“Where you’ve been Jess?”
My little brother was tugging on my jacket. “You gotta see this fort I made at least.” It was a cracked version of Minecraft I copped for him. We had a few mods too – some mechanical industry, beekeeping or extra redstone things.
“I found a tutorial online to make a disappearing piston entrance, and I found this perfect mountain and smelt the cobblestone and hunted for slimes,” he continued, trailing behind and toward the computer room. We had a Raspberry Pi as a dedicated local server and we could both log in whenever. It was humming away in the far up corner, with blue neons percolating the room.
“That sounds pretty cool,” I said. “I’ll have to check it out later” I followed up, before swiveling into my desk on the left side, near the shuttered window.
“But you haven’t seen all the other stuff I’ve set up too,” my brother protested. “It’s been like three weeks at least, and I’ve advanced into solar panel arrays already.”
“I’ll have to check it out for sure, but I need to get something else done first. I just got back home, after all,” I replied. He sunk his shoulders a little before catching himself, then gave a disinterested, “Okay, whatever” before leaving the room to get some food.
Once I was sure he left, I opened a tab to Amazon mTurk to look if there were any tasks I could pick up. I’ve been building a few scripts and workflows, and managed to net roughly ~$480 a month if I got competitive enough. I also found it valuable to get some surveys going in a separate tab, driven with some GreaseMonkey automations. That’s another $260, roughly.
Since the writing hit the wall I wasn’t able to enjoy video games much anymore. But I remembered how much fun they were, and I enjoyed seeing my brother fully with it. It’s partially why I used this side money to get the RaspberryPi, with also a hope to spark some engineering interests. Same with Minecraft. I did have concerns about him not connecting much with the neighbors, but I also acknowledge that everyone moves away anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
After all, I stopped talking to my highschool friends since they’ve moved away. Some even got some good rides to some nationwide staples, and I’m glad for them. But seeing as I couldn’t play games anymore, and we didn’t have much else in common or in store, it only made sense to stop bothering. I think they agreed deep down. Maybe they were confused by my disappearance, but it didn’t matter.
The only thing that mattered to me was giving my brother something more. I knew the yelling bothered him, and he seems to be picking up on some of the issues or the debt and everything else. My life felt set in stone, but his doesn’t have to be yet.
I don’t expect to own a house, or have a family, girlfriend, bar nights out or vacations, any clout. After awhile, I didn’t want these things anyway, whether out of cope or because those that seemed to have it all had a different ailment hidden. All I saw with marriage was gambles of screaming across the nearby families. Or with houses, stress and more stress and getting things you have to painfully throw away years later. But really I’m just shying away from the positive outcomes a few blocks down. It doesn’t matter.
All I knew is that the less I wanted, the happier I became; but I never would want to force that on my brother. It’s up to him to decide if he wants things, and if he does, well, I wanted to support him even if he thought I was growing more distant. I knew my brother would go great places. All you had to do was watch him glide through his homework and modpack fiddling.
I was able to nab one task and finish a few surveys. It was a simple Saturday evening, so I figured I’d check the server. And the piston disappearing door did seem convoluted, and all the wiring for an automated quarry seemed in the works.
I sauntered to the kitchen and said, “Checked out the door and the base, how hard was it to find an oil source for the quarry?”
He smiled and started on, “Well, you should’ve seen it. It took me at least two days with the trek I made. I have it all plotted on the map mod. Here, I even have some screenshots of the cool caves and volcanoes, mountains I saw. I’ll show you!” He raced back to the computer room and I followed.
But when I got there, he wasn’t there anymore. It’s already been ten years since then. And I haven’t talked to him in five.
I saw a notification for another survey while there was more yelling down the hall. I ignored the other half of the room all barren, swiveled into my chair, and began.