Hello Future Me

I pulled into the lot, making a bee line for the my spot. I found a minivan instead, stickers on the back proudly boasting of being a soccer mom. Groaning I looked for an empty space, then made for the building. The morning granted a bit of luck when a man held the elevator as I sped down the hall. “Floor thirteen, please.” I say huffing, and out of breath. Curse my creaking body.

The ride up was silent, besides the pop music playing in the chassis. I had less than fifteen minutes when I stepped out onto my floor, and decided to head straight for the break room. Coffee was exactly what I needed right now, and nothing was going to stop me. I hated the break room coffee, it tasted burnt and felt like acid clinging on my throat, but it was my own fault this time for waking up so late.

“Hey, Jared.”

My feet stopped, I take a deep breath before plastering a stupid grin on my face and turning to him. “Henry, how are things?” Of course he had to bug me now, he only ever found the most inconvenient times to talk to me.

“Look pal, I dunno if something is up with you, you can always say so if that’s the case, but what’s up with your numbers lately? Your productivity took a nosedive last week.”

My hand found its way to the back of my neck. “Well you know, I have been trying to fix that crash when you open the advanced settings. It was written way before I got here so I have basically had to decipher some cryptic ancient language to make any progress.”

“Really, that still? Man I didn’t think it would be that difficult, Billy wrote that ages ago and he was kind of an idiot.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda the problem.” I try to let out a small chuckle.

Henry stared at me for a second then let out a sigh. “Look just try and get it fixed up by the end of the day and we’ll be all good. I’ve got some other things I gotta focus on so let’s all do our best.”

“Yeah. no worries.” God that’s ridiculous, why did he say all that as if he was doing me a favor? I glance at my watch and realize I only have eight minutes left. I break for the coffee machine and thank the lords above that someone had already made a pot. I hear the whispers of office drama as I walk back out, but I stopped caring about stuff like that a long time ago. At this point all I want to do is get my work done and go home.

The computers always take ages to boot up so I sip my cup and grimace at the taste. The coffee is cold. The beep of the boot sequence startles me a bit and the blue screen flashes on, blinding me temporarily. First things first, time to check emails. There are a few merge requests from newer workers which I deny pretty quickly. It’s sometimes like these kids are trying to shove a square block into a circular hole. After that are some emails from higher ups crying about productivity and how we didn’t meet their “lenient” two month schedule for the big update.

I hopped over to my personal email hoping to see some updates on the bread maker I had ordered. There was the usual spam, a couple newsletters that I didn’t remember ever subscribing to. No updates, but one thing caught my eye.

“Hello Future Me?” I had completely forgotten about this service. How long ago had I used it now? Ten years? I was still in college then. I tried to recall anything I had written, but nothing came to mind. My eyes glanced around to make sure no one was around to snitch on me, then I turned my attention back to the screen.

“To Jared,

“Well I hope I have caught you at a good time, I can’t really imagine what exactly I will be doing ten years from now so who knows. Okay, first things first, did we ever get the courage to ask out Chelsea?”

Just the first paragraph and already a shock went down my body. Memories of my ridiculous crush on a girl way out of my league flooded my brain. I let a chuckle out to myself. That was never going to work, why I was convinced I had a chance with her is beyond me. She ended up with some guy before I ever got the balls to ask. I kept reading.

“Next on the list, how is game development? I am working pretty damn hard right now, I really want to make it into a big studio. You obviously know that has been a dream of mine for a long time now. Games have played a huge role in my life after all.”

Oh right, I used to be a pretty diligent, hardworking kid. You wanted more than anything to get into the video game industry so you studied like crazy. So much so you ironically never had any time to play games. Having lofty dreams of making over ambitious games like an RPG with the entire planet as the map, or a fighting game with all the GigeMon characters. It never happened, after college I couldn’t get my foot in the door to any studios and ended up taking a job at this business software company. I wouldn’t even want to work as game developer anymore after hearing their horror stories.

“Finally I just wonder how things are, you know? After I get out of college I can finally focus on my passions, finish Mutants and Fantasy 14, go out to bars with friends. Did we try anything new? What places have we traveled to? I can’t wait to see New York, or the beaches in Australia, and Tokyo.

“Yours truly,

“Jared”

He really thought college was his defining moment in life. He was pretty convinced that afterwards it would just be a matter of the pieces falling into place then riding it through until retirement. Reality would crush him, getting a few days off in a row is already a pain so I haven’t really traveled in years. I haven’t touched Mutants and Fantasy since right before college. At least I go out drinking with friends on weekends, but I am sure it is a much sadder sight than he imagined. I hung my head, letting out a huge sigh. I can’t tell if this was the best or worst thing that had happened today.

“Morning Jared.”

I tabbed to my work email with trained hands and spun around with enough speed to give most whiplash. “Hey!” My heart immediately settled, “Oh it’s just you Abigail.”

“Just me? Kinda rude, don’t you think?”

“Sorry just freaked for a second. They’re already on me for productivity.”

“Ugh, they stuck you with that nasty bug then get mad when it isn’t fixed in a snap. Were they expecting some miracle?”

“I think they believe we are all miracle workers with their deadlines.”

“True. So what where you doing?”

I think on it for a second, wondering how to explain. “Just an email from some bright eyed kid who doesn’t know the worlds about to crash in on him.”