing and all the legal language they needed to know before starting to do anything. They bought legal versions of every single program needed and rented a space in order to work there, as an office.

 Of course, every single penny invested into it came from their own bank account. Although one of them was fairly wealthy, the other two were not at all so one of the first moves was to ensure they had money to make the first game from beginning to end. Investors were not easy to come by, especially for such a technology and idea, which would take years to actually be a reality.

 However, they managed to receive a grant given by a university who supported young creators all over the world. The money was not a lot but it was a great way to start and not worry about anything for at least two years or a bit less. At the end of that time, the university would demand results and would decide if more money would be invested.

 The first year was the most difficult one as starting such a project is always something very hard. As the boys started doing sketches and different types of screenplays of what they thought the story should be about, the girl decided to ensure they would not have money issues by use of crowd funding. She designed a website with a friend where people could go and give in whatever amount they wanted to make the videogame come to life. But not only that, the particular investors could leave a comment, telling the designers what they wanted in a game, what they were looking forward.

 Picking up ideas from that big pool was very hard and an extensive job that required various meetings during a long period of time and heated discussions about what the game should be about. They were all friends and really loved each other but those few months were very tense and it wasn’t uncommon that they would argue with each other every single day, fighting over every single thing.

However, after a while, they were able to make some compromises and decided to organize their work in a more organic way so everyone was able to do a part of the game. That way, no one would really feel pushed aside from the project and participation would be just in its perfect point. Their friendship was put to test that first year and they were able to show themselves how mature they had become after graduating from college.

 Entering the second year of development, they had many more problems. Money was and wasn’t one them. The problem was not that they didn’t have any but rather that they couldn’t touch it unless they released some kind of sneak peek. They tried to put together some short animation and a video of the designs and thought that should be enough for the people that had invested in the game and the university that supported them

 However, that wasn’t the case. The university told them they were seriously considering removing their sponsorship because of he poor advances in the design and general development of the game. And the reception in their crowd funding website was even worse. People did not get the footage and were not really digging the designs and what they had put together. That response made them get together again and think about hey needed to do.

 The first thing was not to listen to every single thing people said about the game, as it was obvious that not everybody could be pleased. The other thing was that they really needed to step up their game and work twice as hard because the university was right: they had not done enough in the first year and they really needed support if they wanted to fulfill their dream of seeing their game finished.

 The following months were very hard on all of them. They had to stay in the office for several hours, sometimes even sleeping there and having lunch while waiting for the images to render. They bought more computers in order to be able to do more work at the same time and had to make some adjustments to the room in order to make it a nice place to work in. They put every part of their soul and body in the game and they were sure it was going to be good and that people would like it, no matter what.

 At the end of that year, they had a meeting in the university. A board made up of six people would review their results and everything they had on their computers and the amount of work they had done. They would rate every single aspect of their jobs and finally decide if what they had done was worth another investment from them with which they could be able to finish the game as such.

 It was a tense few days and the final response of the university came after Christmas but before New Year’s Day. The university had decided to pass on their game and pulled off any additional funding. Needless to say, the group had the worst beginning of the year ever but once they reunited again they decided to go forward with the help of the people. They would release more of the game and people would love it and they would finish the game with their support.

  However, something unexpected happened. The girl was contacted by a group of private investors looking for new companies and ideas to invest in. She organized a visit to the offices and they were mind blown when they realized it was one of the executives of Garmin Entertainment, who was visiting them. Garmin had released two of the best titles in the last year and was a leading company in the development of virtual reality technology.

 Their proposal was quite simple: they would give the money to finish the game in exchange of the title to be a virtual reality game. They thought the idea they had was perfect for that kind of gaming and they even promised help achieve the level needed to have a playable game in that sort of environment.

 Again, work was very intense and they did receive a lot of support, with very experienced people coming to their offices and helping them with the design of a far larger world that they had envisioned before. Everything had gotten bigger and more ambitious and it was a bit scary for them but also very exciting. They felt they were involved in something important, so the hours of sleep were the least of their worries.

 The expo was just the magnificent result of their incredible work process. And people loving the game was the perfect gift for all of them. However, they were still many surprises ahead, for both the developers and the gamers. The recent born Rakami was en route to greatness.

Swimming

   The light seemed to be far away, moving far from my fingers each time I moved my arms. The space I was in seemed very open and, for a moment, I felt that would be the feeling of being floating in space, without a proper astronaut suit of course. I have no idea why I thought that at that moment. Isn’t the brain supposed to prioritize things in our bodies in order to make us live longer? However, I could almost see the ship I had come out too, floating silently in front of me, and a big planet below me. But all that didn’t matter because I was about to die.

 The thought lasted just a second but it was strong enough for me to move faster, to force my tired arms to do a little bit more work. Every single vein and nerve in my body was crying in pain, my brain hurt so much I couldn’t stand it. I had always wished to be taller in order to have bigger arms and feet, which would have helped so much in that moment. But I wasn’t.  I was just the opposite of that and I was in a position where wishing was useless.

 My last movements towards the light were desperate. It was then when my body felt like it was empty. Every single thing that had no real use, every function that didn’t serve a purpose in that moment, they all disappeared in order to focus on the fact that I was going to die if my body didn’t perform something close to a miracle. Because I had never done what I about to do. It was a triumph I would never really be aware of and that’s ok because it worked.

 It was my right hand, my main hand if you will, the first limb of my body to feel the air outside. It felt terribly cold, colder that the water in the lagoon. The air seemed to be against me too but the difference was I could breathe that. The water was different, invasive and dangerous. Before and after that, I could never understand the people that are fascinated with water and would like to spend their lives in it.

 I guess that makes me a hypocrite. Because I kind of was one of those people before that. Since the earliest age, my parents took me to the ocean, to swimming pools, lake or wherever I could swim. I took classes and even competed for prizes when I was in school. Modesty aside, I won several of those competitions because I had a serious passion about the water, about how my body moved in it and it felt like home.

 The hard time would be during my teenage years when, for reasons I shouldn’t address, I became increasingly larger in size. And it was nature doing its job; it was more like junk food and sugar doing their thing. It was then when I got depressed for the very first time. Self diagnosed, of course. I never went to any doctor or shrink to tell me how I felt. Even at that age I found the concept ridiculous.

 Of course, I stopped my swimming. I was too big for the bathing suit and too sad to move my arms that fast. It was like that for years and I had to put away any remainder of who I had been before because it hurt too hard. Somehow, I had become a disappointment for myself. Is there anything more pathetic than that? I have no idea. The point is my attention shifted from one thing to the next. You can blame puberty for that. I just had to survive high school so, as when I swam, my body had to get its priorities straight.

 It was only in my last years of college, more than ten years after I had dropped out of the swim team in school, that I came back to the water. It’s amazing to think about it, but in that time I never really swam. Yes, I went to the beach or to houses with pools. But I would only be in the water for a moment, if at all. Maybe surprising but true. I felt I didn’t belong there anymore so why overstay my welcome?

 Aged twenty-three years old, I discovered a gym close to my house that had a swimming pool. The best part was you could reserve one of the swimming lanes for an hour and didn’t put anyone to tell you how to do anything. It was absolutely free of that. So I decided to go and, at first, I felt as drowned as in the lagoon. But I decided I would not ask for help and, slowly, it all came back to me.

 After my first week, the people that worked there congratulated me for my style, my technique. Although one of them reminded me, as if I didn’t know, that I was too short and that could be a problem. I know what he meant: being short in a pool is a problem because you take longer to reach the other side, even if it is by a few centimeters. Those can be decisive in a competition and they were certainly decisive in the lagoon. If I had been taller, the sense of terror would have been less powerful.

 When I had two arms outside of the water, the only thing I could do was taking a big breath. I felt alive, although barely. My legs hurt so much but they kept on moving until I reached the shore, which was obscured by the shadow caster over by the rocky structure above the lagoon. It was like a vault that enclosed the whole system. Why would I ever think it was a good idea to swim in a flooded cave?

 But as the soon got higher in the sky, the place seemed to get larger and the water revealed itself as so transparent and perfect. The sky was evenly reflected on its surface. It was so well done, the surface of the water, that had calmed down fast after I had gotten out of it, seemed like a huge mirror where God could check himself out.

 I lay down in my back, conscious I would have to swim back to the exit. Before I got comfortable, I checked for animals, bugs and others. After all, it was an arid place and little animals are known to live through the cracks of rocks and such. But when I was down, looking at the sky through the opening before me, I realized that was, again, my first time swimming in a very long time.

 The pool in the gymnasium was great. After some time, I got a proper job wearing a tie and a suit, which I’ve always hated, so I had to move my swimming hours to a later time. I would go the moment work finished, around six or seven in the afternoon. I would stay there for an hour, not stopping for more that a few seconds. I got new fans, new people that told me they were really surprised by me. I can’t tell you how much I loved that attention, which I had never gotten for anything else.

 However, I caught the eye of one particular person and from then on, I only cared about his comments and his smiles. I had learned not to let opportunities go by, so after a week of random looks, I decided to approach him after I was done swimming. It was weird because it was in the locker room, where people grabbed their stuff to have a shower or changed their clothes. He was wearing his bathing suit, like me, when I asked him if he would like to have a drink in a bar close to there.

 That was our first date. We considered it our first date a year later, when we celebrated the anniversary of our relationship. We didn’t really celebrate, we just got together and did the things we both like: we went swimming to a beautiful lake, we had a picnic with many delicious things to eat and we kissed and made love in my car, which was incredibly comfortable for such a vehicle.

 Our relationship lasted for almost three years. One month shy of our relationship turning three years old, he was assaulted in the street by some guy that wanted to steal his money. The guy had a gun and shot him with it, once. The bullet hit his spine. We all got to the hospital in time to say a few words. Then, he was gone. As if he had never existed. We had so many plans, a life of plans. This city is crazy.

 I came to the desert because of what happened. I needed to escape from everyone and everything. I still think about him, date and night. I cry for him and I also have wet dreams with him. But it’s in the water I feel him the most. I guess that’s why I challenged myself to swim through the flooded cave. And that’s why I’m challenging myself to go back. For him but also for me. I need to feel alive again.

Ballet

Ballet was tough. It was hard on the dancers, on the choreographers and even on the audience. But Alexei just loved it. He had begun his dancing at a very young age and his parents had always been very supportive. They were the pillars of his happiness because they had enabled him to become one with dancing and had never missed one of his performances. They were very proud of their son and wanted the best for him and that’s why they supported him with everything he did. Alexei was grateful because, talking to other dancers, he realized things could not have gone so smoothly for him. There was even a dancer that claimed he had been left with an aunt at age seven for him liking ballet.

 Of course, the myth says that if a man likes ballet, both as a spectator and a dancer, then he’s a homosexual. The truth was it was that the statement was accurate very often but not always. Alexei was gay but he had met a lot of heterosexual men that loved dancing at that were even really relaxed about their sex lives. Besides, women apparently loved a guy who was bendy and had a nice body and so on. It was funny sometimes to see Evan, the most heterosexual dancer he had ever seen, just flirting with at least three girls at the same time. It looked ridiculous and funny and also was something to admire about him. The man was really handsome and he was very talented too so the girls got all in one or at least that was what he said. The point was, ballet dancers came in all forms or shapes.

 Actually, the company Alexei danced with praised itself for its variety at the moment of choosing their performances and also for their diversity among the dancers. There were black women and men, Asians, Latinos and so on. And people loved that because they had a certain “Benetton syndrome” where they loved to have all races bond and be happy together, which was clearly not the case in real life. But funny enough, they did feel each other as family. Many would often have lunch together and some even shared an apartment. For example, Alexei lived with Katerina who had been in the company three more years than him. She was very experienced and disciplined but when she wanted she could be very liberated.

 Alexei and Katerina had become very good friends and when she was unable to fin a proper place to stay after her former contract expired, Alexei invited her to live with him. They had fun whenever they were not tired and both there at the same time. They would watch movies together and eat some ice cream, which was forbidden but they did not care. It was a fun way to live because they could also talk about work and ballet in general and they would understand and give tips to one another, something that they wouldn’t be able to do with people out of the medium. So their living arrangement was advantageous for both of them and they had become more of a family than just friends.

 But that changed once the production of Swan Lake begun. Of course, that was a classic and every single member of the company wanted desperately to become well known after receiving the dual role for which everyone knew the play. But that wasn’t going to happen. It had been decided that the role would be played by two people instead of putting all the pressure in one of them. And to make matters more interesting, they also announced that gender would not play a part in any decision concerning any of the roles. They would just mask them or put them in certain costumes if the character had to be man or woman but the person playing them could be either. They announced all of this and the dancers stopped being that family and became almost enemies.

Nice little lunches, smiles, parties, walks and so on stopped. It was as if war had suddenly started and anyone could be a spy or your worst enemy. Alexei regretted this because his main dream was not to become the most well known male ballet dancer. He just wanted to keep learning and getting better and better in his art. For him, ballet was one of those things that elevate the soul and make people forget about every single bad thing that is happening to them. It has the ability to make your soul fly away into a beautiful world that doesn’t exist and feel things that maybe you wouldn’t be able to experience in reality.

 What Alexei regretted more was talking to Katerina. She had been one of the main performers in the company since she had started and didn’t want that to go away. She felt people knew her and that the audience needed to see a proper black swan, the role for which she was practicing. The truth was that many guys and girls wanted that role and not so many wanted the others. Alexei practiced for the role of the prince and just practiced a lot to get it perfectly. They had three months until the casting took place and then the audition results became known and production went ahead like a steam train. It was all a bit scary for Alexei but he knew he had his family and friend at his side.

 After rehearsal, he would often meet with Gabrielle and John. Gabby was one of those girls that is really objective and goes to the point very fast. She told Alexei that, although she didn’t know much about ballet, she did know he was a very good dancer and that every time he showed his talent, people rewarded him in many ways. Gabby was an architect and knew some art. And John was a fashion designer and had always wanted to make something for Alexei but the clothes for the plays were always done by the designer of the theater and in normal life he wasn’t a very big guy in fashion. Anyway, John was also very supportive and told him guys would fly of their seats only to check his ass on those tights, which always made Alexei laugh.

 Alexei rehearse every single day. He woke up early, went to a small room he had booked for several days and just did his routine, number by number. He noticed fast all of his mistakes and made himself learn new things or repeat those that didn’t come naturally to him. At the end of it, after several hours, he was tired, hungry as his feet hurt like hell. But it was worth it, he thought. Alexei felt that performing was always the best way to get the audience into the play and hopefully to get more people to know about ballet, which was ultimately what, he wanted. Although his family was supportive, people in life had been less candid about his choices and he could even say he had been bullied. But he didn’t say it because he wasn’t a victim but a strong person and he refused to bow to weakness.

 That was his ballet persona, if you will, that kicked in life and helped him be who he was. It was this strong attitude that attracted, after one of his rehearsals, a guy named Javier. He was a server in one of the restaurants where Alexei often went after being all day in a closed space. There he could eat a nutritious meal, bound to the rules of the academy, and also do one of the things he liked most which was just look at people passing by on the street. But once Javier started talking to him, while serving or while on a break, he had stopped looking at the people outside and had started looking only at Javier.

 They went out on a date just one week before the audition. Alexei said that his daily rehearsals should be enough to pass the audition and that he didn’t believe in overdoing anything. If he wasn’t ready, it wasn’t going to be solved by getting his feet broken on the last week. So after one of his routine rehearsals, he met with Javier who had a day off and just walked to a park and just chatted there for hours. Javier wasn’t the first guy that he met, of course, but it felt like it. He had never really talked to any guy about what he did, they were always too busy asking how bendy he was and praising him for his looks, something that Javier did but in a much more elegant way. They had dinner together and at the end of the night they kissed goodbye.

 The day of the audition, Alexei gave everything of himself. He thought to himself that this prince was going to be the best thing he would have ever done. He gave him energy and power and the jury saw it because their faces couldn’t hide the fact that they had loved what Alexei had done. Once done, he had to wait outside as the announcement of who had won what role was done only a half hour after they auditioned. Every waited in silence, pacing around and just not even thinking about anything else. Finally, they let them all in in the auditorium and announced the roles. Alexei almost jumped when he got the role of the prince and the guy who got to be white swan was ecstatic. But the black swan wasn’t won by Katerina but someone else.

 He felt bad for his friend but also felt awesome because of his role. He called his parents and Gabby and John and they were all very excited. They only had good wishes for him. Then, he grabbed his coat and went straight to Javier’s place and then they celebrated with cheap wine and sex, but it was the best celebration ever. He was happy know, more than ever. Things may never be that good again and that’s why he was living the moment so beautifully.

Waves

   The ocean was his thing. When high school drew to a close, his parents had insisted on him finding a proper career to study in a big city, at least ten hours away from their small town. But Ari, our young enthusiast, was fascinated by the treasures of the sea and was eager to follow his grandfather’s footsteps. That man was a living legend as he had broken all records of size and number of fish he had caught. He was just the best at his craft.

 Ari visited Mr. Gons, his grandfather, pretty often. The old man lived in a small shack by the sea, where he would still fish his lunch and ate very little fruits and vegetables, despite his daughter’s insistence. He always told her that he was over eighty years old and, beyond that age, it didn’t really matter what had eaten before in your life. Mister Gons thought the ocean could give anyone a fair life and enough to nourish from.

 So it was from him from whom Ari had learned to appreciate the ocean, which had always been there for him. He loved swimming, of course, and had done a bit of surfing but he wasn’t much into it. He loved diving, though. He had attended a school were he had learned all the basics and now he did it every time he had a moment to do it. He would ask his grandfather fro his boat and dive alone, from the break of dawn to lunchtime.

 To his grandpa’s disappointment, he never brought fish to eat. He only went there to see the ocean creatures live, to the things they did normally, which was fascinating. He loved animals, sometimes bringing his dog Kop with him in the boat. When high school finished, his parents were mad at him for not having put his name down in any of the schools they suggested. They knew he loved the town but they also knew opportunities there were scarce.

 So, because of his decision not to study, he had the chance to do two things he wanted to do instead of studying law or medicine. First of all, he found a job leading tourists to a nearby reef. He would go with small groups and show them the marine life and how they tried to protect it from being destroyed. Besides work, which he always looked forward, he decided to help in the only fishery remaining in town. He started taking the guts out of the fish and putting them on ice but he hoped to get one a boat some day.

 The first months were both easy and hard, all at the same time. Driving the tourists around was incredibly relaxing, as only people who really liked the ocean would go on those kind of tours. The few times there was a nervous person, they would all help to make the experience the best of his or her life. There was definitely nothing like watching life just happen before your eyes and that’s what he loved of it.

The fishery, on the other hand, was hard work. He would do it four days a week an even then it was hell. The people handling the place had been shaped by the sea, just like their product, and they didn’t allow anything to go differently than what they had planned. They yelled a lot, especially when the work place was too filthy or the worker was too slow. Taking the guts out and scaling the fish was not as easy as it looked like and it had to be done properly or the fish would be damaged and selling it would be harder.

 Every time he got back home, after work, he would be exhausted. It didn’t matter from what job he came from, his hands would always be sore as well as his feet. Besides, Ami would gulp down food and a lot of water at diner time, as he didn’t properly eat all day. His parents were not happy for this but they didn’t say anything. He was being responsible and was winning his own money. They hoped that the workload would make him realized that he needed to study to improve himself.

 Then, halfway through the year, something no one had seen coming happened: Mr. Gons had died. It had happened in the night, while he lay on his favorite rocking chair, having fallen asleep with the sound of the waves and the feeling of sand beneath his feat. He was loved by many, especially by those families that had always lived in the town. The turnout at the funeral was outstanding; the family couldn’t have been more proud. Everyone shared stories about him and coincided that he was a one special man.

 Ari then, stopped working for a couple of days. His bosses excused him, just by looking at him: he looked beyond sad. He looked as if it was a defining moment for him so they gave him some time to think but not too much as he was needed in both the reef and the fishery. Indeed, Ari thought of his grandpa, who had thought him everything of the sea, but he also thought what he wanted from life. He knew that things were hard out there but then he realized he had already taken steps to make a live of his own.

 So the day he returned to work, confident that he was doing everything right. He couldn’t push to happen, he couldn’t force anything, but he could improve himself and just be good at what he did. He started reading a lot more about fishes and other sea creatures so that he would be available to give more complete tours on the reef. As for the fishery, he trained himself with a small knife cutting open everything at home. His mom was certainly impressed when she noticed everything in the fridge had already being chopped in various ways.

 On weekends, he would return to his grandpa’s house to drink a beer and watch the ocean. He understood then why the old man loved the place: the peace and quiet was overwhelming but appreciated. Being away from everything but that soothing sound was just perfect. But then, four months before the end of the year, he began going there with a girl he had met in one of the tours. She lived in a town close to his and would visit him when out of work. It was the first time he fell in love for real and knew she was in love with him.

 When working, he noticed he didn’t thought of it as he did it. He would think of her or of his plans, which were slowly forming in his mind. He had realized that, despite everything he thought, his parents were right. He did need to educate himself more to be better, not just to earn more money but to afford to live, as he wanted to do it. He had even thought of living with his girlfriend but that was another project, for the future.

 He told his parents of his realization that learning more was necessary to him, in order to know more about what he loved and to live a good life too. They were happy tear it but not so happy when he told them he had found an aquarium, in a medium size city about two hours away by car. It was not that they wanted him to go but that they wanted the very best for them. He explained the aquarium had a school where he could study marine biology. They actually had at least some ten more careers to choose from, which was very interesting.

 One weekend he was free from work, he took his girlfriend and his parents to the aquarium. The place was beautiful and they were all amazed that they had never really known about the place. The lady that gave them a guided visit, explained that the school had been open only for the past two years but that many students that wanted to study the careers they taught were very happy with their presence. Even the zoo area of the compound was much better than any other he had seen: the pools were very big and the machines were kept away from the animals, so not to disturbing. They didn’t have large mammals, as they believed they were better off in the ocean.

 So when the year drew to a close, Ari told his bosses all about him studying and not being able to work anymore. They were both very happy for him and wished him all the best. He had been an exemplary employee in both places, and people had learned to appreciate his work thoroughly.

 Then came Christmas. They all had a big party in his grandpa’s old house and there was no one sad or thoughtful. Everyone smiled and enjoyed the food, the company and the prospects that the future was putting on the table.