28th July 2007

In a small single story shack somewhere in the dessert due west of Sacramento California USA a small malevolent man has just completed what he considers to be a ‘particularly elegant piece of coding’. He reckons it is now time to get the show on the road and taps the enter key on his laptop keyboard to install the patch and initiate an equally malevolent piece of software. The programmer has lived alone and worked in this shack for close to six years, grafting away, day after day only leaving once a week to drive to the local town 20 miles away to stock up on provisions and then eagerly rushing back to be with his beloved creation.

Years ago he was a big shot, head of a whole floor of programmers in an impressive glass structure of a building. He had money, cars, a house by the ocean and a sail boat, and most of all he had respect, he ruled his kingdom. The even bigger shots who owned the company that he worked for allowed him his eccentricities because he was a genius, a star, he was mega. He created software that earned billions for them, he drove his team of programmers relentlessly to the point of self destruction and then he tossed them aside and found fresher younger blood to replace their spent brains. This savage use of personnel earned him a fearful reputation within the industry and an equally fearful name – Phobos.

Now Phobos sits in his two room shack in the desert, the money has long gone, the girls up and left when the bailiffs moved in, the respect dissolved when he was discarded by his superiors just as he had discarded so many before him. Phobos very rarely speaks to others – he prefers his own company speaking to himself constantly, even when he is in the presence of others he prefers to talk to himself commenting on the world and its occupants as if he is a scientist studying specimens in a Petri dish. He never smiles, but on this occasion he does allow himself a smirk of self satisfaction as he looks upon his creation on the LCD screen, his baby, as he calls it, and now with the press of a key he has sent his child out into the ether to grow and develop.

“This is so not gonna make me popular,” Phobos says to Phobos “and then some.” he added wiping cola from his unshaven chin as it dribbles down from his mouth onto his fat belly to join a montage of food and drink stains on a faded t shirt. “Time to sleep” he concludes. Phobos lifts himself from his chair and walks the 3 paces to his bed and allows himself to fall face down on the yellowed stinking cotton sheets only pausing to fart before falling asleep.

Over on the workstation his laptop screen turns from red to a relaxing blue as the software weaves its wonder interlacing its digital tendons into the complex tapestry of cosmos.
“Happy journey my baby – happy journey” snorts Phobos from his slumbers.

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I wrote the above after visiting Phobos some months after the car crash, he was unaware that i was in his home and i was only in his presence for maybe 5 minutes - as is usually when i am taken on these journeys i have no control of my destination and the actual journey is over in a blink of the eye. Phobos is truly a repulsive man looking like the uglier brother of uncle Fester..... sorry i am gonna have to finish now my head is just throbbing - i will pick this up at a later date...