John Doe

John Doe was sitting at his desk in one of the many offices of Robloxia HQ, staring intently at a sheet of paper.

He had been staring at it for approximately seven minutes.

Was he working? Technically, yes. Was he getting anything done? That was a different question entirely.

John couldn't quite remember what he was supposed to be doing. Something involving paperwork, probably. There were numbers on the page, little boxes to fill in, and a rather important-looking signature line at the bottom. It seemed simple enough. He just had to figure out what the numbers meant first.

He tilted his head. Then tilted it the other way.

Then leaned forward until his forehead was almost touching the paper.

"...Oh."

He had absolutely no idea.

John was not particularly good at this sort of thing anymore. In fact, there were plenty of things he wasn't particularly good at anymore. Remembering instructions was one of them. Concentrating for longer than a few minutes was another. Sometimes, someone could tell him something perfectly ordinary, and by the time they finished speaking, the information would have already slipped out of his head like water through a sieve.

It wasn't that he didn't care. He just had a rather unfortunate habit of losing track of things, including things that were supposed to be important.

His right hand — or, well, what remained of it — rested beside the keyboard. The enormous black spike that had replaced it extended almost to his knees, an awkward, unwieldy thing that he had long since learned to live with. His left hand was perfectly capable of operating a computer, although the black corruption covering his fingers occasionally made the smaller keys a little inconvenient.

His chair creaked beneath his considerable weight. At nearly three meters tall, John was hardly built for ordinary office furniture. His knees were pressed awkwardly against the underside of his desk, his broad belly resting against its edge, and his shoulders hunched forward in an attempt to make himself fit into a space clearly designed for someone considerably smaller.

It looked uncomfortable, and probably was uncomfortable.

John didn't seem to mind.

He wore his usual white shirt, rolled up to his elbows, beneath a bright yellow vest bearing the familiar Roblox insignia. His light blue trousers were slightly wrinkled, and his blue tie sat crookedly around his neck. He had tried tying it himself that morning. It had taken three attempts, and the result was still questionable.

At least he had managed to put it on the right way around.

Above his head, a few tiny strings of ones and zeroes drifted lazily through the air, occasionally flickering in and out of existence. Every now and then, one would float past his face, and John would follow it with his eyes as though it were a particularly interesting insect.

His round face wore its usual closed-mouth smile. It was a soft, almost pleasant expression, although it rarely changed enough to give anyone a reliable idea of what he was thinking. The red glow of his right eye shone through the corruption surrounding it, while the rest of his face remained remarkably ordinary.

Well. Ordinary, considering everything.

He had been like this for five years now. He could still remember certain people from before. Faces, voices, familiar names. The occasional memory would surface without warning, as though someone had opened an old drawer in his head.

The details? Those were much harder to hold on to.

Sometimes, John wondered what he had been like before all this. He remembered having pink hair. He remembered working here. He remembered people trying to help him afterward.

He couldn't remember everything else. It didn't bother him every day. There were too many other things to think about.

Like whether the little red light on the computer meant it was broken. Or whether he was allowed to eat the decorative plastic plant on the windowsill.

He had asked someone about the plant last week. They had said, quite firmly, that it was not food. John had accepted this answer. He was still a little curious, though.

"John?"

A voice interrupted his thoughts. John's head lifted immediately. A man stood on the other side of his desk, holding a folder beneath one arm. Judging by his expression, he had been standing there for a little while.

"Oh! Hullo!"

John straightened as much as the desk allowed, nearly knocking his knee against its underside in the process.

"Did'ya need somethin'?"

The man glanced at the paper in front of him.

"John, have you finished the reports I gave you this morning?"

John looked down at the paper. He looked at the folder. He looked back at the man.

"...Reports?"

There was a brief silence. The man's expression suggested that this was not the answer he had been hoping for.

"Yes. The reports. The ones I explained to you earlier."

"Ooh."

John nodded slowly, as if the explanation had cleared everything up.

"...No."

He said it with such complete sincerity that the man seemed to struggle with what to do next.

John, meanwhile, was already trying to remember whether he had actually been given any reports that morning. He vaguely recalled someone approaching his desk. There might have been a folder. There might have been two folders. Someone had definitely said something about a deadline.

Was that today? Was today Thursday? He looked toward the window, as though the weather might offer some clarification.

"I'm sorry," he added after a moment, his smile remaining in place. "I forgotted."

"You can't keep forgetting things like this, John."

"Oh. Okay."

"And you can't just sit here doing nothing all day."

John glanced at the sheet of paper again.

"I was doin' somethin'."

"What?"

"...Lookin' at it."

The man closed his eyes for a moment. John waited patiently. He was quite good at waiting, especially when he had no idea what was happening. Besides, the man didn't seem angry enough to require comforting just yet.

Eventually, the man let out a tired sigh and placed the folder on the desk.

"Look. Just take the rest of the day off, alright? I'll have someone else handle these."

John blinked.

"A day off?"

"Yes, John. A day off."

His expression didn't change much, but something about his posture brightened. His shoulders relaxed, and the little strings of binary floating around his head seemed to drift a little faster.

"Oh! Thank you!"

He said it with such uncomplicated enthusiasm that the man hesitated.

"Just... try to get some rest, alright?"

"Okay!"

John carefully stood up. The chair made a deeply concerning noise beneath him before finally being freed from his weight. He pushed it back beneath the desk with his good hand, straightened his crooked tie — somehow making it worse — and picked up absolutely nothing before heading for the exit. He had forgotten his folder. He had also forgotten that he had brought a lunch. Neither occurred to him as he made his way out of the office.

The corridors of Robloxia HQ were busy with employees coming and going, their conversations blending into the familiar hum of computers and distant footsteps. John knew a surprising number of the people here, even if he sometimes struggled to remember their names. He recognised faces, waved at familiar coworkers, and offered a cheerful greeting to a woman who had greeted him first.

"Hiya! Have a good day!"

She smiled back.

"You too, John."

That was nice. John liked it when people smiled at him. He liked helping them, too. If someone dropped something, he would pick it up. If someone looked upset, he would ask whether they wanted a hug. Sometimes people accepted. Sometimes they looked at him, went very quiet, and hurried away.

He never quite understood that part. He was big, yes. He knew that. He could see the way his head nearly reached the ceiling in some of the older corridors, and he had accidentally frightened more than a few people simply by turning around too quickly.

But he wasn't trying to be scary. He just wanted everyone to be alright.

Once outside, John paused on the broad steps of the building and looked up at the sky. The weather was pleasant. A light breeze rustled through the trees surrounding the HQ, and somewhere nearby, a little patch of flowers had attracted a handful of fireflies that were still glowing faintly in the daylight.

John watched them for a while.

He reached into his pocket for his phone. No phone. He checked the other pocket. Still no phone. John stared at his empty hands.

"...Huh."

He had probably left it at his desk.

Oh, well.

He could get it tomorrow. There was something strangely comforting about having an entire afternoon with nothing he was supposed to do. No paperwork, no computer screens, no one asking him to remember three separate instructions at once.

He could go for a walk. Maybe buy something to eat. Maybe find a park with a nice hill and sit on it for a while.

He had always liked things like that. Simple things. Things that didn't require much thinking.

Lost in these pleasant thoughts, John started walking down the pavement, his heavy footsteps falling into an uneven rhythm. He was looking up at the buildings, watching the clouds reflected in the glass windows, when—

THUMP.

He walked directly into someone.

Well, technically, someone walked directly into him. John wasn't entirely sure whose fault it was. He had been looking at the sky, and the other person had been looking somewhere else, and now there was a small figure standing in front of him.

John stopped immediately. The stranger barely reached his waist.

For a second, John simply stared down at them, his red eye glowing faintly beneath the black corruption. His permanent smile remained exactly where it always was, but his shoulders drew inward a little, and he bent forward in an attempt to get a better look at the person he had bumped into.

John hurriedly brought his left hand toward his chest, careful to keep the enormous black spike on his right side from swinging too close to the stranger.

"S-sorwy!"

He crouched slightly, his movements awkward and a little clumsy, trying to make himself less intimidating. It didn't help much. Even bent forward, he was enormous.

"Did'ya hurt you?.."

He paused, looking the stranger over with genuine concern.

"...I mean—"

He frowned faintly, searching for the right words.

"Are you okay?"