Little Capsules

For Paul Anderson and Sue Liebeskind,

My Mates in Programming Hell at the time

So, as soon as he mopes around the corner, I open the bottom drawer, reach all the way back, pull out the aspirin bottle, remove the false bottom, and swallow the next to the last capsule...

Within moments, everything around me is at a near standstill, even the usual office hubbub dissolved into low-frequency, unintelligable rumblings. I grab my Pentel and begin to scribble furiously. I go through 2 boxes of lead. How to explain this to the penny counters in supply?

Soon, my notes complete, I turn to my PC. Normally a unix freak, I don't have time to wait for anything as slow as a 38KB link to a terminal right now. I jump into my minimalist, speedy little word processor, and begin to type as best as I can. Fortunately, I finally fixed it to auto-update files every so often, so I don't have to wait for that suddenly slow disk drive...

A shadow slowly encroaches upon my workspace. Someone coming over to try and figure out what I'm doing, moving so fast. Nothing I can do about it now - I would forget to shut the door! Hard to work in this shifted light. Good thing I have incandescants in here - I can't imagine trying to work with those stupid flourescents firing once a second...

Finally, the text looks good. I queue it up to the laser printer, and wait for things to return to normal. The shadow has finally moved, and closed the door behind it. I can hardly wait til the rumors start. "He's Superman!" "What? That dweeb?" "Well, Clark Kent was a nerd, too!" Oh, boy, oh boy.

Things begin to move around me again, the light returns to normal (did I mention that it had shifted?) and the laser begins to move paper at a noticable speed. Soon, Things are hopping again. I grab the document and hotfoot it on down to my boss's office.

"What's this?", he asks warily, giving me the eyeball. So, he knows.

"Just a document I threw together that Marketing may be able to use."

His eyes get much bigger as he scans the papers. "What was going on in your office?"

I close the door; we've been friends a long time - it's time he knew. "Check this out", I say, handing him the last of the capsules. "The big black ones are hours - 12 of them. The red ones are minutes; there's 720 of them. And there's thousands of the little green and white ones - seconds. That's my secret. That's how I did this stuff, how I finished the User Interface on the last project, and a few other things you've rewarded me well for."

He moved back from me and the capsule I held towards him. "You can't be serious!", he hissed.

I nodded. "Yup. Time release capsules. That's the secret." He crawled under his desk and began to whimper. I turned to go, paused, and said, "My aunt out west sends them to me. Don't know where they come from. But let's keep this a secret, OK?"

"No problem", comes the faint whine. "I don't want to live the rest of my life in the cuckoo's nest!"

I shut the door, and head for the elevators. On the way, I drop the last cap in Sue's tea. She's got a long night ahead of her and a deadline tomorrow. It's only 10:00 AM, but I've put in my 12 hours in the last 17 minutes; I'm going home to bed. And to call Aunt Rita about a refill.

Last updated: 6 May 1994

Copyright 1989, 1994 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.

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