Yanko complained that he had noticed a slight ringing in his ears lately. Now he’s thinking about which doctor he should go to. I told him I didn’t know anything about that. He was nervous about it, constantly lighting his lighter, sparks and flames flickering.
“Does it ring now?”
“No. Mostly at home. Why, did you want to get closer to my head and listen?”
“No. Others can’t hear it.”
“I know, that’s what Lazar thought when we were in school. Oh, Lazar, if only…”
After a few shots of Vinjak1 on the terrace of Marta’s pub, the nervousness disappeared. They poured large glasses with cola, ice, lemon, and straws.
When Lazar’s name came up, he told me about his obsession with Mirna. Since they met, he’s been talking about her. He goes to places where she often goes. He imagines that they are together and constantly talks to Yanko about it, probably because he’s the only mutual friend. And so, this whole story slowly started entering Yanko’s head as well. Then it happened that, probably from all of Lazar’s talk, Yanko dreamed that Lazar and Mirna were together. The dream began with Yanko rushing to the bathroom. He was outside and ran to the home. He rushed into the bathroom, and there, in the bathtub full of foam, were Lazar and Mirna. He told Lazar about his dream. Lazar was thrilled. He asked him to tell him all the details, to describe exactly how it looked. He acted as if it had really happened. He asked him what happened at the end.
“Well, nothing, I woke up there. I really had to get up and go to the bathroom.”
“Gari2, can you take me there and show me exactly where that happened and where we were?”
Yanko took him home and showed him the bathroom. In the middle of the story, Max was sending a text.
“Driving schools should deliver postal packages during driving lessons. Save this message so we don’t forget.”
The Vinjak went down smoothly with these stories and messages. I came for one drink, and we stayed until closing time.
We had to take a taxi home, and I could barely walk. In the taxi, Yanko was talking about how he wants to make money and buy armored doors for the upper floor of his house in Bosnia. We had overdone it with alcohol. We stopped at a bakery and got some salty pastries. I ate a few to get some strength, and left the rest by the bed. I was afraid of how I would feel in the morning when I had to get up early. I wouldn’t have the strength to go to the kitchen for the pastries. I fell asleep before four.
Today, I wasn’t supposed to have any free time. In the morning, I had important obligations at the university. We had a visit from a professor from the Czech Republic, and an opportunity for a short student exchange came up. The meeting with the professor started at nine a.m. and finished around eleven a.m. At one p.m., I had a scheduled meeting with the game development team. The brainstorming phase was over, and it was time to make a list of functions to program, assign roles and responsibilities, and create a plan for the first month. One afternoon was supposed to be enough for that. In the evening, we had a scheduled two-hour Italian class.
The alarm on my phone went off at eight. I woke up completely exhausted, angry with myself. I turned off my phone, too tired to get up. I took the pastries and ate them while lying back against the pillow. After fifteen minutes, I had a little energy. I got up somehow, but my head hurt. I took a quick shower and hurried to the university.
Around eleven thirty a.m., I came back home and collapsed in bed in my clothes, completely powerless and exhausted. I fell asleep in less than a minute. I missed the game team meeting and woke up at five p.m., heavy and sluggish. I immediately called Elena to ask if they were still in the meeting. They had just wrapped up. I felt a little better than in the morning, but now my conscience was gnawing at me. I hadn’t attended the first serious meeting, and our project needed to get started. I was still lying in bed when I got a text from Milica. She said that my company was cool and that it was great that we were hanging out with Yanko. She remembered our recent time out in Novi Sad, something reminded her of it, and she said some moments from that night had vividly come back to her memory. In the end, she wrote that she loved me. I decided to write her an email:
Hey! I got drunk last night with Yanko. I wasn’t feeling well last night, and even worse this morning. I overdid it. I had to get up early. I left some pastries by the bed last night, and this morning I ate them in bed. I could barely get up, just somehow. I had to go to the university, and when I came back, I crashed into bed and fell asleep. I missed the game team meeting. I just woke up, my conscience is gnawing at me, I still feel sick, and I was lying in bed full of crumbs from the pastries when I read your message. You know, it’s nice to read that someone loves me like this. It really came at the right time. By the way, which doctor do you go to when your ears ring? Please ask Anna.
I called Elena to see what was decided in the meeting. I assumed there were some new details, even though I already knew approximately what was agreed. The game would most likely be called Naron Escape. It’s a turn-based strategy game set in the distant future, where the player leads a team of four characters. Their goal is to escape a planet where life is impossible without life support systems. These systems are located in glass domes connected by tunnels. The player has to pass through a certain number of these domes to reach the launch pad and bring their team back to Earth. In each dome, there are different enemies waiting. The player must not waste too much ammunition in one fight, as they need to save it for other battles. Also, they can’t use too much attack intensity because if the dome is damaged, no one will survive. There are various weapons, and each character has different skills, so not everyone uses the same weapon equally well. The game is played on a server, so the player can meet another player’s team in a dome. If there aren’t enough players on the server at that moment, real players can be replaced by NPC teams. The team that defeats the others in the domes and reaches the launch pad is the winner of one game, and their success is displayed in the stats. The battles in the domes are relatively simple since this is a browser game. Of course, Max came up with all of this and convinced everyone that it was the best idea for the game. I didn’t oppose it. It seemed interesting. It had some elements of the game Worms, which I play all the time. We were expecting to have the game ready in two months.
Unexpectedly, today the plan completely changed. It was agreed that we would make an online RTS game. It will be called Camp 16. The deadline was also pushed to two and a half months, as the game is more complex. It might even take three months. Max changed his mind. The others weren’t happy about it. He even brought Yanko to the meeting, although he’s not part of the team, but he plays RTS games and used him as an advocate for the RTS genre. Normally, I like complete turnarounds, but in this case, I think the feasibility of the entire project is at risk. We might not be able to make it properly. No one complained too much since the previous plan was just an idea, and they hadn’t started working on it yet, so now they would have to abandon it. It’s easier to work an extra month than to argue with Max about the game idea. Elena says this is a big red flag.
I wondered how far Yanko had gotten last night. It had already gotten cold. Recently, he fell asleep twenty meters from his entrance while coming back from a night out. He called me just as I was thinking about him. He’s thrilled.
“My ears don’t ring. But my phone charger is buzzing.”
1 Popular Serbian brandy.
2 Gari is a local nickname for everyone.
