Waterdrops

The faucet continued to leak, despite his best efforts to the contrary.  He had tightened both knobs as much as he could to no effect. He had under tightened them, to the moment before they would start producing water. That didn’t help either.  Instead the only sound in the bathroom was the steady drip drip drip as the faucet contributed its percussive commentary in the otherwise silent bathroom.

He watched the drip from between his knees, the only part of him other than his face that broke the surface of the tub.  Under the water, the sound of the faucet was all-encompassing, the heartbeat of the water, a pounding rhythm that served as the counterpoint to his own inaction.  For every drip, he’d take a breath, until the faucet seemed to be dictating the rhythms of his life more than his own heartbeat. 

At first he was so fixated on this constant reality, narrowed to a single sound and motion, that he couldn’t begin to process anything else.  But over time, as the sound grew more insistent, he heard the knocking that came from outside, the alien sounds from the great beyond, a sharp erratic rat-a-tat of someone insistently knocking on the bathroom door.

He rose above the water slightly, ears exposed to the air, cold and bereft of the womb-like comfort of the bath.  And indeed, here in the open space, the door sounded loud and shrill.  He longed to sink back into the water, but knew that he couldn’t fully retreat.  No, the invasion would continue until he finally relented.  Better to face it. 

“What do you want?”

“You’ve been in there forever.  I need to use the bathroom.”

“Then use the bathroom,” he said.  “I don’t care.”

The door opened and with it came a blast of cold air from the outside.  He instinctively sank into the warm, inviting water.  “Shut the door,” he snapped.  She shut the door behind her. 

“How can you stay in there so long?  Doesn’t your water get cold?” 

He didn’t answer her.  She was questioning him just to nag, not out of any sense of genuine curiosity. He had done this enough that she was well familiar with his ritual of slowly draining off the water and refilling it with fresh, hot water when needed. 

He heard her move over to the toilet and sit down.  He didn’t bother opening his eyes.  There was nothing new to see here.  He did keep his head above water enough to clearly hear her, should she speak.  He felt that was enough consideration. 

“How long are you going to be in there?”

“No idea,” he said softly, a monotone murmur as he tried to focus on the drip of the faucet.  Hard when she was speaking, when he could feel her pointedly looking at him.  He wasn’t ashamed of his nakedness, that would be silly at this point, but the focused attention disrupted the calm watery dissolution of self he was seeking.  “As long as it takes.”

“As long as it takes for what?” 

He couldn’t begin to put what he was seeking into words.  So for a long while, he didn’t answer her.  She didn’t seem too interested in hearing an answer anyway.  But finally he spoke up, raising a hand to gesture to the faucet. 

“The faucet leaks.”

“Well, you should probably fix it,” she said. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, trying to compose his thoughts.  “I lie here and I can hear the dripping of the faucet, but each drop doesn’t really amount to anything.  I can’t tell that the faucet’s dripping.  It’s never enough to make the tub overflow.  Each drop is singular, eventful, but in the end it amounts to nothing.”

“What are you even talking about?"

“You asked what I was waiting for,” he said.  “That’s my answer.”

There was a pregnant pause.  Silence.  The sound of the faucet dripping began to fill his thoughts again, a small, insignificant plok plok here above the water.  He opened one eye, squinting against the light, looking over at her sitting on the toilet looking at him and through him, lost in her own thought. 

“Haven’t you gone yet?” he asked her. 

“I’m getting there,” she said.  “You make me nervous.”

“I know,” he said.

“I’m not talking about nervous about using the toilet in front of you, either.”

“I know,” he said again.

He could almost hear her mentally grasping for a response. He let her writhe on that answer, closing his eyes again.  He hesitated a moment, seeing if she’d say anything else, but then slid back down into the water again. 

The numbness, the warmth, as welcoming as his oldest friend.

The drops of water, loud again, the steady tick of the clock of the universe.

15 Fictional Character – A List

So there’s this list going around about the 15 fictional characters that most struck a chord with you.  One is supposed to make the list off the top of your head, but man, I’m really bad at that.  It did take me less than fifteen minutes, but I agonized over a few of the choices here. 

It’s a solid list, though perhaps some people would question how a list could contain both Hannibal Lecter AND Winnie the Pooh.  Or debate with me that Miyamoto Musashi and Hunter S Thompson were both technically real people.  I approached both through fiction about them, so I feel it valid to include them here.

The 15 Fictional Characters List                                                      
in no particular order

1. Captain Jean-Luc Picard – Star Trek: The Next Generation
2. Laguna Loire – Final Fantasy VIII
3. Hunter S Thompson – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
4. Leonard Shelby – Memento
5. Winnie the Pooh – The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
6. Randall Flagg – The Stand
7. Cyrano de Bergerac – Cyrano de Bergerac
8. Batman – Batman: The Animated Series (and other representations)
9. Usagi Tsukino – Sailor Moon
10. Hannibal Lecter – Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal (books especially)
11. Calvin and Hobbes – Calvin and Hobbes
12. Odysseus – The Odyssey
13. Miyamoto Musashi – Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
14. Charlotte – Lost in Translation
15. Daffy Duck – Looney Tunes

Feel free to reply with your own list, or link me to your list in the comments.  Would love to see what other people have down for this. 

Split Screen: The Bicycle Thief

This is the first in what will likely be multiple articles from me and Elizabeth Ditty. We both watch a lot of movies, and often we find that we disagree on certain vital points in movies. So instead of just agreeing to disagree, we've decided to make it a learning opportunity and explore our opinions in writing. Spoilers for the film in question follow, of course. Also, be sure to check out her companion article here on her blog.

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“The Bicycle Thief.” Few titles so easily conjure up foggy ideas about what classic foreign cinema is and represents. It is the mystery behind the curtain, an ancient tome that is daunting and remote in the weight that has been given to it. Those who approach it, almost always believers in the power of cinema as art, do so with a sort of hesitant respect reserved for these sacred cows and the old testament notion of ‘fearing God.’

This is compounded all the more by the implication that these classic films are somehow different than the films we see in our day to day life, not just that they are particularly well shot or well acted but that they have some other, intangible quality that keeps them on the best of lists and quick on the lips of well-studied critics and cinephiles.

Unfortunately, this is perhaps the worst way to approach “The Bicycle Thief.”

The story of an impoverished man and his son seeking work in post-war Italy, “The Bicycle Thief” is a film about simple people with a narrow, minimalist scope. There is little subtext, a deliberate avoidance of much of the possible social commentary, and a single-minded devotion to the modest plot. “The Bicycle Thief” is, at its heart, more parable than modern narrative.

The anchor of the film are the two main leads, Lamberto Maggiorani as the father, Antonio Ricci, and Enzo Staiola as his son, Bruno. The director, Vittorio De Sica, believed that every person was able to play one role well, and that was to naturally be themselves. As such, both performers were not professional actors. But instead of hindering the film, their honest and graceless performances lend weight to the film that it wouldn’t otherwise have. The father looks as though he worked his entire life because he had. The son is not precocious and clever in the typical cinematic way, but feels wiser than most movie children because he is an actual child who lived a normal life.

Which is why it’s so crushing to see both characters wrapped up in the tide of the plot. The titular bicycle is Antonio’s only chance of getting a job, putting up posters with his son in order to buy food to feed his family. But the inevitable happens and the bicycle is stolen, leading to a slow spiral of despair as father and son search Rome for the one hope of their salvation.

It is that desperate search that takes up most of the film, with the two characters descending deeper into desperation as the chance of finding the bicycle slips through their fingers. Yet in doing so, we are brought closer together to them. They are a perfect father son pair, a father painfully aware of his son’s opinion of him and of the necessity to provide and be that figure of support. The son trying to live up to the desires of his father, even when those desires are impossible for either of them to meet.

It is the genius of the film, then, that their is never any resolution to their task. The bicycle is forever out of reach. In the final scenes of the film, the father attempts to steal his own bicycle, continuing this cycle of deprivation and suffering. But it is the one redeeming point in the father's life that he fails to steal it. He is, to the end, a good man. And sometimes the worst things happen to good people. It isn't satisfying, but it is life, and that is what The Bicycle Thief captures so perfectly on film.

Transmutation

The girl winced as the old man tightened a screw. “Ow!”

“Well, if you would stop cringing so much, maybe I could do my job the right way.”

“I’m holding as still as I can! We’ve been at this for hours.” The girl sighed, trying to stand up as straight as she could. Her legs hurt and her back was fairly screaming in agony. But this was the price one paid. The old man had told her that this would be a long, tiring process.

“How do you think I feel? You stand here, I do all the work,” the old man said in his thick European accent. “This is delicate work.”

“I don’t even understand how you can get that to work,” she said, trying to peer through the mirror at what he was doing. Even with the extreme angles the mirror provided, she had only the dimmest idea of what the old man was doing. She had seen the sketches, vaguely remembered how it all went together.

“It is very complicated, little girl,” the old man said. “Do you know how a clock works?”

“Well, no,” the girl answered, furrowing her brow.

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

She was a girl concerned with things that were beautiful and interesting. Clocks were old and musty and utterly beyond her. “Of course not. So long as they work, I don’t care one whit.”

“Then hush up and let me do my work. I know what I’m doing, and I promised you that when I was done you would have what you wished for, didn’t I?” He tightened a screw, and the sound of intricate metal pieces sliding into place clicked loudly in the quiet workshop. The girl felt a pinch, and took in a sharp breath.

“That’s natural,” the old man said. “Well, as natural as this can be, anyway.”

She just nodded absently, trying to think about something else. They had been here for what seemed like days, her standing in front of the mirrors and under the lights, the old man working behind her. She would have felt unsafe in a dress that exposed so much of her back but the man seemed too ancient to muster any sort of passion. He was as dusty as the old machines he kept.

“Hold this,” he said, handing her a piece of wire. “Be careful you hold onto the leather. The wire will cut you if you let it.”

She nodded and took a hold of the grip he had fashioned. The old man took the other end of the wire and began to work it through the pulleys she knew were back there but could barely see. He was very insistent that she keep out of his work while he did it. But she remembered the armature he had shown her, how the wires would keep the structure together, allow it the freedom of movement she wanted.

“Very good,” the old man said as he took the grip from her hand. He wound the wire around the anchors that they had worked to graft over the past few months, small metal eyelets that had been inserted deep under her skin, screwed directly into the bones until the muscle and skin had grown back over. It had been the worst part, aside from this.

“Everything looks accurate,” the old man said. “Exactly as I had planned.”

“You’re … you’re done?” After all this time, all the pain and the strain on the underdeveloped muscles that had barely been needed in her shoulders and back before, suddenly it was done. It didn’t seem so bad. She had worn dresses more difficult.

“Yes. Would you like to give them a try?” The old man stepped back, looking carefully at his handiwork. If anything was going to give way, he was going to be there to fix it before the whole armature fell apart. 

The girl nodded and flexed her shoulders. It was just a graceful roll, as though she were shrugging off a coat, but the anchors held and the wires pulled taut and the pulleys began their task. From behind her on either side unfolded the slender metal structures, all slender spines and a spider web of wires and gears. It looked incredibly fragile, but she knew better. Even a young girl like her could tell when things were built to last.

She continued to shift her shoulders, wincing as her muscles pulled in unusual ways. The anchors, at least, held firm. She barely felt them, they were so integrated into her now. But they pulled where they needed to, and slowly the wings unfolded. They spread out to either side of her, the top of the frame rising up above each shoulder as everything slid into place for the first time. 

“Very good,” the old man said softly, barely a whisper. “Everything looks wonderful.”

“Yes, it does,” the girl said more to herself than the man. The mirrors made more sense now, giving her a perfect view of everything opening up now that she was bent forward more and he was out of the way. The clockwork wings were a marvel, more beautiful than anything she had ever seen.

“How do you feel?” The old man seemed a thousand miles away to her. His voice could have been of an ant, crying up to her as she walked by.

She flexed her shoulders again. The wings spanned wide, and then closed with a whisper. She felt the wind, saw the dust kicked up around her, and grinned.

“I feel light. I feel … free.”

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Neglected Medium

My earliest memory is of me and my mother. I am five. I know this because my mother has told me that I’m going to get a younger brother, but she’s not yet obviously pregnant. We are in the basement of the house I lived in from the time I was 18 months old until I was 16.

We are sitting on the large wood-framed couch together and playing Super Mario Bros. I’m less prone to dying than she is, but whenever we get to Bowser’s castle I hand the controller to her because I’m afraid of the stark black and white architecture, the manic music, the fireballs that fly in from off-screen without warning.

I’m young, couldn’t tell you how old. Maybe 7? Memories from so far back are hard to pull up, nebulous. I know I’m not yet 8 because for my 8th birthday I received an SNES and never looked back. But today I’m not concerned with the NES, I’m concerned with waking up early on a Saturday morning. I descend from my bedroom to the basement, my parents both still asleep. It’s freezing in the basement. I don’t care.

I kneel down in front of the TV in my pajamas and start up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’m really bad at the game. I can’t beat the fourth level and rarely even see it. Little do I know I’ll never get further in that game. I’m too young to realize it’s not that the game is hard, it’s that the game is terrible.  I lack the capacity to make those judgments still.

Games have formed a pretty important part of my life, as much a part of my childhood as my parents. The problem is, games have always kind of lived in a section of my life walled off from everything else. As a kid, friends would come over and play Mario Kart or whatever. But they never seemed to think of things the same way I did. How many of them burst into tears when their parents gave them A Link to the Past for their 8th birthday but hid the SNES as a surprise gift in the closet? How many of them could hum the music to dozens of games on command? How many of them doodled in their notebooks not in stick figures but in pixels?

But the world didn’t seem to work that way. So my gaming obsessions were never connected to everything else. I enjoy music. I enjoy movies. I enjoy books. And while they’re all connected to each other and feed off each other and form this cultural mélange that allows a person to enjoy all the type of media together. It’s a foundation of culture. It’s a history. But gaming was never a part of that club. And so that part of my life was different. Separate. Alien. The people I would talk to about movies or books were not the same people I could talk to about games. And I thought that was just the way it was.

But Scott Pilgrim has come out, and I feel like something has changed. You see, Scott Pilgrim isn’t based on a video game, and it’s not even really about video games, but it is at its core drawing as heavily on the cultural references of video games as much as it does music or movies or the comic books its based on.

Movies have been getting away with this for years. Blade Runner isn’t overtly referencing Metropolis, but it uses the concepts and images of the previous work to help enrich its world and story. Similarly, Scott Pilgrim references games but doesn’t overtly name them or use them, but it uses the concepts and images to craft this world where games are just as relevant as all the movies one has seen and all the books one has read and all the music one has listened to.

Scott Pilgrim is the justification of the neglected medium. It is, at heart, a love story. But it uses concepts such as boss battles, leveling up, extra lives—things that games have been using for years—not as simple references for laughs, but as concepts that help enrich the world and as storytelling beats, as relevant as the concepts of every other medium. It welcomes the games medium, with its own culture and references, to join the mess of other forms of entertainment that have all been feeding into each other for decades. And in doing so, it not only provides a good film, but it provides a conduit for all the ideas that have been so long separated to spill out, not as nudge-wink references, but as devices used to tell stories, without shame or apology.

Scott Pilgrim is interesting for many reasons, but it’s magical because at its heart, the movie speaks to the child in me who remembers living a life that was ruled by how many lives I had, what level I was on, the final boss leering at me in the distance, my desire to explore these digital worlds and have these experiences of numbers and pixels and mechanics laid out before me as important and immediate to me as any other world I could experience.

That child would look at something like Scott Pilgrim and say “Of course that’s what the world is like” but the adult in me can only sit back and marvel that what I felt could never happen has already come to pass, that the two countries I thought forever separated in my life could be brought together in ways I had never considered, that someone could decide that all of these things that had been so long ignored were important.

And if that’s true, and the mediums are compatible, if games and every other form of culture and entertainment are on equal footing, who knows what incredible and interesting ways they can interact now and in the future?

An Explanation RE: My Actions

Five times in my life I've shot a man, and not once did I think it was the wrong thing to do. And I'm not the kind of person who doesn't believe in regrets. I regret that I never had a chance to say goodbye to my Ma before she died, and I regret that I didn't kiss Heather Woods in the 10th grade that time we went to the homecoming dance.

So sure, I regret things.

But the people who I shot ... those seven bastards deserved what they got. Every one of them was a bad person. And I can't feel sorry for doing what needed to be done.

The first was a mistake, a bad twist of fate. Some punk trying to steal enough to score picked the wrong guy. One dark alley, one threat, and I warned him too. But when he pulled the knife and advanced on me I did what any red-blooded American properly armed would do. I put two in that fucker's chest and left him there drowning in his own blood.

Okay, so maybe that's not the proper way. My Grandfather took me out to his farm back when I was a kid, to see the fresh air and learn about God's land in thorn and claw, as he said. One day one of the farm dogs got caught underneath the wheel of a tractor. It was all broken, limp as a wet dishrag, and my Grandpa had told me then that you never let an animal suffer when you could put it out of its misery.

So leaving that sorry fucker there in the alley to suffocate on his own tainted blood was bad form on my part. I made up for it. I went to Grandpa's grave and told him that I had done it wrong and learned my lesson and if--and God forbid that it come to pass--I had another chance to do the right thing, I'd make sure that I never left a broken living being behind me.

The 2nd and 3rd were another bit of bad luck. I seem to be one of the unluckiest men alive. But that's okay. Common sense and preparation can make up for a whole mess of bad luck, I've found. And I do my best to wield both. So when the two bums came in through my kitchen window looking to do Heaven knows what, I tagged them both. The police might have been suspicious at how neatly I had done it, one of them hit once in the chest and once in the throat and the other one neatly betwen the eyes.

I couldn't really tell them that the 2nd one, upon seeing his comrade fall, had gotten down on his knees and begged me to let him go, that he had made a mistake. But he was so helpless. I couldn't just let him run back out into the world. It was a hard winter that year, and he looked half-frozen as it was. I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy. So I did the decent thing and put him down proper. 

Thank god he had booze in his system and his friend had a cheap old gun on him. I was acquitted without delay. Nobody condemns a man for minding his own house. Not even in these awful times. 

The fourth time was a good work. Driving through the seedy side of town, as I did from time to time, I spotted a pimp beating up on his hooker. Or maybe it was just a husband who had gone too far laying hands on his wife. I'm not sure which it was, to be honest. You can't tell one from the other with those kinds of people. But the woman was screaming for help and nobody walking the streets in that part of town lifted a finger, scurrying into hiding and onto stoops where they could deny they saw a damned thing.

I was not as cowardly.  I didn't even have to stop the car. And all those people who were looking the other way obviously saw nothing. Nobody looks too hard for people who kill those types of monsters. The woman was simply grateful. No harm done. My good deed for the day achieved. 

Why am I telling you all this? Well, because the last time I shot a man was probably the last time I'll ever get away with it. I don't regret it, per se, but I understand that there are some things people don't look kindly upon. Like how my friend Chris from work didn’t look kindly upon my confession that I had shot four men while we were sharing a few 12 packs of beer.

You should have heard the things he accused me of when I detailed what I laid down before you here. He called me all sorts of names. Monster. Psychopath. They were unfair things. I’m just a man who protects what’s mine. It’s a carefully honed skill, the ability to defend. I am especially good at it. So when he threatened me, intimated that he would call the cops, I defended the thing most important to me without thinking.

So poor Chris is dead now. But he was always a bit of a pompous ass. So … there we go. I regret nothing, but I can’t exactly hide this one. I can’t think of an excuse that the police are going to like. So I’m simply going to tell them the truth, in as calm and composed a manner as I can. Which is why I write this. Five men, a drop in the bucket. Tyrants and patriots kill exponentially more every day.

I only did what was necessary.

The Mob Lawyer (part 6)

Hiroki was squaring away the data he had collected when Camen returned to the office with Mrs. Wallace in tow. Hiroki wasn’t sure where Camen had stashed her after the events of the other night, but she looked diminished outside of her palatial home, scared and insubstantial.

Camen let Hiroki do all the talking on this one. Hiroki appreciated it, well in his element working with numbers and data. This was one of the main reasons Camen had brought him on board, and he had the decency to know when to let him take the reigns. 

“Mrs. Wallace,” Hiroki said. “I assume Benjamin told you that we recovered some information from your husband’s office yesterday.” 

“Yes,” she said quietly. “You’re doing better than the police. They’re still having trouble getting a warrant.”

“Well, we beat them to the punch,” Camen said. “And we’re not exactly following proper procedure.”

"Anyway,” Hiroki said, “the data we found was pretty unimportant on the whole. However, of note is that your husband kept his personal budget and finances on that computer. And there were plenty of interesting things in there.”

Mrs. Wallace sat forward in her chair, her eyes wide. “Interesting how?”

“Well, to start with, you were aware that he was giving money to Victoria Falchi?”

“I … no.” She shook her head, her brow furrowing. “I mean, I figured he might. A man like Sam doesn’t keep a woman like that through personality alone. But he never told me the specifics.”

“Well, there’s money here that is earmarked for Miss Falchi. What’s more interesting, though, is that there’s another amount of the exact same amount that is going to someone else.”

“Someone else?”

Camen spoke up. “Are you aware of any other people that your husband might have been paying under the table? Blackmailer? Drug dealer? … another woman, maybe?”

“Another woman?" Mrs. Wallace looked bewildered. “Why would he keep another woman?”

“Two might not be enough,” Hiroki helpfully chimed in. Camen shot him a look, and he withered in his chair.

“We don’t know for sure what’s going on, but the only clue we’ve got is that he was paying someone a pretty decent amount for something.”  Camen moved closer to her, kneeling down by her chair. “Look, if you know something about what that might be, I need to know now. We’re getting to the point where the police are going to sweep in and all the clues are going to disappear.”

Mrs. Wallace’s eyes went wide, but she shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything. He never mentioned paying that much to anybody else. I’m afraid I can’t be much help.”

Camen sighed but nodded. “All right. We’ll keep looking, but without some hint as to where your husband’s disappeared to or who this mysterious person is, we’re kind of stuck. We’ll keep you updated, but in the meantime I hope you’ll agree to stay out of sight.”

“Of course,” she said. “The last thing I want is to end up like poor Miss Falchi.”

Camen escorted her out, taking her home while he left Hiroki in the office. Hiroki was fine with that, with some more time to think and work he could potentially dig through the information they had gathered. There had to be a clue somewhere, there just had to be. Without some direction to who they were looking for, this whole case could end up a wash. A missing man, a dead body, and the police already starting to poke around. A recipe for disaster.

Hiroki was lost in his work when the door opened. He didn’t even look up, just kept digging. “She’s no help, Ben,” Hiroki said. “I think we might be at a dead end.”

“I certainly hope that isn’t the case,” an unknown voice said.

Hiroki looked up, eyes wide. In the doorway were three people. They were all dressed in nice suits but none of them particularly looked business-like. There were two in the back, a mountain of a man and a short, thin man, who looked dangerously thuggish. In front of them was the man who was obviously in charge.

“Can I … help you?” Hiroki eyed them nervously. Sometimes Camen had some shady characters show up, but these guys looked more serious than the usual person who came through that door.

“You’re Ben Camen’s tech boy, aren’t you?” The man in front stepped forward. “You can certainly help me, then. You see, I’m looking for information about where Samuel Wallace has got to, and I hear you might have some idea.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hiroki said. “But Mr. Camen will be here before too long, and he can sort this out.” Hiroki moved to stand up, suddenly wanting nothing more than to step outside and call Ben and get him there as soon as possible.

The two men who were standing at the door stepped forward. The big one shifted just a little, expertly flashing the holster under his suit jacket. “I’m sure you can help me,” the man said as he sat down in the chair across from the desk. “So sit tight, kid.”

Hiroki sat back down, staring at the two men. They were on either side of the chair, immobile but obviously standing in the way of Hiroki and the door. There was no easy way out of this one. He only hoped Benjamin came back quickly.

“That’s right,” the man said when Hiroki settled in, defeated, into his seat. “Now, you’re going to tell me everything you two have found out so far.”

“Or what?”

The man laughed. “Or what? Come on kid, this isn’t the movies. You’re going to tell us. We can just do it slow or you can just volunteer the information and save us all a whole lot of work. Now, why don’t you show us all that information on that computer of yours.”

Hiroki stared at the screen, the information they had stolen from Wallace’s computer right there on the screen. There wasn’t time to get rid of it before they’d stop him. There wasn’t room to run. Hiroki hesitated a moment, unsure.

The two men behind the chair advancing on Hiroki sitting at the desk.