Boys of Ice and Fire

The Orientation

It was cold in February in Beijing, especially in the morning, when Ethan woke up so early at dawn and took a 90-minute subway ride to get to work. But all he cared about for the moment was getting a nucleus acid test. He searched frantically on his cellphone and got the nearest spot that could produce the test result within the day.

Holding his phone and checking from time to time, he turned into a back alley where the low-lying brick apartments were a stark contrast to the glistening steel-and-glass office buildings around Monkey Education Tower. Hidden among the brick apartments, Ethan finally found the spot indicated on the phone. It's a little booth where there were already 10-odd people waiting in line, sticking out their tongues one by one for a nurse in white to get saliva from the throat.

While waiting in line, Ethan went through all the required steps in his mind a couple of times. He could make no mistake. He needed to get the result before the next morning. Such was the case with Ethan: in a matter that required precision and care, he would always make one mistake or another, f*****g up the whole thing when he believed the trophy was ready in the bag. So this time, he went through the whole process with his heart clenched tight, checking all the phone numbers and certificate numbers. He couldn’t afford another delay.

After the test was done, Ethan went back home to wait for the result. Both his parents had been out. Bob must have gone out to drink with his clients in the hope of sealing another deal, so that he could get a step closer to buying an apartment for Ethan to live in. Housing prices in Beijing had been soaring for over a decade and there was no way an office worker like Ethan could afford an apartment without the help of his parents.

Priscilla, on the other hand, well, let’s just say Ethan didn’t even care where she had gone. Mostly she would go traveling around Beijing with her friends, without ever trying to make money to support the family. Fun was all she wanted, as she said so often, citing her old age as an excuse to enjoy life without making a contribution.

It was a long day of waiting for Ethan. He doodled around this 80-square-meter rented apartment in Suburban Beijing, doing nothing other than checking to see if the result was out on the phone. On a normal day, he would read a novel or watch a film, so that he could analyze the dramatic structure of them and apply what he could learn to his work. But now he just lay on his bed staring blankly into the white ceiling, imagining the blemishes on it to be all sorts of plants, animals, or buildings.

It’s lucky that boring days also flitted by quickly. Before he knew it, it was the morning of the second day. Just as planned, Ethan got the result he needed, after checking his cellphone a million times.

Ethan drank the mixture of porridge and milk or whatever it was that Priscilla creatively made for him as breakfast, bagged all the documents he needed, and dashed onto the subway again.

Even when he arrived at the counter, he was afraid something would go wrong again and he would be denied entrance the second time. But the man at the counter passed his test result this time, and asked him to follow the sign posts to the hall where the orientation would be held at 10 o’clock. And according to Gigi, Shaun was supposed to pick him up and take him to the work area at around 12. Ethan’s heart skipped a bit. The realization that he would meet Shaun in less than two hours hit him like a ton of bricks, panic surging through him. But at the same time he felt relieved. He was in the tower finally, with nothing more standing between him and his love interest.

As he walked towards the hall for orientation, he took a sweeping view of the lobby of the tower. It was as tall as up to three stories of normal apartments, covered in marble in most parts, with massive blocks of bright colors jutting out here and there in a casual yet harmonious pattern, indicating this was a company that served kids and teenage students.

On one of these marble-covered walls was a large metal board charting the milestones of the companies’ development in a timeline. On another wall opposite the main gate was a giant LED screen playing Hollywood-film-like VCRs that could boost the company’s image.

Reading the sign posts, Ethan knew he had to walk through the glass door resting at the foot of the giant LED screen to get to the hall for orientation. Navigating through a maze of alleys with even more signs, Ethan felt relieved that he had reached his destination, a giant, cavernous hall with about 100 or so desks, where the contracts and Macbooks had been laid out for each new worker. It was no surprise when Ethan found out that the guy standing in front of him and his would-be colleagues looked like he was fresh out of college, no more than 24 years old, judging by his nerdy looks, clean skin, and shaky voice. Only the work card he wore swinging in his front indicated he was already working.

These workers of Internet companies are so young! I’m wondering if there will be a generation gap between me and Shaun, or other co-workers on the team. Ethan, who was already 33 years old, thought to himself.