The Stranger Stories Season - 1 Episode 3

Computer Programmer

"Computer Programmer" or (cough) "Software Developer" is not really a job. It's also not a career, not to the people who take it to heart. The people that started programming, creating something from absolutely nothing, making the machine bend to their will, and just kept on going. They don't want to be confused or bored by the aspects of managing people, they want to program.

Programming can be treated as a craft or an art, you can write rules about how to accomplish regular tasks, design "build patterns" that can solve many common problems; but that's not the entire job, those can't account for an entire project - it's more than craft, more than art.

It's the thing that comes into your dreams. This is one of the few "jobs" or "careers" where you can go home with a problem, with something not working right, and then dream the answer, so that, you get ready as quickly as possible so that you can into work and fix the problem. Programmers don't ever hate the work; they might object to "work" per se, but not "the work". This is technomancy, magic for the twenty first century, from each basic reporting cantrip through to some accounting miracle, not to mention the illusions of three dimensions performed by the gaming industry. It's a "job", where it may come time to go home, but you have to keep on going. When you're just on the edge of solving the problem, the solution is on the tip of your tongue and you'll give it just one more go before you go home, and suddenly it's hours later.

It's not a job, not a career, it's an obsession.

Which, I suppose, explains why it could be past ten o'clock at night and I'm still hard at it.

It was a dark night in March, I could tell that Spring was around the corner - you caught sight of the of the odd rabbit hopping around behind the offices and you could tell that the trees were starting to think Green.

One thing with obsessions, you need to break every so often, to stand, and walk. You often need to talk, if there's no one to talk to you end up talking to yourself or a handy rubber duck to help solve your problems.

I clicked the "build_all.bat" file and stood up. I needed to wander whilst the code was building, I'd not solved the problem but I'd got one step nearer and needed to see how close it was. I nearly went to the loo, but changed my mind and walked downstairs instead. The dark emptiness of the downstairs offices is conducive to thinking. I like leaving the lights off down there. It just seems to give me more space to ponder within.

I noticed some movement out of the back windows and walked slowly towards them, carefully stepping over cables and round the desks. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I realised what I was seeing - there were ten, maybe fifteen rabbits just sitting there outside the back of the office, just staring inside. That wasn't the strange part - the strange part was the fox that sat calmly in the middle of the conies, also staring into the room. Rabbit and fox seemed oblivious of each other.

I heard a noise. A whispering that got louder and louder until I could make out words being chanted, it sounded like Latin. I spun round, trying to see where it was coming from and, out of the shadows at the front of the office stepped a ghostly figure, a monk holding a flagpole, a ragged cloth with faded marking hanging, blowing in a harsh wind I couldn't feel.

As he walked slowly into the room, through the wall, more ghostly shapes followed him. Two knights followed, clothed in chainmail, but with plate helmets, they were carrying something on their shoulders. As they walked into the room it became clearer - two more knights followed them and I could see they were carrying a litter, with a body lying on it. I felt a chill to my side and turned. Next to me had appeared a translucent figure dressed in rags. I could see the office furniture right through him. Must tidy those chairs away, I thought.

He spoke to me, looking all the while at the monk, knights and the body.

"Dear Queen Mathilda, our beloved Maude." He intoned. "Taken from us before her time."

"Mathilda?" I said, incredulously, "We never had a Queen Mathilda. Well we nearly did, but she was never crowned!"

"Her enemies wiped her reign from the pages of history." The shade said, "The Archbishop of York placed the crown on her head himself." He turned to me, "I was there, I was a witness." Then he lowered his eyes, "The victors and conquerors write history to suit themselves, not to suit such a gentle soul as our Maude."

I felt another chill, and realised that I was surrounded on all side by these shades, a hundred ghosts filled the office, with just enough space for the entourage to pass. They were murmuring, "Mathilda, Mathilda" over and over. Their faces were raised in pious worship, their eyes bowed in mourning.

Behind the litter followed more ethereal monks, chanting, their heads bowed. Beside me, the talkative shade was chanting her name. Then he turned to face me. It was very strange feeling his eyes on me, looking at him and seeing right through him.

"With us." He spoke - it was a request, "Speak her name with us." He asked, "Worship her highness with us; we would welcome your presence."

"How can I understand you?" I asked, trying to be logical among all these spirits, "Surely the language has changed since your time?"

"I am not speaking." He said, cryptically, "Not truly. You are hearing my thoughts, our thoughts."

I heard a faint tinkling sound. It seemed to come from a million miles away, the only thing I could clearly hear was the chanting of the monks and the worship of the crowd.

"Mathilda." My spectre toned, "Mathilda." Then, again, to me, "With us."

I opened my mouth and took a breath; I was caught up in the spirit's mourning.

Suddenly a hand clasped over my mouth, and a voice spoke clearly and solidly into my ear, "Do not speak, do not join in." The voice said, "They want you to join them." I nodded as I recognised the voice as my strange friend from last year. His hand didn't move. "They don't just want you to speak with them," He explained, "They want you to join her train, to bolster their numbers."

I realised that the shades had moved away from me, actually probably more likely away from my friend. The faces around me had changed their countenances from pious and sad to angry and vicious.

The talkative phantom who had been "befriending" me earlier glowered - "Don't listen to the elf!" He scowled, "He seeks to poison your mind against us, he hates Her!" (I could hear the capitalisation) The apparition pointed at the ghostly body of Maude.

The stranger spat at the ghost, "She hunted my kind!" he said with vehemence, "Without her assaults on our circles, without her breaking of our woods my people wouldn't be a myth!"

I realised I was in the middle of someone else's battle, and tugged at the hand over my face. The stranger's fingers loosened and I was able to speak for myself.

"I am not praising your Mathilda!" I told the ghosts. I turned to my friend, making a decision based upon two prior, and rather short, meetings, "Can we banish them?"

"They fear me!" He said, motioning at the space around him then smiled, "I can make them leave whenever I want." His smile was wide, wider than a mouth has reason to smile. I preferred his alien smile to the horrific visages of the ghosts.

He walked towards the monks, knights and the body. The crowd of mourning ghosts drew back from him at every step. The leading monk reached within his robe and brought out a censer, vaporous fumes floated from the globe as the monk swung it from side to side.

The fumes seemed more real, seemed more solid than the ghosts themselves. As my friend reached the monk he started to cough, the fumes affecting him. He swung his hands in wide arcs, trying to generate a breeze to clear the air, but the fumes seemed to be blown at him, by the ethereal wind rather than the real one.

I had an idea and raced through the opening he'd made in the crowd towards the door.

The stranger collapsed, coughing as if his lungs were being turned inside out, as I reached the door and slammed my hand into the bank of switches. With a collection of seven clicks the lights flickered on.

Suddenly the office was bathed in fluorescence, and, with just one single, and if I may say, ghostly wail, the ghosts disappeared. I rushed back to my friend as he, still coughing, tried to stand. He held his arm above his eyes, shielding them from the harsh artificial light. "Very clever move." He said with a smile, "But the light hurts me too." He took my arm and I helped him out of the room into the shadows of the stairway.

The front door was open, it looked as if he'd had to force his way in, that must have been the "tinkling" sound I'd heard earlier - and I'd hardly heard a sound as the ghosts enthralled me. I'd need to call out the 24-Hour window replacement service.

We sat on the stairs. "Thank you." I said when he stopped coughing. "But," I had to ask, "What would have happened if I'd joined in?"

"You would have become another ghost in her retinue. Just another voice in her choir of mourners." His voice lowered, "I've lost friends to those spectres before now." His voice went very low, "I lost many of my family to her purges." His oval eyes widened further than normal, "There are so few of us now." He dropped his head, "So few." Then he coughed again.

"Can I get you something?" I asked, "Tea or coffee? Milk? Water? Flapjack?"

He laughed through the hacking, shaking his head, "Your water, your milk is... not as natural as it could be." He smiled, "Although, I do like a good cup of tea now and then."