Ryan and Karina (Working Title)

A Story by Jeff

A prelude to 'It Snowed Again Last Night...'

Karina slowly walked along the river bank, the cobwebs of sleep still clinging to the corners of her mind; the crisp September morning air carried traces of the coming fall, her favorite season. She had woken up especially early this morning to get a jump-start on a major project at work. Karina lived two miles away from the office and enjoyed the walk because it woke her up and allowed her time to clear her mind and prepare for the day ahead. The walk home gave her the opportunity to stretch out all of her muscles that cramped up with the stresses of the day, not to mention the cramps that came from sitting for hours at a time designing video game graphics in an “ergonomically correct” chair.

Karina made her daily stop at a corner diner where she met her coworker, Ryan, who greeted her with a hot cup of coffee and a warm smile every morning. Like Karina, Ryan was still trying to clear his cobwebs from the early hour, so their walk this morning was much more quiet than usual. As they entered the office building, Ryan finally broke the groggy silence.

“Did you see the email from Jon?”

Jon was Ryan and Karina’s team manager. He was five-foot-three package of American-born Korean dynamite. Super-smart, a great sense of humor, more energy than a hyper Jack Russell terrier and a personality that made him seem so much larger than was theoretically possible. The team felt that he was a good manager, stern but fair. Jon sent an email to the team at nine the night before, just minutes before the two of them left, requesting a lunch meeting; the subject of which was vague.

Karina pulled her hair back behind her ears and looked up at him, “Yeah, any idea what it’s about?”

“All I know is that there’s free lunch.”

Karina playfully rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. Ryan responded by rolling his eyes too; however Ryan could roll his eyes so that the irises were completely covered by his lids.

The effect had skeeved Karina like it always had. “Stop it! It freaks me out when you do that!” She emphasized her point by throwing her stress ball done in the likeness of the hero from a popular video game in the late 80’s – early 90’s.

Ryan never saw it coming and took a hit square on the nose. He fell into his chair, quite dramatically holding his "injured" proboscis and mourning the loss of his spilt coffee.

The day progressed as most did in their office until the lunch meeting. As promised in the email from Jon, there was easily enough food for more than twice their number. Karina sauntered into the conference room to find most of her teammates already in line; as usual, Ryan had already ran through the line first and was already seated and eating. Jon smiled at Karina, "Plenty of food!", he pointed at Ryan, "But, you better hurry up before this one gets up again."

After the entire team had gone through the line, Jon got the meeting started. He thanked everyone for their hard work and the fantastic job that they had done on their latest game which was currently on pace to break 100,000 copies sold by the weekend.

"Due to the overwhelming success out games have had, a major movie production company wants to make a digitally animated movie based on our current a*s-kicker!"

Jon enthusiastically jumped on the table, wildly pumping his fists in the air. The conference room exploded in thunderous applause... Well, as much thunderous applause as 15 people could muster. When the din finally died down, Jon started again. "Seeing as Ryan was the lead animator for the project, the movie company will be bringing him on as the lead animator for the film!"

Once again, the room exploded into applause. Anyone looking into the room would have seen 15 out-of-control video game designers going completely bananas. A trained eye would have noticed that two weren't nearly happy as the rest. Ryan and Karina both secretly had feelings for each other that extended past friendship. Both were excited, but also sad that they wouldn't see each other everyday for the forseeable future.

Now it was Ryan's turn to jump on the table, "I'm throwing myself a party and you and yours are all invited!"

The rest of the day was not nearly as productive as it had started out. Ryan had left after the lunch to get everything ready for the night's events. Before he left, he stopped at Karina's cube. "They're letting me work from home, so I'll still be able to meet you every morning for coffee," He blushed, "that is, if you're still interested of course."

Karina smiled warmly, "Just don't let all this success go to your head, Rock Star."

© 2008 Jeff

Author's Note

This is a prelude to "It Snowed Again Last Night..." I got this far and hit the most crushing case of writer's block I've ever encountered which has gone on for over two months now. I need help.