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.

Candidate

   Thousands of cameras flashed at the same time and then over and over again when Amy came out of the house. They al wanted to ask the same question: “How well do you think it’s going to go for you tonight?” And Amy wanted to answer but she just entered the car that was waiting her and drove away without saying a word. Her publicist praised her for not saying a word but she didn’t even heard her. She was too busy trying to answer the question the media was asking.

 Would she win the election? Maybe. There was a strong possibility that it might happen for her. It was no mystery that her campaign had been primarily focused on the fact that she was a woman and the she was not one of the political elite. She was just a councilwoman in the most populated city in the country and she had become an important part of politics in a single day.

 The party she was running for had chosen her over many other candidates because they had thought they could mold her into someone people would like and vote for, someone that did not look at all like all those older men that had dominated politics for so long. They wanted to restart with a fresh face, especially after failing to win the election for a third time in a row. They had to take advantage of the opportunity being offered by the fact that the current government was shaking.

 One scandal after the other had taken its toll on people’s opinion and, according to the latest polls; the two candidates were virtually tied. So everything could be decided by a handful of votes and that was very important. They had to ensure that they had every single possible vote in their pocket and that’s why Amy had travelled across the country, without a rest, for the last five months.

 She wasn’t an experienced politician but what the party liked about her was that she could be able to be close to people in a way most politicians just couldn’t. She didn’t look fake when talking to a mother or a person that had lost it all. They could take Amy to a prestigious country club or to a soup kitchen in the most horrible part of a city and in both cases she would be able to be sympathetic and relatable.

 By the time she entered that car, the truth was that she felt exhausted. She didn’t want to walk anymore. She just wanted a good night’s sleep but that wasn’t possible on Election Day. They had paraded her around all day and she hadn’t even been able to properly eat anything, only some fruit her assistant was able to pass to her before the day properly began. And she couldn’t even eat it all because someone took the box away from her to give her a speech she had to memorize.

 Amy Walker was almost forty years old and that apparently was something people liked. They also liked the fact that she looked modern and seemed to know everything about the world today. She had all the gadgets and even tried to run her own social media but that was difficult because of the amount of things she had to do in a day. So, normally, Amy would only write herself a message once a day and the rest were images and phrases posted by her team.

 To her, that seemed a little bit like cheating but she reminded herself that it was all part of being a public figure. Most of those people had no way of managing anything by themselves because of their schedules and priorities. She would have wanted to be more in touch with her voters, but she could only do that in some events and even then it was extremely hard to get really close to any of then.

 In the car, her assistant gave her a box of sushi. She was so hungry that she ate five pieces in less than five minutes. Someone was trying to explain to her something about how the election work and such, but she was to hungry to even care. She asked for a bottle of water and has some, drinking almost half of the bottle in one gulp. Amy not only felt hungry and thirsty but also desperate. She felt like the space she was in was too small. In a second, she had fainted.

 When she woke up, she was still in the car. They had apparently stopped because the doors were opened and, as soon as she opened her eyes, her assistant got closer and grabbed her hand. She helped her sit down properly, as she had been lying down in the back seat of the big car. In a strange moment of privacy, they hugged and her assistant told her she was sorry for not being able to give her more time to adjust to it all and to eat. She felt guilty somehow.

 But Amy didn’t say anything about that. Instead, she asked where they were. One of the bodyguards helped her out of the car and she realized they had arrived at the convention center but they were in a lonely part of the parking lot. Policemen had possibly closed it only for her. She was thankful for that. Amy told her assistant to walk her wherever she had to go and the poor assistant did exactly that, a bit scared she might not have recuperated fully.

 Indeed, Amy did not feel very good, but there was no point in turning back and laying in that car forever. It was her night and she had to be there to see if everything went as they thought it would go. It was the final step of the road and she couldn’t just miss it.

 They all entered a backroom and then descended some stairs to the place where she would get her makeup done and a new outfit. She asked her assistant to update her every time there was something big happening and the younger woman just nodded as the candidate entered her prep room. Inside, many more people were waiting for her, in order to turn her into one of the many images that people liked.

 One group washed her hair and the other retouched her nails and toes. She had undressed behind a curtain and taken off her dress and everything else and put on a white bathrobe to be more comfortable. As she had sat down in the chair, her assistant had told her that the polling centers had closed and that results would start coming in very soon.

 It was a tense moment for her but she tried to enjoy being pampered and taken care off. That always helped her get a bit more relax. Besides, she really needed to be refreshed because of all that she had done that day: visit a school, then greeting the military and visiting a factory. And all of that had happened before noon. Afterwards she had done so many things that she was sure she couldn’t even remember them all.

 The first state had been called within the next five minutes and it was for her rival. Then the second and the third, also for her rival. Her team reminded her that those territories did not make part of their plans, so it was a predictable thing that they hadn’t gone their way.

 Another two were called as they blow-dried her hair: another for her rival and one for her. They celebrated but the cheers were not precisely happy because of the disadvantage she was in. Amy thought to herself that, if she had to make a speech from a loser’s point of view, she could even pull it off in a better way than if she had won. Maybe all of that fancy politics stuff wasn’t just for her and she needed to go back to the city council and stay there.

 Two more states were called: both for her. As they finished preparing her and changing her into a new, more modern dress, the race became an almost tie. It was really going to be close and everyone in the room was as tense as they could be. When she was done, they all watch the TV screens together and waited until it came the time to go out to the stage.

 At least half of the votes had yet to enter the race and Amy realized she might become president. She might be the one to lead a whole country. And she knew that it would be difficult and hard on her. She didn’t know if she was the best for the job. But there she was. Only a few more votes…

Swimming

   The water felt really nice, wrapping his body in a very warm and soft cocoon as he went from one side to the other of the pool. Jim had always put aside a couple of hours of his schedule to swim because he enjoyed it a it relaxed him. He didn’t like to have massages or go to the sauna or things like that. Only the water was good enough for him. If he was visiting a place by the sea, the first thing he did was checking out the beach and swimming a bit. He preferred swimming pools, because of the lack of sand; he didn’t mind seawater from time to time. He found it to be a little more challenging but fun too.

 Jim had learned to swim from a very young age and had developed a very healthy relationship with water. Whereas many kids his age were scared of water, he had always loved it. He never forgot to ask if a party in some friend’s house involved a swimming pool and he made sure his mom always double-checked. Only once he went to a party with a pool and had to sit b the side and se everyone have fun and not him. So from then on he was always prepared.

 As a man who worked in the stock exchange, many people thought he would always go to the gym or do more intense exercising. But he only loved swimming and that’s how he maintained a nice body and a healthy lifestyle. He ate well. No diets or anything but just very balanced and swam every single day without fail.

 One day, his daily routine was stopped by a car crash. He always drove the same route to get to the gym to swim and it made him insane that the traffic was so heavy that he didn’t move art all for thirty minutes. Eventually, he arrived late to the gym but used the two hours anyway, without really thinking about how that changed his whole schedule. As he did his exercise at night, right after work, it meant that he would have dinner two hours later and that he would check his emails later too and sleep less than normal.

 But he didn’t care or maybe he didn’t noticed. He got to the gym and used the pool and when he was out, he was surprised to see the place was deserted. Only a couple of cars were left with his in the parking lot and when he got home it was almost midnight. He had some salad that he always bought premade, with lots of vegetables and stuff. It was a bad call because the aching muscles because of he swimming got combined with an aching stomach that found hard to digest some veggies at that time of day, with no energy left.

 He checked his emails like at two in the morning and there were many. He only got to reading about ten and answering even less than that. He was tired and he fell asleep in his couch.

 The next day, he was very late for work. He showered for only a couple of minutes; instead of the ten minutes he normally took for that. He also put on clothes that didn’t really look that good, which was strange because he had always been the kind of guy to pay attention to detail. But he was so tired he could barely see what he was putting on his body. The worst part was when he remembered, once at work, that it was a day filled with meetings with many people from different companies. The good thing was that the meeting took place at work but he wasn’t prepared at all for them.

 His coworker Julia had to step in quite often to correct number he was saying or to clarify things that were confusing because of the yawning. Every single group of every company could see that Jim was not in his best shape and moment. He hadn’t really shaved and he had quite a shadow, which made him look careless. His clothing, including two socks of different color and a pair of shoes that didn’t match anything, did not help his case either.

 Yet, he attended to the meetings all morning until lunchtime. Normally, he used to go to a very nice vegetarian restaurant that was close by. They had a really great variety of food for people that didn’t ate red meat or any kind of meat. But Jim was so tired that, when he went to his office to grab his jacket, he fell asleep on the desk and was only woken up by Julia, two hours later, telling him she had to attend to the first meeting of the afternoon.

 The rest of the day was even worse for him. He couldn’t really get the numbers and the names rights, he confused one company with the other and yawned almost with everything he said. He eyes looked terrible and so id his hair and everyone could see it. The thing was, most of the people in the meetings knew him, because they did exactly that once a month and had always being so prepared and charming and on point. Now, he was just a very horrible train wreck.

 When time came to go, Julia advised him he shouldn’t take the car back home, advising him to better grab a taxi or something like that. But he just nodded and ignored that comment because he had to go a swim, like he always did. So he went to his car, put on some loud music to really wake him up and drove all the way to the gym closing his eyes in every red traffic light and singing quite loudly when he felt he was about to go to sleep.

 Because of that reckless idea, he hit another car in the back and had to give all his insurance information and was late for the gym, again. He had lost time and money again and he was just exhausted. But he kept pushing himself for some reason.

 In the pool, he was able to swim nicely for the first ten minutes or so. But then something happened and the lifesaver in there had to get him out of the pull and give him mouth to mouth. When he woke up, they had called an ambulance and the paramedics were in the locker room checking him for water in the lungs and such things. He assured him he was fine but they insisted on taking him to the hospital to run further tests. He said no once, twice, three times and then grabbed his things and went to his car

 Jim felt frustrated because he hadn’t been able to swim at all. He felt weak now and something had changed in his life and he didn’t like it at all. It was like giving up on the one thing that made him stable. So he just hopped in the car and drove as carefully as he could and thanked the day for being a Friday. He would sleep until late and would still have time to do all the things that he could normally do on a Saturday. Besides, he was arriving home early.

He made himself a cheese sandwich and just watched some TV before going to bed. He fell asleep very quickly and, the next day, was able to wake up really early and really catch up with his schedule. He did everything by the book and was happy that the day was a very good one for him. The weekends had always felt like the worst time wasters ever but now it seemed he had discovered a way to make them have a meaning.

 That was until he collapsed in a large sports store where he was checking out bathing suits and earplugs. Then everything got like darker and he just fainted. Paramedics came soon and, this time, he didn’t woke up until they were in the hospital. They explained him that he did have water in his lungs but that part wasn’t really the worst one. They also told him he suffered from a rare condition caused by stress where people eventually collapsed because of all the stress they put on their bodies.

 He argued with them, saying he didn’t really do that much exercise and that he loved his work and so on. But the head doctor told him all of that wasn’t important at all. The point was that if he kept living the way he did, he was going to kill himself from exhaustion. He had to make some radical changes to his life and he had to make those changes soon because his body was just done with his lifestyle.

 Jim spent an entire week in the hospital, as they ran some tests. He felt useless in that bed and wanted to run out of there and swim some more and then do his work. He wanted his life back. But then the words of his doctor sunk in: his body was done with who he was and now he had to change every single piece of that.

Wedding planner

   The food was ready, the cake was in its place, all chairs and tables had been checked and even the sun was been monitored, as well as the clouds. As a wedding planner, Monica knew everything had to be perfect. She was paid, handsomely by the way, because people knew she was a control freak and in her job, that was a good thing. From the little boy or girl carrying the rings to the small couple on top of the cake, Monica knew everything about a marriage and always had it under control, having alternatives at hand when the time needed. She had left a job in real estate when a friend asked her to organize her wedding simply because she was much more thorough than her. And that party was still being remembered today, with all its beautiful details.

 So Monica had made wedding her life and now attended many of those a week, seeking only perfection. By now she was so recognized in the medium, that she had the privilege to choose her clients, instead of being the other way around. She would only choose those events that had something interesting in them like a great location, many people, cultural aspects and anything she could be interested in to make her business much more successful. She had done everything from Jewish weddings to gay weddings. She had made them on the beach, in the woods and even in a theme park. Monica always had the kind of food you wanted, the colors, the flavors, the music, the entertainment… She had it all for her successful business.

 What she didn’t have was that which all her clients had: someone by her side. Ironically, Monica had never been married or close to being married. She had never had a relationship that had the potential to go that far and the truth was she had never had time for love. Monica was so focused on doing well financially and socially that she had left on the side her needs as a woman with feelings of love and care. But it was, in fact, because those needs were not really that strong. Many people were amazed by this, specially her mother and other women that were close to her, but Monica was not at all romantic, had no interest in being a mother and when presented to men, she was always bored by all of them.

 If you think she may have been a lesbian, the answer is no. It was as simple as she had no feelings for anyone. She had experimented enough in high school and college and she had always enjoyed sex, but she had no need of having a partner or a love interest, at all. Her girl friends were always so amazed by the things she talked when referring to her job. She did the most beautiful things for so many people but when asked how she imagined her own wedding, she had absolutely no words and she often changed the subject. It was very awkward and people would normally go on to another thing.

 All of this was harder on her when men decided to approach. It has to be said that Monica was not a super model but she wasn’t a monster either. She had nice black hair and big brown eyes. Men always stared at her legs, which she often didn’t realize. When a guy decided to approach her, it was really uncomfortable because there were two things that may happen. The first one was that the guy may come and tell her a compliment but she would just be completely oblivious to his intentions. Normally, she wouldn’t even pay attention and would decide very fast to dismiss him, excusing herself by use of her work. Men never insisted because she would talk in such a cold way it was impossible to insist.

 The other case would be for her to be aware of the guy’s intentions but answering by being brutally honest with him. That did not happen as often as the other case, which was great because she was always very cold and harsh when telling someone she wasn’t, at all interest. Men would just think “What a bitch!” and leave the place immediately. And that was it, she was known as the queen of marriages for many women but many men also knew her as a cold bitch. And even women knew this last thing and didn’t mind because that way they thought they would have more control over their wedding that their future husbands, who women always thing have awful taste for things such as weddings.

 Monica was in love once, though. It had happened during her year as a realtor. She would show so many people house and apartments that it became dull and tiring after a short period of time. Then, one day, she met Frank. He was a wealthy young man working in his family’s business and had been commanded by his mother to buy a place in the city, near the office, to be always there if someone needed it. The fact is that Monica and Frank bonded when she showed him several apartments in one day, all enormous for one person and with bills that only a rich man like Frank could pay. But the truth was that, that day; they were both not as interested in the apartments as they were in each other.

 Some days later, they started dating and then Monica’s job took a back seat in her life. She went out with Frank often, to the movies, the theater or simply to have dinner in the most amazing restaurants. He always paid and she loved those details that made him a gentleman. Even the first time they had sex; she realized he was not a driven person, but a controlled one like herself. She liked that so she decided to let herself go a bit and enjoy whatever was happening between them. It was a great time in her life because she had it all: a job, a boyfriend and even money to make small investments, like a new apartment for herself. Frank promised to buy her things to fill it and she knew that it would be their love nest.

 However, that never happened. Blinded by love, Monica had not realized that she had no way of paying for all the bills of the apartment. Even with help from Frank, paying the bills would be very difficult and the truth was she didn’t want Frank to do everything on their future home. Because, although they had never talked about it, she intended to marry him soon. She had not tell any close friends about Frank because every time in the past she had a boyfriend, they had always been extremely judgmental of her because they thought of her control issues and wondered how she would use them in a relationship.

 The case was that she didn’t have to do a thing to end this relationship or to even make it crumble. Frank, as rich as he was, was not interested in her like she had always thought. He was a player and wanted to have many options in life, as he didn’t want any type of responsibility yet. He had been entrusted with a company that someone else was handling on his name. He just had to smile and go to work everyday. But the truth was he would often be high or drunk somewhere with random women, in parties or just having sex in the apartment Monica had gotten for him. When she found it, she felt extremely stupid and told him to fuck himself and never to call her. He was cruel as he told her that she was just using her for sex and that she wasn’t even good at that.

 Monica’s trust in love was destroyed that day and never really grew back. She didn’t blame anyone but herself because she knew she had being naïve and simply stupid every single day of that relationship, if you can even call it that. She was speechless and cried for several days, almost until the day a friend asked her to organize her wedding. Everything changed because of that: she sold the apartment and moved to one she could pay, she burned everything that had ever come from Frank and organized, with the help of a friend who was an expert in creating companies, everything she needed to have a successful business.

 Four years later, Monica had achieved her goal of being the most recognizable face of the wedding planning industry, Because for her it was an industry, as well as for the hundreds of women and men that came to her in order to get married, because they knew they would get whatever their imagination had created. No matter if they wanted silly costumes or the rarest wines in the world she would have it for those who needed it and could pay her fee. When at home, when the weddings were over, she would often think about her own future but she always failed to see love. She wanted sometimes, but there was nothing there. Sadly, that part of her had been torn apart.