This Monday, shortly after I sat at my desk in the office, someone mentioned that the brother of one of our coworkers had died. Two days ago, the aforementioned brother had gone to sleep and never woke up again. We are talking about a twenty-two-year-old kid in peak physical condition. He had gone through the youth program at Donostia’s football team, and he was currently residing in Pamplona. Sudden death, no warning of any kind.

The coworker in question was due to start a new contract on Monday. Nobody expected him to come, but he did. He went straight to our director and told him in person that he was sorry, but he was going to abandon the contract, because his brother had just died. Our boss looked like he was sorry himself that in some way he had forced the guy to come, and assured him that legally he wasn’t in any trouble, because he hadn’t signed anything yet. I got a glimpse of the shock in the kid’s face.

My on-and-off coworker is a guy in his early twenties. Good-looking, whitens his teeth although it’s rare for anyone in this part of the world to do it. He’s someone who instead of fucking around when he didn’t have any task assigned, he put together very professional-looking manuals about everything he had learned. He was always cheerful, which annoyed me at times, particularly when we ended up working some afternoon shifts together; forcing myself to talk and not look as miserable as I usually am takes me a lot of energy.

He had mentioned his brother before, in the kind of way that a proud sibling does it when he’s eager to share the other’s achievements. His brother’s death has ended up in the papers. I don’t feel comfortable sharing the links here, though. This young coworker was also present the couple of times we mentioned casually that the sudden deaths of very young athletes worldwide (or at least in the Western world) had multiplied in the last few years. Of course that’s eerier for me, given that I have a heart condition caused by the measures taken against a certain biological weapon of unspecified origin.

A few hours after the young coworker left, some of my coworkers were already joking around, making cringey comments and having inane discussions; the same garbage that kills my brain cells on a regular basis. That afternoon I got home, finished writing the latest chapter of my ongoing novel, listened to cool music through my expensive headphones, masturbated to the usual filth, and went to bed. Before I fell asleep, I daydreamed of Punpun and Aiko having a good time.

Work has gotten harder. Two of my three bosses are on holiday, one of the pros is down with covid, and two of the other pros won’t come for a couple of days, so I’ll likely end up getting most of the complicated stuff assigned to me. I’m also on phone duty. Everybody is annoyed, everyone wants their stuff solved immediately. “My mouse was moving jerkily earlier, it seems to be working fine now, but you should write in the ticket that they should fix this problem with the utmost urgency. Hur hur hur!”

Human beings are the most bothersome, irritating creatures on Earth apart from mosquitoes. I have no clue how you people stand each other.

Anyway, the first episode of the anime adaptation of Chainsaw Man, a grim, utterly bonkers manga, is already out! Mappa, the company in charge of the adaptation, has done very interesting stuff with it so far, and the CGI is better than I expected. Even if you don’t care about this story, or didn’t like the manga, you should check out the following awesome preview they made of it for the anime: