Last week, a little girl walked in right through the front double-glass doors of uBoard LLC. She was accompanied by some precession, but no fanfare. The girl entered into the bright, neutral interior of the building. In the lobby the ambiance was casual, but grand and multi-leveled. The girl walked in with her party in full view of the employees, coders, engineers, developers. As one could imagine, at least some of them had to be briefed of the goings-on. Which would necessarily mean that everyone knew, at least by e-mail.
The employees acted in one of three ways:
Some were jubilant to see the little girl, perhaps some within them betraying their sincerity. These persons came up and formed a mob of apparent adoration off to the side of the girl’s path.
Other sat at their desks and tables, peering up curiously at the girl over their laptops or lunch. Some exchanged glances with each other.
Still, a third set of employees, in the slim minority, kept their eyes and gazes low, with stifled frowns.
The girl was lead up a big staircase through the lobby into the chambers of smaller independent offices. The air was celebratory. A man awaited the part outside of a large office, ornately finished.
The man in a blue suit addressed the awaiting man.
“Did you handle setting everything up in there?”
The man looked down with deference, “Yes. All set to go.”
The girl was lead by a man in a blue suit, first around the center desk and right up to a large leather office chair. The man pressed the chair down a lever and a knee, and positioned it over to the girl.
“Here you go sweetheart,” another man lifted the girl up from under her arms onto the chair. The man in the suit flipped the lever and the chair rose.
The girl was now sitting behind a computer screen. She saw the screen and let out a small smile.
“Okay, first, log-in”.
She perched her pale arm out from the large and awkwardly accommodating chair to take the mouse. She clicked twice and chicken-plucked the keyboard. Then, trying to sit more comfortably, for ten minutes she operated the mouse. Then finally, slowing the mouse wheel down, she clicked again then began to type. It was a slow process, but determined. In another room, an editor was correcting the spellings in the words shortly after she had finished hashing them out on the screen.
When her statement was final, it was this:
“there is a beautiful horse near my house that my mom and me used to go to. It was just like this horse. Her name was Leda. We were best friends. I’ve been thinking about riding her every day now. I still hope to soon. I miss her.”
She operated the mouse slowly over and clicked. Her eyes darted quickly to the corner of the screen.
At first she smiled. It did take not much more watching before her eyes and mouth opened in gasp. She smiled and tears came to her eyes.
The friends in her entourage had already taken out their devices. They ran up and surrounded the girl on both sides, holding lifting and jumping themselves up with one arm on the chair’s armrest propelling themselves and the other phone-holding hands in the air. They were ecstatic and yelling all-together.
“Look Sabrina!
—Look Sabrina!
LOOK”