by Limmy
I’m sure a lot of users wouldn’t have agreed. I’m sure a lot of users didn’t give a fuck. Everything was fine. Just leave it the way it is, Malcolm.
‘All right,’ said Jen, shrugging. ‘Just to let you know, I don’t think it needs freshening up. But you’re the boss.’
Malcolm nodded.
‘So,’ said Jen. ‘What is it you’re thinking?’
‘I’m thinking …’ said Malcolm, drumming his fingers on his chin. ‘I’m thinking of something that’s the same as what we’ve got just now. But different.’
‘You’re wanting the same,’ repeated Jen. ‘But different.’ Maybe if Malcolm heard back what he just said, he’d know how much of a clown he was. She opened up her notepad. ‘The same,’ she said as she scribbled it down. ‘But different.’
And then she did a full stop. Tap.
‘Great,’ said Malcolm. ‘Let me see what you’ve done before lunch. Midday, shall we say?’
‘If you want,’ said Jen.
If he wants. Ha, that’s a laugh. The cunt doesn’t know what he wants. There was fuck-all wrong with that icon. Fuck-all.
But Jen went away and did what she could, making up a few different icons. Slightly different designs, but not too different, as per Malcolm’s wishes. His stupid fucking wishes.
Midday came, and over walked Malcolm with a cup of coffee. He grabbed a seat, sat on it, and wheeled up next to Jen using his feet.
‘Hey, Jen,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got.’
Jen showed Malcolm her ideas. They were just what he asked for. They were kind of the same as the current icon, but slightly different. Same but different. That’s what he asked for.
‘Hmmm,’ he said, looking around the screen. ‘Hmmm.’
‘What d’you think?’ asked Jen, not giving a fuck.
‘Hmmm’, said Malcolm. ‘They’re a bit too like what we’ve got.’
‘Are you saying they’re not different enough? You want them to be a bit more different?’
‘That’s exactly it,’ said Malcolm, nodding. ‘That’s exactly it, I think they need to be a bit more different. Otherwise, what’s the point? You know?’
‘Yes,’ said Jen.
Fuck off, Malcolm.
‘Will I leave it with you then?’ he said.
‘Leave it with me.’
‘Shall we reconvene at close of play?’
‘Okay,’ she said, and Malcolm left.
Close of play. Fuck off with that patter.
But she got to work, designing more icons, this time trying to make them a bit more different than the ones she’d already done, whilst still keeping them the same as what she’d already done. She had to stretch her neck a few times and go for a walk around the office, to try and get her head around it. To try and work out what the fuck he wanted. What the fuck was he on about?
She worked on till 6 p.m., until Malcolm headed over once again, sitting on an empty seat and then wheeling himself over by the feet until he was next to Jen. You know, instead of just pulling the seat over first and then sitting on it.
‘Okay,’ said Malcolm. ‘Hit me with it.’
I’d love to hit you with it, mate. This was a total waste of time. There was fuck-all wrong with that icon.
Jen showed Malcolm what she’d been doing. She had twice as many variations as she had before, at least 20 new icon designs. There would be something in there for him.
She zoomed in to show each of them individually on the screen. Then, after a few seconds, she dragged over to the next design.
‘Hmmm,’ said Malcolm.
Oh fuck off with that hmmm shite.
‘What d’you think?’ asked Jen, rubbing her eyes. She was getting tired. Malcolm said nothing, so she kept dragging through all the icons until she had shown him them all.
‘Hmmm,’ he said.
‘What?’
She didn’t normally just say something as blunt as ‘What?’ to her boss, but she was knackered.
‘You’re going to hate me for saying this,’ he said. ‘But I think they’re a bit too different.’
Oh my God. You tool.
‘You think these ones are too different?’ asked Jen.
‘That’s exactly it,’ he said, nodding, smiling apologetically. ‘I think we’ve departed too much from the current icon, I’m afraid. We don’t want to lose that familiarity with the users.’
Then here’s a fucking idea. How’s about not changing the icon, mate? How’s about not changing a thing? It’s the only successful app you’ve made, it’s got an average of 4.5 stars out of 5 and almost a million fucking downloads. Why not just leave it the way it is? How’s that for an idea? What is it with people like you?
‘Okay,’ said Jen, sighing. She sighed the biggest fucking sigh you’ve ever heard in your life. ‘Okay, well, I’ll pick it up tomorrow.’
‘No,’ said Malcolm.
‘What?’ asked Jen, turning to look at him.
‘I want this going live tonight,’ he said, all excited again. ‘Or tomorrow morning at the latest. Fraser’s staying late to upload it, once you work your magic.’
‘But …’ she said. She closed her eyes and put her hand to her brow. She didn’t know what to say, she truly was knackered.
‘I’ll pay you overtime, don’t worry about that. I’m just really excited about the users getting up tomorrow morning and seeing the new icon.’
Get a fucking life, mate. Seriously.
‘All right,’ said Jen.
So she stayed late, working till 8 p.m. to knock up more icons. She tried something that was a bit more like what they already had, but not too like what they already had. She didn’t want him going ‘Hmmm’ and saying they weren’t different enough again. But when he wheeled up to have a look, that’s exactly what he said.
So she stayed till 11 p.m., knocking up even more, this time doing icons that were more different, but not too different. She threw in the odd icon that was completely different, just in case. Just in case of the unlikely event that he said, ‘Oh, wait, I like that.’ But when he wheeled over, it was the same ‘Hmmm’ patter. He pointed at the ones that were completely different and said ‘Oh, those ones there’, which made Jen hopeful that he’d seen something he liked and she was going to be able to get the fuck out of there. But no. ‘Those ones there are far too different, that’s not what I’m after at all,’ he said.
He asked her to have one last crack at it. She told him that she was fucking shattered, she told him that she wasn’t at her best. Her eyes were blurry and she was half asleep. She told him that she should really just go home and do it in the morning and they should update the icon another time. But he said no.
Keep that in mind. She warned him, right? She warned him. You can’t blame her for what happened next.
At 3 a.m., Malcolm and Fraser came over to Jen’s desk to see the designs. They were the only ones left in the office. Everybody else was tucked up in bed, where Jen wanted to be. Where she should have been.
She showed Malcolm the designs.
‘Hmmm,’ he said, shaking his head slowly. ‘No. No, these aren’t what I was after at all.’
Then you fucking do it, Malcolm. Better still, just don’t do anything. Just leave it. The app has got an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Barely any app gets higher than that.
Malcolm was about to let it go. Maybe Jen was right and it was all a bit too rushed. He was just about to tell them to call the whole thing off, when he saw the last icon on the screen.
‘Wait!’ he said. ‘That one. That one right there!’
Jen looked to see which one he was pointing at. It was one of the more different ones she did, it was quite a weird one. She couldn’t even remember doing it. She was practically dreaming when she did it. At the time she was just thinking of the nonsense of doing something that was the same but different, the same but different, the same … but different. Then she nodded off. Then when she jumped back awake in her seat, there it was.
The icon was different from the rest. The other ones were static, they were pictures. Whereas this other one was animated. It was moving.
It was alive.
‘I didn’t know you could do that,’ said Malcolm.
‘You can’t,’ said Jen.
‘You can’t?’ asked Malcolm.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jen. She yawned and stretched, then shrugged. ‘I don’t know. All I know is that I’m really fucking tired.’
Malcolm and Fraser leaned in towards the screen for a closer look. As they leaned in, they could hear something.
‘Can you hear that?’ asked Malcolm.
‘I can,’ said Fraser. ‘I can hear something.’
There was a metallic, breathing sound coming from the icon. It didn’t sound like the in‒out, in‒out breathing that came from lungs, but a constant inhalation, drawing breath from where Jen, Malcolm and Fraser were sitting, into where the icon was. Wherever that was.
The spiral seemed to be spiralling like a whirlwind, yet it didn’t seem to be moving at all. When you moved your head from side to side, you could see that the spiral was going into the screen. Deep beyond the screen. There was perspective.
The eye in the icon wasn’t there anymore, except it somehow was. You could see it in your head, but you knew it wasn’t really there on the screen. It was like each of them was simultaneously imagining seeing it there, without trying to imagine it.
And there was something bad about it. Something evil. There was the sense that it wanted to get you.
That would have set off the alarm bells for most people. But not Malcolm.
‘I love it,’ he said. ‘I think it really stands out. Fraser, could you get that uploaded?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Fraser. ‘I don’t think it’ll work on Android. Besides, I don’t think we should. There’s something about it I don’t like. I think it wants to get me.’
‘Well, I love it,’ said Malcolm. ‘I think it’s got an edge.’
He asked Fraser to upload it. Despite two warnings from his staff. Despite a warning from Fraser as well as that warning earlier from Jen. You can’t pin this one on them.
‘As for you, young lady,’ he said, patting Jen on the back. ‘Get to your bed. Good job.’
Malcolm headed home in his car and Jen got a taxi, while Fraser uploaded the updated app with the updated icon. He was going to test it, but it was so fucking late. It was after 3 in the morning. And keep in mind that it was Malcolm who kept them up that late. It was his fault, all this. There was nothing wrong with that icon. The original one, I mean.
The next morning, Malcolm strolled into the office, bright eyed and bushy tailed, saying good morning to the cleaning women. He was all excited about the new icon for YoonifEye. All excited to hear about the feedback from the users.
The team were crowded around Fraser’s computer. Lying next to the desk was Maureen, one of the cleaners. She was lying face down in a pool of blood. Except her face itself wasn’t face down, because her head was turned all the way around to face the ceiling.
‘What’s going on here then?’ asked Malcolm, giving Maureen a nudge with his foot.
‘We had a bit of a problem,’ said Fraser.
‘Problem? What problem?’
‘I’ll show you,’ said Fraser. He looked to another one of the cleaning ladies. ‘Agnes,’ he said. ‘Could you come over here for a minute?’
Agnes came over with a bin liner full of rubbish that she’d emptied from the bins next to the desks.
‘Yes, pet?’ she said, stepping over Maureen.
Fraser handed his phone over to Agnes. ‘Could you press that button right there?’ He pointed to the new icon for YoonifEye.
‘Which one, love, this one here?’
‘No, the one next to it, the one on the far left.’
‘The one with the eye?’ she asked.
‘That’s it,’ said Fraser.
‘Okay.’ She looked at the icon, how it animated, and how it looked alive. She was impressed. ‘Look at that, that’s good.’
Malcolm smiled at Jen. Good feedback. Good feedback so far.
Agnes hovered her finger over the button. Fraser pushed Malcolm back gently with his arm, to give Agnes a bit of room. Jen wheeled her seat away by a few feet.
Agnes tapped the button.
On tapping the button, she froze. She became as still as a waxwork. Then her head flicked to the side with such force and speed that it broke her neck. The sound of the crack gave Malcolm a fright. Her head flicked back the other way so quickly that you couldn’t see it move. At one instant it was leaning to the right, and the very next instant it was leaning to the left, with no motion in between.
‘And then watch her eye,’ said Fraser.
Malcolm waited for something to happen. He was about to ask Fraser what he was supposed to be looking for, but then her left eye popped out, and hung from its nerve.
Malcolm looked to Fraser and Jen. He was concerned. He looked at their faces for answers, for solutions to this problem they’d got themselves into, but all they did was shrug. They shrugged because it wasn’t them that got them into this problem. It was Malcolm’s idea to keep them up till 3, despite Jen warning him. Fraser had warned him as well, he’d warned Malcolm that there wasn’t enough time to test the icon. Remember Malcolm asked him to upload it without testing, and Fraser said ‘I don’t think we should’? Remember?
Malcolm was about to speak, but Fraser raised a finger to ask him to wait. Fraser looked at Agnes, as she stood there with her broken neck and popped-out eye. He waited a few seconds more, and said, ‘Then this happens.’ He pointed to Agnes.
A large purple vein began to swell on the right side of Agnes’s face, opposite the side that had lost its eye. There was a creaking sound, like somebody twisting an old leather belt. Suddenly, the front of her body imploded. Her torso looked like an empty packet of crisps that had just had the air sucked out of it by a hoover.
Her head twisted to face behind her, quick enough to make her long grey hair flick Malcolm in the face. She fell forward next to her colleague Maureen. Body down, face up.
‘I see,’ said Malcolm. ‘And it’s not just an Android thing?’
‘No,’ said Fraser. ‘That’s Android and iOS. That’s on everything.’
Well done Malcolm.
He could have just left it. There was absolutely fuck-all wrong with the icon the way it was. He could have just left it. It was a cracking wee app, with just under a million downloads, and an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Well, guess what it is now.
3.9.
The Pub
The pub was shut. There was graffiti on it, and one of the windows at the front was smashed. The doorway had been boarded over, but it had been pulled away at the bottom. Above the doorway were letters that used to spell the name of the pub, but were now either broken or hanging upside down. The building was surrounded by a flimsy metal fence to keep people out, but it had been knocked over at the side of the pub, near the back.
A woman walked past the pub, carrying two poly bags of shopping. She raised one of the bags to her head, to wipe the sweat from her forehead with her hand. It was hot. A man walked her way. He was older than her, and he was drunk. He swayed from side to side. When he saw the woman, he straightened his back and looked ahead, to the horizon, and attempted to walk in a straight line. When he passed her, he returned to how he was.
He stopped to look at the pub, at the broken sign and the broken window. He looked around him. When he saw that there was nobody there, he spat on the ground in front of the fence. He began walking again.
There was a sign on the fence. He stopped, and walked backwards to look at it. The sign displayed the name of a construction company. He frowned, and looked at the pub again. He began walking away while he looked at the pub and the sign. He saw that the fence had been knocked over at the side of the building. He continued to walk, not looking where he was going. He stumbled
over a stone. He tried to kick it away, but missed.
He began walking again, then he stopped. He looked back to the fence at the side of the building, where it had been knocked over. He looked through the fence at the front, and saw the gap at the bottom of the boarded-up doorway.
He looked to where the woman had been, the one that he’d passed, but she was far away down the street. There was nobody else in that direction. He looked around, and there was nobody else anywhere. He looked again at the sign on the fence, and then he began walking down the side of the pub, towards where the fence had been knocked over.
He stepped over the fence, and walked back towards the front of the pub. When he began to get closer to the front corner, he walked slower, and then stopped. He put a hand on one of the pillars at the front of the pub, and peered around it. He looked down the street to where the woman had gone, and saw that there was nobody there. He looked the other way. He looked behind him. Nobody was anywhere. He looked at his hand on the pillar. He ran his hand down it slowly. When his hand reached as far as it would go, he kept it there, and he looked at the pillar.
He walked around to the boarded-up doorway, and leaned over to grab it at the bottom. It was nailed at the top, but he was able to pull the bottom back far enough to make a large gap. He let go of the board and it slammed back against the frame. He looked down the street to see if anybody had heard the noise, but nobody was there. There was somebody far away where the woman had gone, but they were crossing the road and not coming his way. He got down on his knees and pulled the board back, and crawled through the gap that he’d made.
He stood up inside the doorway and brushed the dust off his trousers. It was dark, but he could see the front door ahead of him. It was closed. He walked to it, and pushed it with his hand. It didn’t move. He gave it a harder push, and it swung open. The bottom of the door made a scraping sound as it pushed broken glass across the tiles on the floor. It was loud. He stood still, and waited.
‘Hello?’ he said. His voice cracked. He looked back at the boarded-up doorway, at the gap down at the bottom, and he waited. He turned back towards the front door. He cleared his throat and said in a louder, deeper voice, ‘Boys, I saw the polis go by, you should get out of here, quick.’