Page 111 of Keeping Kasey
I force myself to survey the code—twice—and focus only on the technical implications, not the personal ones.
It’s time to run test trials.
I create a document, type out a nonsense paragraph, and save it.
I take the same document and delete it from my hard drive. When I’m sure it’s gone, I go to the software and describe the document in detail.
Then, I hitactivate.
I watch, frozen in place, as the progress bar ticks along. The coding behind it rolls, and it feels like hours, not minutes, as Istare at the screen. It takes longer than I hoped—twenty minutes in total—but it happens.
The document appears on the screen, exactly as I saved it.
“It works,” I whisper to myself, just to hear the words spoken.
I go to the software’s name, where a series of numbers and letters currently identify it, and I type in its new name.
Seeker: Series One.
It needs work—a lot of work—but this is a huge first step.
I start making a list of the changes that need to be made and the tests that still need to be run. It may work on a small scale with recently deleted documents, but that’s nothing compared to what it needs to do.
When I started this project, the concept was entirely hypothetical, and now, I have an operating model.
I focus on the list of things that still need to be done, but the voice in the back of my head demands to know what I’m going to do when it’s completed.
I used to know the answer, but now?
I have no idea.
If someone told me a year ago that the flea market would become one of my favorite places in the world, I would’ve laughed in their face.
But here we are.
The crowd is large enough that I can easily blend in, but never so large that it’s overwhelming. The people are kind, the stalls are interesting, and there’s something about being in a safe public space that soothes me.
I’ve never been one to leave my apartment much, but I make a habit of going to the flea market every Saturday like clockwork. Aside from dinners with Mark, it’s the only way to ensure I don’t completely lose touch with reality—a real possibility these days.
I’m perusing the stalls and trying to decide if I should stop at a store to pick up dinner so I can cancel on Mark.
He claims it’s just dinner, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea. It’s not even his feelings that I worry about, but whether he’ll grow suspicious when I don’t change my mind about him.
Will he move on? Or push for answers that I cannot give him?
It’s the same debate that got me into a friendship with him in the first place. I allowed it then out of desperation, but I need to make sure things don’t go too far.
The last thing I want to do is start overagain.
I also need to figure out what I’m going to do when the Seeker is done.
Until now, the idea of finishing it had seemed so far-fetched that I never worried about making plans, but it’s different now that I know it’s possible. As much as I try to ignore it, a day will come when the Seeker is complete, and I’ll have to decide what to do with it.
Suddenly, a night of listening to Mark ramble about his family doesn’t sound so bad. Maybe it’s exactly what I need to distract myself.
I head back to the apartment, a short walk, thankfully. It’s February, and with a sharp breeze whipping around me, I’m glad I opted to wear my windbreaker. The winter in Payson, Arizona, is much nicer than what I’m used to, so I can hardly complain about this being the worst of it.
By the time I get to my door, I’m feeling oddly at ease, like the chill was enough to remind me that I’m here for a fresh start, and it’ll all be for nothing if I don’tactuallylive my life.
