This is the first story in a series of tales about a fictional character based on a real person.

“Strathmore York Fynn? That’s your name, your actual name?” the man asked me with heavy scepticism after he had sat down at my desk and read my name badge. I self-consciously righted the already straight nameplate on my uncluttered desk. I was OCD like that.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been subjected to the very same reaction to my name, or the verbatim question. I do know though that on every occasion that question has been posed to me, I’ve had the overwhelming urge to answer, “No, you poop for brains. That’s just a secret code I’ve created to separate the brainless from the brain dead!” Regrettably, I’ve never had the luxury to utter that hilariously killer sentence. I sighed dramatically; inwardly, of course.

Plastering the biggest fake smile you’ve ever seen on my fairly handsome face, I responded with, “Yes, sir. That’s my name. How can I be of assistance today?”

It was yet another typical day at Capita SA situated in Beach Road, in the Capetonian suburb of Maitland. Fortunately, it was a quick commute from my home in Salt River to my job; traffic was never a nightmare for me. The company specialised in business consultation through digital transformation, and that’s why I was employed by them. I was a whizz techie.

Information Technology was my lifeblood; in fact, I often unabashedly say that it’s in my blood. Solving computer glitches, unravelling complex code, hunting down and eliminating elusive and sneaky bugs: that’s what I was born to do.

“It’s my laptop,” Mr Brain Dead said in answer to my question. Even before he specified what was wrong with his laptop, I knew what he would say. Call it a special knack, if you want, but I can always tell what a client’s IT problem is with just one look at the person.

In this slow-talking and dense man’s case, I knew he would say it’s glitchy.

“It’s glitchy,” he said.

I knew without the slightest hesitation that the next thing he would say would be that the mouse pad wasn’t working properly; that the cursor was scrolling all over the screen.

“I think it’s the useless mouse pad. I don’t even touch it, but the cursor goes all over the screen like it’s possessed or something,” he elaborated.

They almost always unfailingly say “or something” when they are stumped by a simple conundrum. I mentally rolled my eyes. Then I sat up straighter in my chair and politely asked Mr. Mouse Glitch if I could have a look at his laptop.

“Be my guest,” he responded predictably. The relief on his stressed face was priceless. He was truly happy to hand over the machine to me, as if it were some infernal djinn hell bent on making his life an utter misery.

“If you want, you could leave it with me and collect it after about two hours,” I suggested. “You’re from which department, sir?” I asked very respectfully.

I already knew what was wrong with the laptop and would fix it in all of twenty seconds, but I knew if I solved all IT issues so quickly, I would be inundated. Better to let them think I needed two hours or more to repair whatever plagued their machines.

“That would be great!” Mr. Slow Joe enthused. “I have some filing to complete, so I really appreciate the help. I’m from the Small Business Investment Department,” he explained.

I asked him to complete a submissions form, all the while making the necessary mouse pad setting changes in my head. I was eager to finish the adjustments so that I could get back to my Fortnite game. I was at a critical point that could spell victory or humiliating defeat.

As the man hurriedly left to return to his cubicle in SBI, Vaughn plonked himself down on the recently vacated seat opposite me. He was a colleague working with me in the IT Support Department, but he was a parasite.

I was already altering the cursor settings on the laptop so that it wouldn’t be “possessed” anymore.

“You busy?” Vaughn asked me. I smiled because I could now say exactly what was on my mind.

“No, I’m just making as if I’m working so that dumbasses like you won’t bother me with stupid questions.”

“Ah, I see,” Vaughn said calmly, not at all phased by my vitriolic response. “It’s that time of the month again, is it? I could go to the pharmacy next door and get you a tampon, if you want,” he suggested in a voice dripping with serious sarcasm.

I so much wanted to tell him to take a long jump off a very short cliff, but instead I asked, “What’s up? What do you need?”

Vaughn never, ever came to me without an agenda. I just hoped he didn’t need to borrow some money again. I was not having a good financial month.

“Now why must you be like that, huh? Why do you think I want something?” he asked in a wounded tone.

I finished resetting the cursor to default, then looked at Vaughn with a blank, long-suffering stare that proclaimed, “Really? Are you seriously going there, bro?”

It worked.

“Fine, fine,” he grudgingly admitted. “Err… do you still have that external hard drive casing Mr. Peters said you could have?”

Grinding my teeth as silently as I could, which is no mean feat, I tell you, I imagined slapping myself up the head for ever having told Vaughn about the case. I should have known that his selfish, avaricious nature would want the thing.

“External casing?” I said in mock confusion. I needed to buy time to come up with a plausible lie. Although Vaughn was not the smartest chip on a motherboard, he did have a reputation for having a memory like an elephant. I knew I would have to fabricate a water tight lie if I wanted to hold on to the casing for myself.

“Yes, man. The Western Digital one he gave you last Thursday,” Vaughn now said, being specific about the make of the casing as well as which day I had received it to indirectly remind me that he had a steel trap memory.

“Oh, that one,” I pretended to suddenly recall. “Yes, I still have it. Why?” I bluntly asked Vaughn. I had decided against lying to see why he was so interested in the casing. It rattled him, but then again, it didn’t take much to scramble Vaughn’s RAM. I could see the surprise on his face, for he had not anticipated that I would admit that I still had the case.

“No, no. It’s okay,” he stammered in discomfort. “I was just asking, that’s all,” he added lamely.

“Yeah, right. Just asking my ass,” I thought, amused. Aloud I said, “Did you want it? You can just say so if you do, buddy,” I generously offered. Of course, I had no intention of giving him the case, but I wanted to have some harmless fun at his expense.

Before Vaughn could answer me, my cell phone pinged with a reminder. As it was a Friday, the Departmental meeting would be starting in five minutes in the board room. I showed Vaughn the reminder, and both of us hurriedly left my office.

As soon as I had taken a seat, usually the one closest to the door for a quick escape, Marilyn started the meeting. It was no surprise to me in the least when she couldn’t get the projector to display her laptop screen.

“One would think the head of the IT Department would be technologically skilled,” whispered Amanda, one of my best friends on the team. She had an acerbic wit belied by an angelic countenance. “Will she ever remember to press the Windows button together with the ‘P’ one?” she rhetorically asked from the side of her mouth. Only I could hear her.

“Now she’s going to claim it’s the damn laptop, and ask Gary why he can never set things up properly for her in advance,” I predicted.

“Gary, I thought I told you to set this up for me. Or is this laptop faulty again?” Marilyn asked as she fidgeted with the projector port. I simply rolled my eyes, sitting back to watch the free entertainment as first Gary and then Walter, his assistant, literally ran up to assist Marilyn.

“If you ask me what the problem is,” I said sotto voce to Amanda, “the projector is probably still switched off.” I pointed discreetly to the projector mounted against the ceiling. The power light was red. Amanda hid her smile quickly behind a hand.

“Err… Marilyn?” I called. The look she gave me said as clearly as if she had spoken aloud, “God, no. Not you again. What inevitable conspicuousness are you about to point out now?”

I said nothing, only pointed to the red power light of the projector. Then I smiled charmingly.

After the meeting, I found Mr. Or Something waiting for me.

“Hi,” he said. “I just got here, but I was worried I would have to wait a while before you got back to your office.”

“Sorry, man,” I apologised as I unlocked and entered my office. “Just got back from a meeting,” I added as I hurriedly took a seat behind my desk.

The man was tall, practically towering over my short frame. I’m a bit short for my twenty-three years; I blame my parents’ poor genes for that little bit of luck, no pun intended. My lack of the appropriate height causes me to be a bit silly when I use a public toilet. If there’s no one else around, I happily use the children’s urinal. Makes me feel like a right giant!

At least when I’m seated, my vertically challenged nature isn’t so apparent.

“So,” the man now said, “could you sort out the problem?” His desperation was abundantly evident in his voice.

I passed his laptop over to him with a flourish and a short extravagant bow. Yeah, I can be dramatic like that sometimes.

“All done. You shouldn’t have any more problems with a cursor going haywire on you. It will behave from now on, I promise,” I jokingly said.

He was effusive in his thanks, which kind of made my day even though I had been dishonest with him and had kept the laptop longer than necessary. A felt only the slightest twinge of guilt.

“May I ask you something?” he abruptly asked.

“Sure,” I responded automatically.

“I’m fascinated by the tattoos you have, but I’m especially intrigued by the one stretching across your throat. If you don’t mind, what does it say?” he asked sincerely.

I have a few tats adorning my body; some are small-sized ones while others are more extreme, like the throat one. It looks like a delicate pattern of two lines of letters, one below the other, inked just below my Adam’s apple. They were, in fact, Cyrillic letters making up two lines of print from one side of my throat to the other.

“It’s actually two phrases written in Russian,” I explained. “The top one says ‘Love and unrest’, while the bottom one reads ‘Now or never’,” I revealed.

“That’s very cool,” the guy said, and for the first time since this morning, I warmed up to him. Not everybody appreciates my tats.

“Thanks, man,” I responded. Then I was inexplicably compelled to add, “Listen, if you have any more issues with your laptop, just let me know, okay?” I had no idea where that uncharacteristic generosity had come from. I mentally kicked my own butt.

“I’m sure everything’s fine, but thanks for the offer,” he said in genuine gratitude.

“After all,” he added over his shoulder as he was leaving, “they don’t call you the Fantastic Fynn for nothing.” Then he winked at me and toddled off.

I had a dopey smile of delight on my face.

“Fancy that,” I said as I adjusted the seat height and lost myself for hours in Fortnite.

Image: Markus Spiske (www.unsplash.com)