FFM 2024 8: Error Sounds

My brains are worn out from attending Finncon all weekend, so I ended up picking one of my own prompts for a standalone story: My life is one huge Windows XP error sound.

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I looked up from my screen, puzzled by an oddly familiar sound. It rang out again, and again… like footsteps? Others in the office were looking up as well, everyone looking either confused or irritated by the sudden noise.

“Please excuse me, I’ll go on mute for a moment. There’s some background noise…” My team lead, Jake, looked around, trying to locate the source of the noise that I now realized sounded a whole lot like the Windows XP’s error sound effect.

What a blast from the past.

The source of the noise walked in — one of the summer trainees. She looked like she was absolutely done with everything in life.

Not an unfamiliar feeling, to be honest.

“Hey Liz. Uh, what’s up?” Amy greeted the trainee hesitantly.

Liz looked at Amy, her I’m-so-done-with-my-life expression unflinching. “My life is one huge Windows XP error sound.” Then, without any kind of elaboration, she error-walked to her desk, sat down — causing another Windows XP error sound to ring through the office space — and booted her laptop.

Jake lead snapped into attention as someone called for him in the meeting. “Uh, yeah, I’m still here. Sorry. There was some… unexpected noise here. I don’t know what’s going on. But, um, yeah… What was the question again?”

I kept looking around. Everyone else who did not have to focus on a meeting did the same, none of us apparently willing to ask what was going on. It was like everyone was glued to their chairs.

Well, at least I was glued thanks to the meeting I was sitting in even though I had zero input to give.

I watched as Liz logged on to her computer, picked up her mouse and double-clicked something — only for the mouse (or the finger?) to also let out a double error sound. I could not see Liz’s face from my desk but I had a feeling everyone could feel the sheer despair radiating from her before she unplugged her laptop and speedwalked into one of the meeting rooms, rapid-firing error sounds as she went before slamming the door and silencing the noise.

The odd sound effects aside, that was such a mood.

“So, we probably should go ask what’s going on?”

“Yeah…”

“Yeah, we really should… But someone else do it. I’ll just piss her off because I’ll say something like ‘did you get cursed’ out of reflex.”

No one moved from their desks and instead eyed everyone else, waiting for someone to make the move. The bystander effect was in full effect — and I had a feeling it was going to hold us in a limbo until a manager appeared… or Jake got out of the meeting and went to check up on Liz himself.

Oh well. I sat back and let the mass confusion continue. It was not like I was doing anything except sit around for the next half an hour or anyway.