Logs:Of Fairways and Fantasy (Or, Anthropological Interests)

Of Fairways and Fantasy (Or, Anthropological Interests)
Dramatis Personae David, Kavalam	2024-05-01 "Are you a purveyor of fancy lemonades, then?"
Location <NYC> Capital Indoor Golf
This is definitely not David's office -- not an office at all. Perhaps the all-glass fishbowl cubicles, or the abundance of screens, or the silly array of amenities might suggest that this is some kind of tech start-up, but in each of the glass cubicles the customers are dressed very much for real golf, playing Fake Golf with VR headsets and wielding golf clubs decked out in tech-y decal. The service staff is flitting between these cubicles with trays of iced cucumber water and flavored lemonade, though they are very careful not to get too close to their customers. Because of the golf clubs, probably. David is not golfing anymore. In keeping with most of this crowd he's dressed in a pastel blue, unobtrusively patterned polo tucked into gray slacks, an honest-to-God tweed cap, his VR headset pushed onto the top of his cap, a single rust-colored golf glove on the same hand he's offering to the similarly dressed gentleman he's just lost to. "I'll get you next time," he is promising good-naturedly (he will not), and, "In the meantime you just let me know about those forensic reports, would you?" Only after his companion departs is David having a seat on the bench in his glass cubicle to partake in some crushed-mint lemonade. Kavalam is also not golfing. Not just "anymore"; if it is possible to radiate an aura of Person Who Has Never Been Golfing he's doing that at this exact moment, sitting cross-legged on the bench beside David where he may possibly have been all along and frowning with a deeply critical air at a man in an adjacent cubicle (in unobtrusively patterned grey polo tucked in to his blue slacks. Kavalam has jeans, slightly em-hole-enated at the knees though probably not as much so as is proper for a teen of his age; he has bold orange kurta on over it, mid-thigh length and intricately embroidered in burgundy at cuffs and placket, and comfortable leather sandals. After only a slight pause he's turned his extremely critical assessment to David's lemonade. "How much," he sounds very mildly aggrieved by just the thought, "must you pay the computer to pretend you up a golf." David pauses mid-sip, blinking at this sudden -- arrival? appearance? -- over the frosty glass, before he sets it back on the tray. "It's a tad expensive," he allows, "but this is a business expense, so that's between Accounts and God. Are you --" the quick but searching look he's given Kavalam through this has, perhaps, done little to answer the question of if he works here despite his clear flouting of the Business Golf Casual dress code, and as soon as David decides that would be a rude thing to ask about, he merely observes, "You are not playing golf. Who are you?" "Nobody here is playing golf. What is your work that it requires make believe. If you try very hard," Kavalam is magnanimously offering this advice gratis, "you can pretend to golf for free." But then he frowns, slight and contemplative: "I should try this business actually. I think the profit margins would be quite high if we simply supply the fancy lemonades and you-all can supply the pretending." After a brief, possibly stunned pause, David produces a slow-growing, considering smile. "Oh, you know," he says. "A make believe position to start with. Built-in scapegoats. Much easier to skim off the top than to fix the company culture, don't you think? Ah, but --" he taps the side of his nose, eyes narrowing with amusement. "I shouldn't tell you that." He's still giving Kavalam that same confused, considering look, but evidently he sees no point in repeating the unanswered question. "The pretending is difficult for most in my position. You would not believe how unimaginative some people are, once they feel no need for change." He reaches with one hand to adjust the VR headset on his head, somehow un-self-consciously. "Are you a purveyor of fancy lemonades, then?" "Mmm, my people invented the lemonade, you know. And I would very believe." Kavalam's eyes have gone a little bit wider, and the intensity with which he observes this Nose Tap carries just a small suggestion of the kind of delighted enthusiasm with which Steve Irwin might have commented on a Particularly Fascinating snake. He lifts his own hand, tapping very solemnly at his nose, too, before he says, speculative: "How much would you need to pay the computer to pretend you are good at golf?" David raises his eyebrows, a similar anthropological pleasure creeping into his smile. "Surely you realize the computer will lie to you free of charge," he says. "The pretend golf is the expensive part." "I realize very little, when it comes to this type of thing." Kavalam replies with an indefinable air of wistfulness. "But every day somebody they teach me something new." And then -- well. Who was David talking to? It's hard to say; there's nobody else there. Perhaps it was one of the unobtrusive service staff, because his tray probably should have a lemonade on it.