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Saturday, October 4, 2014

Today's #flashfiction #DigitalAntFarm

“Your soul for immortality.”
Deal or No Deal* #quote

Been playing a new game I got. Decided not to go to that video game tournament. It's fairly far away, and I'm not sure I'll do well enough. (Winning ain't everything, but getting clobbered is boring.) Anyway onto the flash fiction!



Digital Ant Farm


           The program Akira made was simple. A little thing he maintained on the computer for fun while he worked for a colossal Tokyo tech company. He programmed ants to move about in a simulation back and forth in various patterns in tunnels based on equations or whatever else he programmed in. Sometimes if you squinted you could see the shape of a cat, or a bowl of rice, or a car. Though many times the patterns showed up to be much simpler, like boxes or circles.
          During his breaks to calm down he often stared at the little patterns he made. He envied the little ants. Programmed, they didn't quite have the same pressure that a worker like he had. Akira wished that he didn't have to think while he worked on some days like a program and just go about the day. On one particularly dreary day he mumbled in Japanese to the ants, “At least your content.” He couldn't say happy, since certainly his little program couldn't feel much.
        Akira left his program on after a break on some rainy winter Tuesday and since everyone got tired of looking at the pounding rain on the windows they looked at the program. It became quite popular around the office quite fast and all the employees asked for a copy. Akira felt delighted that his little ant farm felt so loved by his coworked. He eventually started programming their names to pop up as some of the patterns that the ants made.
         His boss quickly took note of all the strange ants appearing on all the computers in the office. Many employers would yell at their employees when they saw them all putting some program on their computers. However he got into his position because he knew how to make money. He asked the employees what the program was. When he learned that Akira made it he smelled money.
         His boss said to him in the most approachable voice he ever had since Akira started working for him, “About your ant farm program...”

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