Swarley - Issue 1: My Genesis

With a thunk, Ryan's head hit the desk. Today marked the deadline for
the biggest project his company had ever undertaken, and here he was,
stuck on a seemingly simple mathematical problem. The real source of
frustration though was that this problem was at the root of the entire
application; if he couldln't solve this, then nothing would work. He'd
left it until last, figuring that it was as simple as it seemed, only
to discover that it was complex enough to make him want to hide under
his desk for the rest of his life. He hated disappointing people, and
especially so when it was his own failure that caused it.

He
lifted his head off the desk and stared the problem down on the
computer screen in front of him. His eyes were sore and it was late in
the night, but he had to look past all that. Taking a quick sip of his
coffee, he began running through the equation again in his mind, step
by step, trying to find where he was missing something.

"It
shouldn't be this hard", he thought, "I'm just missing some basic
principle here." He let his fingers graze over the keys, hoping for
some sort of inspiration, or some sort of miracle that would suddenly
give him the answer, and when it never came he simply sighed.

"This
is ridiculous Ryan," he said out loud this time, "seriously just find
the damn answer already, you're smarter than this." Oddly enough, as
soon as he finished the sentence, he had an idea and he set to work
quickly with a slight grin. Whether his call to action had worked or
not, he didn't really care, he was on to something here and he knew it.
Almost rhythmically, he tore out pieces of code and entered in new
lines all in accordance with his newfound insight, until finally he was
looking at the finished version. He saved it and loaded up the
application. When he was greeted by the prompt to enter his information
into a set of a few fields instead of the error page he'd been staring
at for hours now, he nearly jumped out of his seat.

"YESSSS," he
shouted as he threw his hands up in the air. He felt so relieved; the
fact that he wasn't really quite done yet didn't even matter at this
point, he just wanted to celebrate. With possibly more enthusiasm this
time, he attempted to scream out again, but before he could even voice
it, he was startled as the glass on monitor in front of him shattered
loudly, crumbling down onto his desk. He stared blankly for a moment,
unsure of what had just happened, before picking up one of the bigger
shards of glass to look at it, a dumbfounded expression pasted on his
face. He put the glass down and took a quick look around to see if
perhaps someone had snuck up on him, but the same empty office
surrounded him as it had for the last few hours. It was completely
quiet, no one else was there.

"what in the hell," he mumbled to
himself as he stood up and walked over towards the door. As he extended
his hand to push it open, the door tore itself from its hinges and flew
forward smashing into the railing near the stairs with a resounding
bang. Once again he was caught dumbfounded. He stared at the palm of
his hand wondering what in the hell had just happened until a thought
struck him.

"No.." he said unbelievingly, "it can't be." He
spun around quickly, now ignoring the mayhem he'd just caused and
stared at the coffee on his desk.
"well, only one way to find out," he mumbled with a curious look on his face.
"Now,
coffee, I want to drink you, so that means you're going to have to come
over here," he mocked. "You see, I'm pretty stressed out right about
now, so, I don't feel like walking. I was hoping you could just,
y'know, do me a favor and do the leg work for me." Finishing his
self-convincing speech, he extended a hand towards the coffee, and
while unsure of exactly what he was going to do, was intent on seeing
"something" happen. He focused so intently, that when the steaming cup
of coffee came hurdling towards him, he couldn't react fast enough and
it spilled it's contents all over his shirt making him yelp. He
screamed out in pain and ripped off his shirt in an attempt to stop the
burning as he fell to the floor. Yet, as he lay there staring up at the
ceiling, chest burnt and on fire, he couldn't help but burst out
laughing; he'd just pulled a cup through thin air.