It's one of those perfectly bland afternoons; a postcard of urban monotony. The evening sun bathes the city in a lazy, orange light, the kind of light that makes traffic seem to move in slow motion and shadows stretch out as if they were yawning. There are no sirens tearing through the air, no screams, not the slightest hint that the universe cares about this particular day. It's simply a normal afternoon, and I, like millions of anonymous souls, am just leaving work.
'My name is Michael, Mike to the few friends I keep. Today, like yesterday, I've just finished another shift in a cubicle that smells of hot plastic, stale coffee, and the quiet desperation of abandoned dreams.'
On paper, my ID card says "Senior Programmer." The truth, as always, is more complicated. I possess the knowledge, yes. I command the skills. But the official experience, those years of service that Human Resources values so much, is a field I had to cultivate with a bit of... creativity. So yes, I "touched up" my CV a bit. 'Who doesn't in this world? How are you supposed to compete otherwise?' The problem is justifying my profile. It's not so strange to be fluent in three languages or to master five programming languages. What's strange is trying to explain to a recruiter why someone with experience in the efficiency of Go, the robustness of Rust, and the versatility of Python is applying for a FullStack .NET position at a company whose codebase is a Java monolith older than cable internet. It's like showing up for a flute audition carrying a violin, a tuba, and a grand piano. They look at you with suspicion.
The company itself is a walking joke. They've been established for two decades, which in the software world means their legacy system was written when dinosaurs were still programming. And yet, the Scrum Master, a guy named Dave who uses the word "synergy" without irony and whose technical knowledge seems to have been gleaned from the slogans of a self-help conference, insists that we must migrate everything to "more recent technologies." His star proposal, discussed in this morning's meeting, was to use MongoDB and Astro. 'I almost choked on my own sigh.' Astro? For a large-scale enterprise system? It's like trying to build a skyscraper with popsicle sticks. We need something with a mature, scalable ecosystem, something like Angular or, if they're feeling adventurous, React. The logical, truly sensible thing to do would be to refactor and update to a modern version of Java. But logic in the corporate world is an endangered species.
I sigh again, this time the street air fills my lungs. The smell of hot asphalt and car fumes is almost refreshing after the stale office air. As I wait at the bus stop, my mind wanders. 'Why did I choose this path?' Before, the idea of programming seemed romantic, almost heroic. "Writing tomorrow," I used to think with a naivety that now embarrasses me. To code elegant, high-quality software, a functional work of art. But reality is a bucket of cold water. In real life, there's no time for art. There are deadlines. Impossible deadlines. "We need the infrastructure, the APIs, the integration testing, the frontend, and the backend done in three weeks." 'A job that a well-staffed team of ten would take months to perfect is assigned to our small, motley crew of eight: two actual seniors who look permanently exhausted, five juniors with more enthusiasm than experience, and an intern who yesterday asked if HTML was a compiled language.'
Sometimes, I fantasize about retiring. Not to a paradise beach, but to the tranquility of mediocrity. A government job, perhaps. A place where innovation is a dirty word and the only daily goal is to pretend to occupy a chair until the clock strikes five. A place where nothing is created, nothing is dreamed. A quiet place.
There comes my bus. 'How odd, this one looks older and more run-down than usual. The seats are sure to have suspicious stains.' Well, better this than nothing. I get on and, as usual, swipe my transport card on the reader. A small sigh of nostalgia escapes me. 'I remember when you could pay with a few simple coins. Now this card is mandatory, you have to apply for it, recharge it... Man, I just want to get on the bus, not join a low-level financial cult.'
I find a seat by the window, the cracked plastic cold to the touch. I put on my headphones, my escape portal. I smile as I look at them; they're my Moondrop Aria 2s, my little luxury in a sea of mediocrity. I connect them to the portable DAC hanging from my phone, a small device most would consider unnecessary, but to me, it's the difference between hearing music and feeling it. I recently saw the Superman movie, and as often happens, I've become obsessed with a song from the soundtrack. For this entire week, "Punkrocker" by Teddy Bear has been my personal anthem. I put the song on a loop, close my eyes, and let myself be carried away by the energetic melody, the distorted guitar, and the vibration of the bus engine beneath my feet. For a moment, everything is fine. The Scrum Master, the legacy code, and the impossible deadlines fade away.
'What irony. Superman. A being who can change the world with a sneeze, and I'm moved by a song about him because it makes me feel a little less powerless.'
As the song resonates in my head, I notice out of the corner of my eye a person getting on the bus agitatedly. He seems anxious, with hunched shoulders and a shifty gaze. 'Someone else's problems,' I think, and dive back into my bubble of sound. I close my eyes.
The next thing I feel isn't a sound, but an absence of one. The rattling of the bus ceases abruptly. Then, a muffled scream that cuts through my music. And then, the unmistakable feeling of something cold and hard pressed against my temple.
A sharp pain explodes in my skull. The world tilts, my music becomes a distant, electric hum. When my eyes manage to focus again, the first thing I see is the dark barrel of a pistol centimeters from my face. The person holding it is wearing a black ski mask. It's the agitated man who got on. He's hit me.
The initial shock paralyzes me. My body refuses to move, but my mind, in a desperate attempt to process the situation, accelerates to a dizzying speed. 'The documentary... I remember. In moments of mortal danger, the brain enters a state of hyper-awareness. Time slows down, the senses sharpen.' It's true. Suddenly, I'm aware of everything. I can smell my own cologne, a Starwalker by Montblanc I put on this morning. 'A woody, spicy fragrance, with notes of bergamot and bamboo. Elegant, but discreet.' I also smell the sour sweat of the man pointing the gun at me and the cheap wool of his mask. My mind, as a demented defense mechanism, clings to useless details. 'My first good perfume was an Eros by Versace. Too common, but I was happy. I didn't even know how to apply it, I'd just spray it on my neck like it was deodorant. Later I learned about pulse points, where the body's heat diffuses the scent more effectively, like the wrists, behind the ears...'
THWACK!
Another pistol-whip, this time to my cheek, and the metallic taste of blood fills my mouth. The pain abruptly pulls me from my strange digression and back to the harsh reality. The man in the mask is yelling at me, his voice muffled by the fabric.
"WALLET AND PHONE!"
He points with the gun to an accomplice holding an open canvas bag. My headphones are still on, but now I can hear the terrified sobs of the other passengers. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a third masked man pointing a gun at a pregnant woman. The lady is ghost-pale, her hands instinctively protecting her belly.
The guy threatening her gives her a shove to hurry her up, yelling an obscenity. The woman stumbles and lets out a choked cry of pure fear.
And in that instant, something inside me breaks. A switch flips.
'No. Not her.'
I don't consider myself a violent person. On the contrary, I've always believed in treating others as I would like to be treated: with respect, with basic decency. But seeing that coward terrorize a pregnant woman sends a pure, ice-cold, and utterly lucid rage coursing through my veins. It wasn't a conscious decision. It was a fuse blowing out.
On an impulse of suicidal idiocy born from the depths of my being, I slap the gun pointing at me away. The robber, surprised by my reaction, squeezes the trigger by pure reflex. The deafening shot echoes in the confined space of the bus, piercing the ceiling and unleashing a new wave of panic. For a second, the man stares at me, stunned, his mind unable to process why an unarmed prey would dare to fight back.
That second is all I need.
I throw a punch with all the force my adrenaline can summon. My knuckle connects cleanly with his jaw. 'The lever... rotation... the K.O. button,' a part of my brain thinks with terrifying calm. The man drops to the floor like a sack of potatoes, unconscious.
Without hesitation, I lunge toward the second man, the one who hit the lady. I tackle him with the fury of an animal. We fall to the floor in a tangle of limbs. I get on top of him and start hitting him. Over and over. It's a primitive, horrible rhythm. I don't stop when my knuckles split open and blood splatters his mask. I don't stop when his body goes limp. I don't stop when I feel the nauseating crunch of something beneath my fists.
I only stop when a cold thought cuts through the red fog of fury: 'There were three of them.'
I turn around, panting, the taste of blood in my mouth. The third man has picked up his fallen comrade's pistol. He's looking at me, not with anger, but with pure terror. His hands are shaking. He aims the weapon at me, his knuckles white. He tries to control the tremor. He pulls the trigger.
Click.
The safety was on.
Relief floods me for a fraction of a second, but he realizes his mistake in the same instant I do. I try to get up, to throw myself at him, to seize that golden second. But my body, exhausted by adrenaline, moves sluggishly. It's too late. With a clumsy, desperate motion, he clicks the safety off. And just as I'm about to fall upon him, the world fills with noise and fire.
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.
Four dry explosions. I feel four brutal impacts in my chest, as if I've been hit with a red-hot hammer. The air rushes out of my lungs in a hiss. I fall backward, my strength vanishing like water through my fingers. A strange sensation takes over me, a mixture of glacial cold and searing heat. I don't know which is which, but I know, with an absolute and calm certainty, that I am going to die.
'I hope the lady is okay,' is my first coherent thought. A choked, bloody laugh bubbles up from my throat. 'Heh. I hope they name her kid after me... Who am I kidding, next week I'll just be a stain on the floor someone had to clean up.'
As my life drains out in a red pool expanding on the dirty bus floor, my mind reflects with unexpected clarity. 'I never had a girlfriend, let alone kids. Well, not that I know of. Right now, I wish I'd been more irresponsible. I wish that on one of those occasions when I was supposed to use protection, a friend had poked the condom with a needle as a joke. How easy it is to wish for things when they no longer matter. My whole life being responsible, only to end like this.'
'Dad, I hope I see you on the other side. I miss you so much. Nothing's been the same since you left. Mom misses you too, even if she pretends to be strong. And my sister... we all miss you. I guess I'll get there first. Save me a spot. I hope you're with Grandpa and Grandma. I miss them too.'
'Mom, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I never gave you a grandchild, though my sister took care of that in spades. How I regret not talking to her more these past few weeks. I was always too busy with work. So stupid. Mom, forgive me for leaving early, for going to be with Dad. I promise when you join us, we'll have a big party in Grandpa's backyard. We'll play bingo, and I'll make you those piña coladas you love so much, the ones you always had me make in the summer.'
'I'm sorry, Mom.'
As I rambled in my mind, consciousness began to fade. The edges of my vision darkened, like a tunnel closing in. The screams and sobs on the bus became a distant echo. And then, there was only darkness.
Ah, the darkness.
The last thing I perceived, a ghostly whisper from my headphones still dangling from my ears, was the raspy voice of the singer, the final soundtrack to my ordinary life.
"'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes I am."