Chapter 1 - Chapter 0: Kuhashi Ritsu (47)
This is my first work, my first submission.
Although my writing is poor, I hope you enjoy it.
I will do my best to finish it. (ー。ー；
"Kuuu... It's over~."
I averted my eyes from the display of the laptop I had been staring at for a long time and stretched widely.
At the same time as the backrest of the chair I was leaning against creaked slightly, my neck and back also creaked loudly.
Once I had stretched out my stiffened body and the lethargy settled down, a voice devoid of energy, "Uaaa...", involuntarily slipped out.
I am Kuhashi Ritsu, 47 years old. I am an old man living a single life in a one-room apartment in the city.
It is not that the number of years since I have had a girlfriend equals my age, but I have not led a particularly fulfilling life either.
It is not that I did not want to get married, but neither did I have the enthusiasm to aggressively search for a partner.
I just lived on, and after 47 years of time, an unremarkable old man was formed. That is me.
I reached out my hand to the keyboard connected to the laptop and closed the text editor and compiler I had been working on until just now.
My profession is a programmer.
The company I work for is classified as a general trading company, but it is small to medium-sized within the industry.
In such a company that could be blown away by a breeze, I am mainly in charge of creating various business support applications for internal use, as well as maintaining and managing computers and networks.
For large-scale management systems, we use those from major software companies, and what I am in charge of are applications that, while it would be expensive to outsource them, would greatly improve work efficiency if they existed.
They are apps that reach exactly where the itch is.
That said, since it is not a department that directly generates profit, although we have a grand signboard like the System Development Department, it is a run-down department with only three employees.
Aside from me, there is a bald department manager in his mid-50s and an anime-obsessed guy in his late 30s, and it is a rough department with a female ratio of 50%, which is hard to believe for a company where everyone is single.
By the way, this anime-obsessed guy.
On the morning of his first day at work, the first thing he tackled was arranging the seven figures (prize figures) he brought with him on his own desk.
When the department manager asked the anime-obsessed guy what he was doing while he was earnestly fiddling with the positions and directions of the figures, he boldly declared, "I can't work until this is done!"
When I told a friend about it later, he said, "Ah, there are people like that."
Is this normal?
■■■■■■
A few years ago, an infectious disease spread globally.
And that outbreak has not ended even now.
The government began to recommend working from home to prevent the spread of infection.
Since it is an infectious disease, if the frequency of contact is reduced, infection can be prevented, they said.
Due to such circumstances, I am currently working from home.
I only need to go to the office once or three times a week on a shift basis.
This week, I already went to work on Monday.
There, I confirmed the work content to be carried out throughout this week with the department manager, and just now, that work has finished.
At 11:20 on Thursday.
I crossed my arms and placed my hand on my chin, thinking for a moment.
As expected, I finished the work too early, what should I do?
I did not exaggerate the simple work content to take up a lot of schedule.
The schedule itself is appropriate.
Rather, I was thinking that even if time runs short, there are weekends, so it should be fine.
So, why did the work finish so quickly?----
(It's because of working from home. ...Even if I blame others, it won't help.)
I stretched my body again and twisted my neck, and it cracked loudly.
When working at a workplace, there is something called "standard hours."
Depending on the company, there may be flextime systems, so it cannot be said generally, but most companies probably set it from what time to what time, eight hours of actual work.
And if the way of working was to go to work in the morning and go home when the working hours ended, as before, there was no problem.
As a very ordinary social person, I myself have been living such a life for over 20 years.
But a completely different element has been added.
Yes, working from home.
I am not good at switching gears.
I am aware that I am a slow starter even regarding work.
Still, until now, there was the "ritual" of commuting, and I used the commuting time to switch the switch.
Leaving the apartment in the morning, walking to the station, and slowly turning on the switch while being shaken by a crowded train.
In this way, by the time I arrive at the company, the work mode is properly turned on.
But working from home does not have that. There is no important ritual to switch the switch.
Because of this, I will worry for a while.
Work did not proceed as I wanted, and I often had to make up for the unfinished portion using weekends.
Most of all, a job as a programmer often has such things.
In software development, it is not uncommon to stay overnight at the company before milestones like master-up, alpha, or beta, resulting in a situation where waking time ≈ working time.
Yes, the so-called "death march."
So, filling the gaps in work using weekends is not a special thing for me.
And that experience and way of thinking can be said to be the cause of this, or at least one of the major factors.
Until now, switching to "on" did not go well, but this time, switching to "off" did not go well.
Since there are no standard hours, I kept hitting the keyboard endlessly, and my hands stopped only when I ran out of strength and fell asleep.
The story changes a bit, but when writing a program, what is the ratio of "thinking about the program" to "typing the program" in terms of work?
Thinking : Typing, is it 5:5? Or 3:7?
When a friend asked me before, I answered 9:1. Thinking is 9. Typing is 1.
It seems my friend gave the same answer.
In other words, thinking is overwhelmingly important.
I assemble the program in my head, and only after that do I start typing on the keyboard.
The story returns to Monday.
After I went to work and decided the work content in a meeting with the department manager, I had been assembling the program in my head during the rest of the work time and on the way home.
This is not a special thing at all. Any programmer does this.
This time, I went straight home, but that would not have been a problem even before.
To go home in work mode, there is simply no environment to work in anyway.
But, unfortunately, the environment to work is now fully prepared.
After returning home, I took a shower for the time being and ate a bento I bought at a convenience store on the way. While thinking about the program in my head.
And by the time I took a breath, the program was assembled, and the necessary preparations were clear.
(I'll just get the environment ready for tomorrow.)
Once I thought that, I was deeply hitting the keyboard until the eastern sky turned a beautiful reddish-purple.
To transfer the program assembled in my head to the computer.
Being a programmer might be said to be a rather pitiful job.
If you see them not moving their hands and just staring blankly, it is unavoidable that they will be thought to be slacking off.
But in many cases, they are surely thinking hard.
How to write a clean, useless-free, organized program.
In other words, it is a program that is lightweight, has scalability, and has few bugs.
When programmers seem busy hitting the keyboard, their heads are actually not working much. Because the things to think about are already finished.
The work of hitting the keyboard is nothing more than transferring the "information" of the program assembled in the head to the computer.
How to transfer the "information" as quickly and accurately as possible. For that purpose, unnecessary thinking only gets in the way.
Without thinking anything, silently transmitting the "information" in the head through the fingertips to the keyboard.
Once, a friend said something.
"I wish I could plug a USB directly into my head."
It seems they find it troublesome to go through their hands and the input/output device of the keyboard.
I completely agreed with that opinion.
■■■■■■
Unintentionally, I ended up doing the "death march" on my own, but thanks to that, I secured plenty of time.
One and a half days. If you add weekends, there is free time for three and a half days, but as expected, I need to be at home today and tomorrow.
Since it is the time I should normally be working, the company might contact me urgently.
If I went on a trip far away and said "I can't go." or "I can't do it" to an emergency call or request, that would be bad.
Most of all, because of the "death march," I don't have the energy to go on a trip, and there was also a sense of aversion to going far due to the recent trend caused by the infectious disease outbreak.
(Net or games. Maybe watching a movie if I feel like it.)
In other words, just like always.
Once I decided on that policy, I moved the laptop and keyboard I had been working on until just now to the empty space on the L-shaped desk.
This laptop was lent to me by the company for working from home, and I could not use it for private purposes.
Or rather, my own desktop computer has higher specs, so there is no need to play with a company computer with low specs.
However, I cannot turn off the power. Because I am still "at work" right now.
I moved it to the side so I can see immediately if an email arrives, and I turned the display toward myself. With this, I can check just by shifting my gaze a little.
I tried to start my own computer, and suddenly my hand stopped.
(...Does it smell a bit?)
After pondering for a few seconds, I decided to take a shower first.
Because I had no memory of taking a shower in the last few days.
...The last time I took a shower might have been after I got home on Monday.
After taking a shower and feeling refreshed, I suddenly felt hungry.
Opening the closet, which had become a storage room and pantry (mainly for snacks), I pulled out some snack foods.
Starting my own computer, I immediately opened my favorite internet site from the launcher.
It is what is commonly called a video site, and the one I often watch is the world's largest site among those video sites.
("Gagaring" has the next episode up, and "Mark. I'm going to yell" is up too. "Pinosuke" started a new game? ...Anyway, what happened to Sada? Did he run away? He was stuck in a swamp.)
I checked the archives of the game streamers I liked and kept adding them to the list of videos I wanted to watch.
Selecting one video from the list and playing it, I ate the snack food like a trumpet.
I do not pick up snack food with my bare hands. Because I do not want to dirty my hands.
It is because I hate dirtying the keyboard and game controllers, but my friend ate potato chips with chopsticks.
According to him, "It's elegant."
It was an incident that made me think about dignity.
After watching videos for a while, I suddenly wanted something to drink.
If I open the refrigerator, there are always canned coffee, carbonated drinks, and canned chuhai.
Most of all, I reached for the carbonated drink I drink the most, and then stopped my hand.
Looking at the clock, it was around 3 PM. Too late for noon, too early for evening.
Usually, I choose canned coffee or a carbonated drink. There is no particular hesitation.
But today?
(...There is no problem, right?)
Thinking that, I picked up the canned chuhai.
An option I would never choose if I were at work.
But today, the work is already finished. Furthermore, saying that I am still at work, which is normally the case, gives a sense of sin that pushes me from behind.
(Sometimes, this kind of thing is nice too.)
I am not that fond of alcohol, so I do not consume alcohol during the day even on holidays.
There are days when I want to drink, so I keep it on hand, but I do not drink it every day.
But today, for some reason, my spirits were high, and I was in the mood of "It's fine, it's fine."
That day, I watched several videos and emptied several cans of chuhai.
When I got genuinely hungry, I ordered pizza, and while eating pizza, I watched the rest of the videos, and the day dragged on lazily.
I enjoyed such a waste of time that was unlike a 47-year-old old man.
■■■■■■
That day, I had a dream.
A dream of flying in the sky.
I usually do not dream much.
Well, in reality, it seems everyone dreams, but I just don't remember them.
At first, it felt like floating lightly.
I looked down on my familiar room.
Here, I even noticed it myself.
(Ah, this is a dream.)
It was a dream I often had when I was a child.
Going out the window, the altitude increased further.
I could see further and further away bit by bit.
(That is the convenience store I usually go to. There is a bridge over there, and the station is that one.)
Flying freely around, I tried to find various things using places I usually go and buildings I often see as landmarks.
But after a while, the altitude began to drop bit by bit.
It dropped and dropped, until finally reaching the same height as my usual viewpoint.
The altitude dropped further, and finally, the viewpoint dropped so low that I was lying face down.
Naturally, my posture was face down.
Even in such a state, my body was still floating.
(...This is the same too.)
Dreams I saw when I was a child always ended with low-altitude flight just above the ground.
The ground was right in front of my eyes, and I tried to fly again, but it never rose.
(As expected, it didn't work.)
Thinking such things, my consciousness slowly fell into darkness.