episode FORTY-FIVE
Hell Redux.
He
stood at the corner of the street, leaning on his cane, wondering whether or
not he should really be going into work today, or if he had not better be in
the park, plunking down at one of the benches. There was a particular tree he
was drawn to, one some kid or other had carved the letters J-A-C-K deeply into
the bark of the trunk, the scarred letters looked years seasoned by rains and
snows and heatwaves. Sitting at the bench, looking at the letters gave him a
spooky feeling, as if the carving meant something. Sometimes he toyed with the
idea that his own father had carved those letters there, years ago, as a boy,
when the tree was much smaller, but he deep-down knew that this was just a
fantasy he enjoyed toying with, and today was not a day for fantasy, because he
had to make it into work, despite the agony of it, and get a few pieces of work
done, under the collective eye of the unholy trinity, Bloody Marty, Hissin
Lewin, and Sewie.
He
could leave this job anytime if it all got too bad—it wasn’t as if he had a
family to support—and the thing of it was, it had already gotten too bad, but
Stacey was not a quitter. He’d see it through. He was tempted, oh yes, he was
tempted, but not today. Today, he would see it through.
When
the light changed and he set out across the street, hobbling lightly upon and
delicately over his left foot—it was a gout day, and both his left big toe and
heel were inflamed, he was walking on broken glass with that foot, the little
acid crystals snapping and stabbing with every step—his cane offered only token
support, as he shifted his weight more to the cane with each step of his left
foot.
A
small crowd was gathered about something or other, probably a heart attack, and
the milling crowd actually moved out into the street to brave the one-way
traffic, just to get around and proceed up the street. But like look-loos
everywhere, many of the passerbys were sucked in, adding to the logjam.
“I
will not look,” Stacey told himself, as he was just not the looky-loo type of
guy, at least this is what he told himself, but as he was pulled into the current
of the crowd jostling close amidst people too close to his swollen foot, he
glanced between heads and made out a portable, rolling puppet show, a novel
little craft on what looked like mismatched bicycle wheels, but what was odd
was that the theatre itself seemed to be comprised of a very fancy coffin,
beautiful red wood, with brass fittings, with a swelling of pop-up red velvet
curtains above.
A
man in a tall top-hat stood behind the coffin, a cadaverously pale man
apparently working the puppets—Stacey figured there must be a door set in the
lid of the coffin, otherwise it just didn’t make sense how the Puppet Master
was working things, his bizarre face peering over the lid. As he passed the
crowd Stacey caught glimpses of the show going on, which appeared to be a Punch
and Judy show, with both puppets battering each other with clubs.
“I
said the kisser, not the kissee!” a comical voice bellowed, and the people in
crowded together exploded in laughter.
Punchinello’s Theatre, the golden plaque read, the letters
in flowing script, looking Olde English, and the whole thing gave Stacey a
weird, creepy feeling, almost the haunted sensation of déjà vu, but a little
different, a little darker. A goose didn’t just cross over his grave, but it
vomited up its guts and then fell over dead. That’s what it felt like, dread
smacking in the face with a dead fish.
His
hand gripped his cane, and he shifted his backpack, and actually found himself
pushing through the crowd, as if he wanted to escape the puppet show. It was
weird, as if he was slipping into a panic, which would be very unusual for him,
as he rarely lost his cool. But he wasn’t sure that he had actually just caught
a glimpse of the sign—it was more that he remembered what the plaque read. He
had seen it before, in his childhood. Maybe not. It was weird. He wanted away
from it. He wanted no part of it. He didn’t even want to think about it.
He
did not much like the crowd gathered before the puppet show, an odd group of
businessmen carrying umbrellas, bizarre. As he passed, he glanced back once and
caught the smoldering eyes of an Asian businessman beneath a bowler hat, and he
almost thought he knew the guy. Was it someone he knew, or someone famous? He
looked familiar, or at least it seemed he should know the guy.
He
was close to his building and put the puppet show and umbrellas out of his
mind. He hobbled up the many steps to the entrance and badged in, swiping his
CAC card over the reader. He paused, staring at the reader. Someone had used
something sharp to scratch a shape into the hard plastic of the card reader. A
circle with a ring about it. It looked like a little kid had used a nail to
scratch the planet Saturn into the surface. Weird, but didn’t it remind him of
something? What was wrong with him, as everything was freaking him out.
The
door clicked, locking again. He had waited too long. Staring at the scrawled
Saturn, he reswiped his card and pushed through the doors into the interior of
the dark VS building. Why did it seem that the place was always deserted?
He
stood, feeling his head reel. Again, déjà vu, only it was like déjà vu in
reverse. It seemed he had never been here before, that everything was odd,
irregular, unknown. Of course, he knew he had worked here for the past three
years, dreading every single moment of that time spent in hell, working with
some of the nastiest people that could ever be imagined. But again, it was as
if he was walking through these doors for the first time. I mean, come on, he
knew that poor tree growing there in its big pot, he had patted its trunk in
passing, perhaps a hundred times, always feeling like he should just steal it
away some night, revive the poor little tree with a little love and affection.
He
limped to the tree, keeping his weight off of his left foot, which seemed
hugely swollen, and stood before the poor little tree. Its leaves looked
half-dead, in the process of shriveling and withering.
“Poor
little tree,” Stacey said, and then blinked. Back in the dark, under a clump of
leaves, something dangled. What in the world? It looked like a piece of fruit.
Was someone playing a joke? Some lumpy old pear, looking bruised and ready to
fall, it just hung there. Stacey reached out a hand, almost touching the fruit,
but he paused. It could be a hornet’s nest. Or a bomb. Or some mutant being,
hiding in the darkness.
For
some reason he thought of wheat or tall grass shifting as something moved
through a field. He slowly withdrew his hand. The piece of fruit seemed
surreal, real but odd. It looked entirely organic, it had really grown there,
seemingly overnight, but it also looked fake, as if it had grown and withered
there in a matter of moments, possibly in the moments that Stacey had spent
outside the doors, puzzling over that little scrawl of Saturn on the card
reader.
Something
was wrong with him today. Everything was seeming out of place, just a little
shifted to the left, not entirely there or right. Maybe he had food poisoning,
or was experiencing the first tickles of a tumor in his skull. That’s entirely
how off everything seemed to be,
unfamiliar and strange.
The
elevator doors rumbled open. A bell dinged. Stacey stood staring at the fruit.
“Well,
are you getting on, or not?” someone said from inside the elevator.
Stacey
edged his head over, leaning almost comically upon his cane. Why in the world
was someone in the elevator, and why was whoever it was asking him if he was
getting on or not?
There
was certainly someone in the elevator. Stacey could see a reflection of bright
red. This was too weird. He hobbled out in front of the elevator and peered in.
A
guy stood in there, not a particularly big guy, but someone almost Stacey’s
size, wearing an old-fashioned bell-boy uniform, or elevator attendant suit,
something, a red coat with gold buttons, and a small, flat red cap that looked
like the kind of thing a monkey would wear, perched on an organ grinder,
capering for change.
“Is
this a joke?” Stacey said, staring at the man.
“Orange
you glad I didn’t say banana?” the man in the elevator said.
“What?”
Stacey said.
“Oops,
there go the ears,” the man in the elevator said. “First your tootsies, now
your hearing, what’s next—you gonna start seeing things, Mr. Colton?”
Did
the guy seem familiar? Not in the slightest. But despite himself, Stacey
clumped into the elevator.
“Do
I know you?” Stacey enquired, staring at the man.
“Very
funny, Mr. Colton, but have a heart. Yeah, this job sucks, but you don’t have
to rub it in,” the man in the elevator said. “What floor?”
Stacey
stared at him. Fine.
“Don’t
you know what floor I work on?” Stacey said, looking the man in the eye, wiling
him to crack under the pressure.
“Duh,
yeah, like Floor Seven, for what? A hundred years?” the man said, comically
rolling his eyes. But then his gaze returned to meet Stacey’s eyes full on,
like absolutely no other man would do. “But you know, that cute little Asian
blonde, on Floor Fourteen? Thought you might want to make up an excuse to pay
her a little visit?”
“A
blonde Asian?” Stacey said, considering. He broke eye contact to peer up at the
lighted panel above the door. Strange. That didn’t look familiar. A white
digital readout. “Okay, let’s ride to Floor Fourteen.”
The
man in the elevator, the guy wearing the ridiculous monkey suit, grinned, and
winked.
“That’s
the spirit, Mr. Colton! Let’s have us a little glimpse, what say?” He turned to
the panel alongside the door. An absurd amount of buttons stuck out of the
panel, going from the floor up to the ceiling. None of the buttons were marked.
His fingers tripped and tickled, danced and leapt, and he seemed to push two
buttons at the same time, over and over again, choosing here and there, like
reading braille. The elevator doors rumbled shut.
And
then the floor seemed to fall out beneath Stacey. He gasped and seized the
railings that went about the elevator at waist-height. They seemed to do
freefall. Stacey thought he could feel his feet lift up off the floor and he
nearly dropped his cane.
“Oops,
sorry about that, wouldn’t want to send us through a wormhole!” the elevator
attendant laughed, sounding a little nervous. He punched another series of
buttons. Stacey glanced, with all the blood rushing to his head, and tried to
divert his creeping terror by calculating the amount of buttons on the panel.
His eyes counted ten buttons from left to right, but there were so many crowded
on top of each other that he would never even snatch a bare guesstimation on
how many ran from top to bottom.
The
elevator motion smoothed out, and the guy punching the buttons smirked guiltily
at Stacey.
“Sorry,
this is my first day on the job!” he said, barely suppressing a giggle.
“Who
are you?” Stacey demanded, glaring at the grinning rogue. The guy was immensely
enjoying himself, and had obviously pulled that prank on purpose, to give
Stacey a big scare.
“Mr.
Titan, but don’t you know me, Stacey?” the elevator attendant said, smoothing
out his monkey suit. “You’ve been over my house for barbecue, right?”
“Must
be the brain tumor, to go along with the deafness, and gout,” Stacey said,
sourly, leaning back against the rear wall of the elevator. How long were they
traveling, surely they had already gone more than fourteen floors. But, a
nagging thought tickled at the back of his memory, for he did seem to remember
standing with Titan, in a small backyard, with children screaming, jumping into
a small wading pool, splashing, the scent of sizzling meat and slopped-on
sauce. He remembered biting into a burger.
“Funny,
I’m a vegetarian,” Stacey said, more to himself, almost trying to reason with
himself. If this wasn’t all so real, he’d think he was dreaming. He felt like a
puppet, strung along through a maze. The puppeteers were trying to convince
him...of all...this.
“That
is funny,” Mr. Titan said, punching a few more buttons.
“Why
is it funny?” Stacey said.
“You
said, and I quote, ‘Funny, I’m a vegetarian,’ which I do find to be funny, so I
merely said, and I quote, ‘that is funny.’”
“You
are a funny guy, Mr. Titan,” Stacey said, looking up at the panel above the
elevator doors. Numbers and letters were flashing, incomprehensibly. Stacey
thought he saw foreign symbols and characters amidst the numbers and English
letters. Was this some kind of practical joke? Perhaps he was on some
hidden-camera comedy show, and millions of people were laughing themselves
silly, even at this moment, as Stacey twitched and reacted to all the
bizarreness.
“That’s
what they tell me, Mr. Colton, and you too, are a funny guy,” Mr. Titan said.
“We
are a funny couple of guys,” Stacey said, watching the numbers. He didn’t feel
intoxicated, or drugged—he was thinking quite clearly, and the pain in his left
foot grounded him. None of this could be in a dream, and yet none of it,
although entirely real, seemed entirely real.
The
elevator stopped. The bell dinged. Stupidly, the lit screen above the doors
displayed: for teen.
“For...teen?” Stacey said, staring up.
“Don’t
you worry,” Mr. Titan said, “she may look young, but I know she’s much, much
older.”
And
with that Mr. Titan shoved him out of the elevator, so hard that Stacey nearly
stumbled forward to trip and go sprawling, and it was only his great sense of
balance that kept him on his feet. Pain flared in his left foot, and he stood
for a moment, collecting himself, leaning on his cane, glaring back at grinning
Mr. Titan as the elevator doors closed and severed their connection. Stupid guy
in a stupid monkey suit. And rough, too. Barbecues in the backyard, how utterly
preposterous.
“What
are you doing on this floor?” a woman asked, with a tone of outrage.
Stacey
looked up and around, feeling guilty. He stared into the strangest eyes he had
ever seen. The powdery-bluest blue he had ever seen, her irises practically
glowing like the tiny blue flames from a gas stove, and as advertised, she was
a blonde Asian, although her hair was white, with not a trace of color (and she
didn’t really appear to be Asian, but something else, perhaps from a long, long
time ago, when women were far more beautiful)—it swept up in a great mound
behind her head and fell back long, and Stacey could only imagine it piled up
behind her on the floor, great Rapunzel locks, masses of the luxurious white-gold
stuff. She was so still she almost appeared a statue, and she was
breathtakingly beautiful, although severe, and she seemed old—or ageless.
Stacey stared at her, as if struck by a bolt of lightning.
“Just
come up for a peek, is that it?” she said, her face not moving, she was looking
at him from the tops of her eyes, as if she had just been reading and had
glanced up when he came stumbling from the elevator. The angry librarian who
would absolutely kill anyone that spoke louder than a whisper in her library.
“I’m
sorry, I was just heading into work,” Stacey said, dumbly.
“Floor
Seven, correct?” she said, still not moving, not even the fluctuation of her
dark eyebrows.
“Yes,
Floor Seven,” Stacey repeated, feeling asinine.
“You
seem to have doubled your pleasure, as this is Floor Fourteen, and you are not
authorized here,” she said, staring at him, her eyes boring through him.
He
couldn’t even manage to swallow.
“Yes,”
he said, pleased that she knew something about him, “I’ll just head back down.”
“Please
take the stairs,” she said, and her hand shot out, a long finger pointing, a
very long white fingernail extending from her index finger. Her hand looked too
long. In fact, her arm looked inhumanly long. Her fingernail looked like a
white claw. Still, the overwhelming impression was of ethereal beauty,
something not of this Earth. Something far above this Earth. He imagined this was
the appearance of an angel, before the unworthy eyes of a lowly, corrupt man.
He felt naked. And filthy.
He
headed in the direction of the pointing finger, and nearly blundered into the
door with the little picture of stairs. He fumbled with the door, glancing back
one time at her. She had turned her face and hair had fallen over half her
face, so that her intoxicating eyes stared at him through the white curtain,
and her full lips were pursed, as if she were judging him (or posing for a
selfie). And he hurried into the stairwell, terrified beyond all reason.
He
paused at the railing, his head reeling. He stared over the side. It seemed he
was peering into eternity, because the stairwell went on and on, far beyond any
fourteen floors, it went down into diminished perspective and darkness. This can’t
be real, he told himself. He glanced up and saw the stairwell going up forever,
into bright, white light. If this were real, this building would need to be
something in the neighborhood of a thousand floors, going from the heavens down
into the bowels of the earth. Maybe this is the stairway between Heaven and
Hell, he thought, and he realized he wasn’t making a joke to shake the tension,
but was actually thinking a serious thought. The idea was just as possible as
all the other impossible probabilities.
He
could remember yesterday, eating at the Starbucks half a block away from the VS
building. He had cappuccino and a croissant, a small bar of milk chocolate. He
remembered the day before yesterday, sitting in the park with a vente Soy Cafe
Miso, smoking a cigar, writing in his moleskin journal, feeling depressed,
willing himself to ignore the ache in his left foot. This gout attack had been
going on now for more than a week, and aspirin and baking soda just were not
cutting it. Usually these attacks lasted two or three days, and there could be
a gap of a eleven months or more between them, but this was a bad one, only
three months after the last attack, and there were some warning tingles in his
right foot that it could end up swelling-up both his feet, from the ankles
down, and he’d have to miss work, which was very rare. He’d have to stay at
home in bed, soaking his feet, and packing them at night in Vicks and bags of
ice.
He
headed down the stairs, clumping lightly over his left foot, leaning on his
black cane. He stopped. And stared at his cane. It was nondescript, black, with
a rubber tip. For just a second, it appeared to be knobbed piece of wood, like
a club—a shillelagh. He blinked his
eyes, leaned on the railing and lifted his cane before his eyes. On an impulse,
he twirled the cane between his fingers, and it slipped and fell and he
snatched at it, and only managed to bat it further out of his grasp, and it
clattered on the steps, spinning crazedly, actually walking down the stairs
like a slinky toy, and he feared it would clatter ahead of him all the way
down, but it finally stopped, several inches of it sticking out over the void
of the stairwell. He hurried down and around the stairwell, dancing over his
swollen foot, until he made it down to his cane, snatching it up, and almost
managing to drop it again. Damn, why was he being so clumsy? He was an utter
oaf.
He
rarely questioned his own sanity, but this was one of those moments. What if he
was going crazy? Or, yes, more probably, what if...they...wanted to make him think he was going crazy? Yeah, he knew
that sounded crazy.
...an alien god that
works for the Government...
Whoa,
where had that thought came from? It was almost like a memory. But who in the
world would ever say anything like that, that this was a Government test, or
God was doing this, or aliens were playing games, or...an alien god that works for the Government. He stood, feeling
dizzy, and somewhere from impossibly far below, he heard a door open and slam,
and feet trudging on stairs, and he stood listening to the climbing feet, it
sounded like boots, getting louder, but then another door loudly opened and
then even more loudly slammed, and it was quiet in the stairwell again. And
standing here, he could not feel the presence of thousands of people. He seemed
to remember sitting in a coffee dive, stirring his coffee, talking to a boy, or
wait, was it that he remembered when he was a kid, sitting in a coffee place,
or restaurant, talking to a much older man? He seemed to remember it both
ways—was this schizophrenia?
But
then he remembers having pancakes with a circle of friends, and discussing the
end of the world. He remembers bells ringing, terrible bells, like whenever he
has a fever, those fever bells ringing, as he twists and turns in his sweaty
sheets, listening to the bells that will never stop ringing.
“What
is happening to me?” he says out loud, to nobody in particular. He is certainly
not praying, but his echoing voice reminds him of God whispering in the night—God, whispering in the night? What
brought on a thought like that? He was cracking up, oh yeah, he had already
gone over the edge.
Stacey
places his hands on his forehead and he feels warm to himself, and in fact, he
just might be feeling the first swirls of chills blowing across his body. That’s
it, he has to get out of this place, this endless building. He needs to get
home, climb into bed, bury himself under sheets and blankets, and just be
quiet, just listen, see what his pounding heart is trying to tell him, just figure
out what was going on, what is going
on, right now, at this moment?
He
starts going down the staircase, shuffling his feet as fast as he can manage
it, trying to keep his weight off of his left foot, and he winds down, and
down, passing flights and floors, and he glances at the numbers beside the
doors set in small golden plates, 287, 300, 41, 72, and sometimes there are
letters, odd groupings, QOS782, AKQ141, QQN777, and he does not attempt to figure
out what the numbers and letters represent, but just keeps descending, watching
for any sign that he is approaching the ground floor, or at least normal
descending numbers. He notices that the letter Q features more prominently than
any other letter, and that there are scads and scads of sevens. But don’t think
about it, he tells himself, and continues, descending. Probably, if he took a
few moments, and paid attention, he could probably figure out the pattern to
all this—it all had to mean something, didn’t it?
He
feels glass jabbing into his heel, stabbing upward through his ankle. But he’s
used to this sensation, has experienced it for the last five years or so, ever
since hitting his thirty-second birthday. He pauses, so how the hell old was
he, anyway? A part of his mind said thirty-five years of age, of course, that’s
how old he was, but another part of his brain screamed out that he was
forty-two, no, fifty-four years old, no, he was only twenty-one—what the hell
was going on? His age is like a drunken slide rule inside his head, going this
way and that way.
He
scrambled down the stairs, tempted to throw his cane aside and strip off his
backpack and desert it, just go, as fast as possible and as unencumbered as
possible, just get the hell out of this place, flee this fell Dodge, this
nightmare, but he keeps going around and around, circling every downward,
spiraling, caught in half of an infinity loop, ever descending, how was this
even possible?
Stacey
was out of breath, gasping, his asthma flaring up like crazy as it always did
when he was stressed out, and he was on the point of screaming, as he
nonsensically kept going down, almost at a run, skipping steps, his boot heels
skidding and sliding across the edges of the steps, and if he were not careful,
he would soon be going head-over-heels down, tumbling and crashing like Jack
before Jill, cracking his crown on every step, damn it, but what was going on?
Finally,
he stopped on a landing with a door without a label. The door seemed larger
than usual, and he finally decided to test it, maybe find his way to an
elevator, do anything he could to escape this place, because in a moment or two
he would be screaming for help, calling out to anyone who chose to acknowledge
him, and every second it seemed more and more likely that he was in this
strange tower, all alone, fated to ever descend into the lower depths of hell.
And
if he really did not pay attention, he might throw himself over the edge and
test the depths, see how far the rabbit hole actually went.
He
tried the door. It was unlocked. He peeked into the room with one eye, and
discerned a short corridor, and cubicles beyond. He opened the door and stepped
in, pulling the door closed behind him. He heard the murmur of voices. Down
across what seemed an endless maze of low cubicles, he saw a few heads pop up
here and there like prairie dogs peeking out of their holes. The large room
certainly did not seem familiar. He had never been here before, that was
obvious. But where was he, that was
the real question.
I
have a fever, he told himself. That’s why everything seems strange. When you
have a fever, everything seems unreal, too sharp, too angry, everything pokes
at you, everything is sharp and dangerous. I have a fever and am suffering some
kind of breakdown, and the most important thing is, I have to get out of here,
I must flee, just go to someplace that is not so strange.
Stacey
glances to the side and sees the woman standing there staring at him. He nearly
screams, because she is unmoving, and unreal, and then he realizes after only a
moment that she is a cardboard cutout, some marketing device, discarded,
standing there, smiling, her hands upon her hips. Visit Saturn, a slogan is printed on a banner that bisects her
body. He calms himself, taking deep breaths, his lungs hissing, asthma
whispering in high-pitched squeaks, it’s just an advertisement, for...Saturn?
He
moves out and starts walking along the cubicles. These are the short cubicles
that only reach the level of his chest, but he does not want to look at the
people sitting inside these little boxes (he could, if he made the smallest
effort, all he had to do was bend forward a little, peek over a side, but he
doesn’t want to do this), but he can hear them chittering, hissing and
chattering. He hobbles along the cloth sides of these little boxes, grimacing
at the pain in his foot, and he senses the people standing in their cubicles as
he passes, they stand and watch him as he passes, he can see some of their
heads popping up in his peripheral vision, but he maintains his quick hobble
toward—where, he has no idea, but he
has to keep moving, keep going, he had to get out of here, and soon.
He
stopped, and glanced back, and in complete quiet, he saw the faces watching
him, perhaps a hundred or more, heads up above cubicles. Some of the faces
obviously belonged to short people, and he only saw eyes and foreheads and
sometimes noses, but some of the heads were on tall people, and thin men stood
quietly, staring at him, and severe women, eyes glued to him, they stood and
stared at him as he glanced through their ranks and lists, hundreds of eyes watching
him. His breath shuddered in his throat, but then he turned and started moving
up the aisles, registering again the heads popping up just as he passed, and
yet he seemed to be making no progress, because before him was a seemingly
endless sea of cubicles.
Again,
as in the stairwell, he is on the verge of panicking, breaking down into tears,
screaming, pleading for help. But then a figure steps into his path, up about
seventy-five feet or so, a figure with the light behind him, but it looks to be
a very thin man, standing in the aisle between cubicles, arms folded over
chest. Stacey slows, but continues moving forward, toward this grim-looking
specter. And then he stops, still unable to make out the man’s face. He glances
back, and is surprised that all the heads have returned to their prairie dog
holes.
“Stacey,
what are you doing, wandering around,” a snide voice says, and Stacey glanced
about to see the thin man walking toward him. It is Bloody Marty, the Director,
and he’s pointing his comically large and pointed nose right at Stacey, as if
he’s homing in. Stacey, despite himself, almost feels relief.
But
then, only for a second, because, doesn’t he remember Marty as being a...woman? Well, sort of a woman? Because even right now, it is difficult to judge
whether or not the figure coming toward him is male or female. He always
dresses in what looks to be pantsuits, but then again, they are obviously
styled after the typical man’s blue business suit, well, more or less, kind of
a fluffy version. Marty comes to stand just before Stacey, cocking back his
head to look up at Stacey, the ever-present sneer, pretty much ever present. “I
got a call that you were wandering around where you’re not supposed to be. Did
you know I could...let you go, you
did know this, didn’t you?”
Marty’s
blue clown’s eyes rolled exaggeratedly, and he sneered at Stacey, fingering his
moustache. The poor hairy thing looked as if it were pasted on. Marty’s dyed
red hair was garish, and his bleary red-rimmed eyes glowered at Stacey for a
moment.
“Whatever
you need to do, Marty, I was just looking for the escape hatch, as I need to
head home, I’m not feeling well,” Stacey said, putting up the best front he was
able, but still feeling like he might erupt in screams at any moment. But
dealing with this farcical creature seemed to lend him some backbone. Stacey
peered at the man, and attempted to make a final gender determination, but
found himself unable. Marty sold himself as a man, so Stacey guessed that was
the best way to deal with the...man. It made no difference to Stacey whatever
gender Marty was or pretended to be, or what sexual orientation his indicator
pointed toward, it was just the thought, regardless of homosexuality or
heterosexuality, of Marty connecting to or affixing to or slathering over—any
of those notions gave Stacey the shudders, and he tried not to allow even the
trickle of such a thought to ever enter his mental domain.
“You
are not going home, Mister, as there is an art project that needs to be done,
today, and Erin is in no way up to it, so that leaves us with you,” Marty said,
tsssking and tutting, grabbing Stacey by the arm and yanking, but Stacey merely
glanced down at the hand as the slim figure tried to make some kind of
impression on him, but it was as if Marty tugged on an elephant’s leg, after a
moment or two the man sighed and rolled his eyes at Stacey. “Let’s go, Stacey, now.”
Stacey
felt it best to follow. At least following behind Marty seemed almost normal.
The director led them down a side passage through the cubicles and within
twenty seconds they were at a normal looking elevator, which opened as soon as
Marty pushed the up button. They stepped inside and Stacey glanced about, there
was no elevator attendant present, as how could there be? Really, there was no
such job, anywhere. And the elevator panel seemed to have the requisite number
of buttons for fourteen floors, and normal black indicator above the doors that
flashed red numbers of which floor you were presently at. It seemed they were
on the thirteenth floor—that could explain, partially, some of the Twilight Zone aspects of the last hour.
Bloody
Marty poked at Button Seven, and it glowed. Looking down on the little man’s
head, it was pathetically obvious, the bad dye job, and such a ridiculous shade
of red—what was it, fire engine red? Candy apple red? But at least this
negative aspect was somewhat lessened by the copious amounts of dandruff.
Stacey looked away.
There
were no pinging bells, no chimes, and the elevator slowly churned like any
regular lift, and they passed floor twelve, eleven, ten, descending gradually,
no surprises, no sudden thrills, all in regular succession, until they finally
slowed at seven, and the elevator door slid silently apart. Stacey recognized
the flat golden carpet. He recognized each turn as he followed Bloody Marty
back to his office. As he entered the office Stacey paused to admire the
gleaming golden fire ax on the wall. The thing was massive, and deadly sharp.
Then he quickly turned his attention aside before Marty noticed what he was
looking at.
“I’ve
purged more employees than any other director,” Bloody Marty loved to declare,
proudly, whenever anyone paused before the grim-achievement award. If you
needed to get rid of a whole lot of warm bodies, you brought in Bloody Marty.
And that’s what they had done here. Hundreds of employees that used to work here,
no longer did. To be, or not to be, Marty decided. And it generally ended up
being not. Stacey was amazed, almost
on a daily basis, that he was still here after three years.
When
it was just Hissin’ Lewin and Sewey, things had been bad for Stacey at VS. They
practiced, through glowering intimidation, to exclude people they decided to
hate, and they exercised a fair amount of power, since people were terrified of
them, but when Bloody Marty came on board about a year ago, and joined them,
making a dark trinity, things had gone from ugly to grotesque. Bloody Marty, as
a director, packed some real power. Stacey ought to have just quit, outright
and upright, about a year ago, but there was something that must be twisted
deep inside of Stacey, as he just couldn’t bring himself to quit. Today, with
some of the psychedelic flashes going on and off inside his head, things could
take a wild turn. He had a pleasant image of popping Bloody Marty, right on his
noggin, bringing his black cane down once, abruptly, just a short...knock. The thought was quite...lovely.
“Your
work has just not been quite...what it should be,” Bloody Marty said, plunking
down in his massive office chair behind his fifteen-foot wide desk. The desk
seemed to be made of thick plastic, or glass, and Marty had absolutely nothing
on the surface, save for his tiny, pink hands. The telephone was behind the
desk on a shelf that ran around the office, along with everything else you
usually had on your desk, pens and stacks of paper, ledgers and books.
“If
you want to try something fun,” Stacey said, sighing, this could be it, because
he just wanted out of here. “You ought to let Lewin try his hand at art. This
place could use a little humor.”
Bloody
Marty glared at Stacey.
“Or
Sewey,” Stacey said. “You people, you all want to be artists, don’t you?”
“What
do you mean, you people?” Bloody
Marty said, going very still. She sounded scandalized, or he did...oh, whatever.
“People
like you, and Lewin, and Sewey. People exactly like you. You people.”
Stacey
stared at the little man. For an awful moment, he felt he would burst into
laughter. But the truth was, it could go either way—he was probably just as
close to bursting into tears.
But
enough was enough. These were not even people. So to say “you people,” he could
just as easily say: “you unpeople.”
The
soulless, the heartless, the dreamless.
Creatures.
Creatures that enjoyed sucking the life out of people. Soul suckers. Stacey
could hardly manage to stay in the same room with this being devoid of emotion
or empathy, sympathy or kindness. A displaced citizen of the Third Reich,
denizens of an invisible country that existed wherever hatred simmered.
“I
do not think I understand what you are trying to say to me,” Bloody Marty said,
spacing his words, quietly building in cold acid.
“I
realize that, and I’m sorry for you,” Stacey said, contemplatively. He turned
and exited the office, heading toward his desk.
“Where
are you going! What do you think you are doing!” Bloody Marty shouted, springing
from behind his desk and chasing Stacey out into the corridor. “I did not
dismiss you! Get back here! Now!”
Stacey
passed Lewin and Sewey. He saw flashes of their reality. Lewin sat in the dark,
forcing everyone else around it to sit in the dark, and hissed whenever anyone
passed close to its cubicle. Sewey was a creature that slithered around the
office, leaving a slick trail of goo in its passage. How could there be three
of these creatures, together, in one office, genderless and sexless, and oozing
spite and hatred? How was that even possible? They fed on souls and fear and
hatred and anger.
Stacey
grabbed a few of his things, just a book, a coffee mug, a few gel pens that he
brought to the office, a Photoshop manual, and as he rummaged through the
drawers and overhead bin, Bloody Marty came and stood just outside his cubicle.
Sewey and Lewin edged in close like bookends, smirking in at Stacey.
“What
do you think you are doing?” Bloody Marty half-shrieked, his/its voice rising,
losing its necessary roughness, escalating from alto to tenor to soprano in a
few seconds. “I will fire you. Terminate you. Execute you!”
“Really?”
Stacey said. “You’re going to execute me?”
He
found a Starbucks bag and stacked his few possessions in it.
“I
didn’t mean execute, but I will see to it that you never get another job,”
Bloody Marty said, quivering with impotent rage.
“Is
that even legal?” Stacey said, content that he had the most important stuff.
These things could divide the rest of his stuff, it wasn’t important but for
them, it would be...spoils. Enjoy it.
He
was surprised at how calm he was. There was a distinct part of him that wished
to lay about with his cane, striking these—he almost said scorpions, but he
supposed scorpions were less poisonous, and all around more...nice, than these three. What were they,
anyway, some hybrid form of human? Some facsimile of humanity? Were they
aliens? If they were human, of a fashion, Stacey would not be surprised at all
if they had bodies buried in their gardens.
“Legal!”
Bloody Marty spluttered. “Legal! What do you mean, legal? What is legal?”
“It
doesn’t matter. I’m done,” he said, and Stacey felt a very large weight fall
off of his shoulders. One second he was immersed in poison, and the next second
he was out, breathing free and clear. It was actually quite wonderful. He
should have done this a year ago, when Bloody Marty came on board.
“Let
him go, finally,” Sewey said, “he’s just been sittin’ here, sittin’ here and we
don’t need him sittin’ here. We can find someone like us, to be, you know,
sittin’ here.”
Lewin
hissed. Stacey stared at her, or him—he had heard him make this noise before,
but he had never actually seen the expression on its face when she made the
noise, the catlike hiss. It didn’t say anything, it just hissed. It was perhaps
the least human of the three creatures.
Bloody
Marty was mostly like an automaton, a wind-up jack-in-the-box, a deadly
creature that sprang free, waving its golden ax.
Stacey
shrugged. Thank God. He was free, finally. He walked toward them and they
literally scattered before him, almost going over on their backs, like stink
bugs. He managed to contain his limp, he was just too full of delight to feel
any pain in his foot. It wasn’t until he was in the elevator that he paid the
price for walking fully on his foot. He sighed, leaning on his cane, as he
jabbed at the G button. I am free at last. He sighed, and almost burst into
tears. It felt so good to escape from this place. From these people, or
creatures, he must have been insane to remain here this long, for no purpose.
What had been wrong with him, anyway? How could any sane person put up with
such treatment, in such an environment?
In
only a moment the elevator doors opened at the ground level, and Stacey limped
out as quickly as he could manage on his bad foot. He dropped his badges and
CAC card at the front-desk receptionist, and he paused, because wasn’t there
something familiar about her? A young Eurasian woman—nothing weird about her,
no flowing white Rapunzel cascade of hair—she winked at him as he dropped off the
badges without speaking, and he went through the front doors, several pounds
lighter, and years and years younger.
A
homeless man sat on the steps leading up to the building, and smiled as Stacey
came out and started down the stairs. Stacey did a double-take, because the man
reminded him of the actor Alec Guinness. The name “Old Ben” immediately popped
into his mind, and he nearly chuckled out loud. The man nodded to him, and
might have mumbled something along the lines of “God bless you,” or, oddly
enough, he might have said the word “Tippecanoe.” But Stacey was too charged
from his recent escape from hell to ponder anything deeply, and felt he
deserved a trip to the park, to the Jack tree.
He
should stop and get some coffee, as there was a Starbucks right on the way
(okay, so there were three Starbucks pretty much on the way to the park, one of
them in a Safeway), but something tugged at his mind...that coffee place, what was it called?
He
could picture in his mind, a dump truck backing up, pouring out a torrent of
coffee beans, but could not for the life of him remember what the place was
called. Coffee truck? He thought he remembered sitting in this little place, a
greasy spoon? No, it was a coffee house, but there were books, lots of books
surrounding the diners. And Old Ben, wasn’t he there? No, come on, now his mind
was just playing tricks upon him. Why should he remember an old homeless man
dressed up like Obi-Wan Kenobi? But...Jack...
...it
was on the tip of his tongue, or at least on the tip of his mental tongue, what
a thought, no, Jack was the name carved in the trunk of the tree in the park.
Other than that tree, Stacey didn’t know any Jacks, although he had toyed with
the idea of Jack being his own father, but he never knew his father, or his
father’s name. It was just a fancy, and after all the weirdness today, his mind
was probably fried. He had been thinking about sitting at his picnic table by
the tree, when the weirdness began. What had touched it off, like a flame held
to an old ship’s cannon?
The
puppet show, yes, that’s when it all began, or maybe it was where it all began. Something about
Punch and Judy, and that coffin, the red velvet, and those businessmen with
their umbrellas. When the hell was the last time he had seen a rolling puppet
show out in the street? Okay, so it was on the sidewalk, but come on, why the hell
was it drawing such a crowd?
This
world was crazy, it made no sense, with thousand-floor buildings and
soul-sucking leeches in business pantsuits and bad dye jobs.
But
no, he was feeling odd when he woke this morning. He kind of got ready in a
daze. And what had happened last night? He couldn’t, for the life of him
remember anything about last night—had he blacked out, or something? It was
like some of his fights, ten years ago, sometimes he would take such a beating
he could barely tell who or what he was the very next day. Could this be
something like that? Like a flashback to his fight days?
Hadn’t
all of this happened before? The businessman with the umbrella and his angry
glance? The puppet show? The tree with the carved letters. He felt like he was
going crazy, or that his mind was shutting down, or that his world was folding
in on itself. The three jerks in the office—he could remember them, but both as
men, and as women, and now, this in-between, genderless bizarreness. Pretty soon
he’d be one of those guys strolling around, jerking, twitching, stumbling,
talking to someone just over his shoulder, and batting away invisible, what—bats? Yes, that would be just lovely.
And
his gut, that seemed somehow, I don’t know, different. Stacey felt as if he had
packed on about thirty pounds. He didn’t remember being this heavy. I mean, he
was pretty much, fat? Yes, he was fat. It all seemed like something from
another universe, or at least another world.
He
was in the park, and even that was weird—it was more than a mile from the VS
building to the park, and Stacey, for the life of him, cannot remember walking
here. Sure, he remembers coming down the stairs, seeing Old Ben, and walking,
crossing the street...? Does he remember crossing the street? No, he does not.
And
wasn’t there something about walking across the park to his bench, and racing
to get there before...who? Or is that something he only heard about, he can’t
quite remember, and it is driving him crazy, like a splinter of glass driven
into his brain. He feels déjà vu, again, like an echo of an echo, because hadn’t
all of this happened before?
But
he sees—across the park, someone is at the bench under the Jack tree. Stacey
feels his gut plummet. Yeah, so what. Let someone try and keep him from that
bench, just let them try. Stacey was an introvert, true, but he wasn’t going to
be pushed around, I mean, come on, a bench was big enough for two, especially a
picnic table, which had two benches, one on either side of the table. But as he
drew nearer, he doubted himself, because the guy at his table was huge. He was
some kind of giant, the kind of guy that actually worked for the circus,
because even sitting down it was obvious he was a dude perhaps a foot taller
than Stacey, who stood six-foot-two.
As
he drew nearer he saw the guy register his approach, and it gladdened his
heart, because the guy was smiling such an open smile, so broadly, so
innocently, that you knew this was a good guy. And Stacey, bizarrely enough,
recognized him, although he couldn’t place his name. But he definitely knew
this guy. It was a huge black guy, built more like a football player than a
basketball player, with close-cropped hair and beard, mocha-colored skin, with
just the kindest eyes Stacey had ever seen.
But
this wasn’t right, was it? Maybe Stacey was mistaken, because the big guy he
knew was white, wasn’t he?
“Hello!”
the big guy bellowed as Stacey drew near. The guy’s voice was as big as his body.
He was...loud.
“Hello,”
Stacey said, at a significantly lower decibel.
“We
know each other, don’t we?” the giant said.
“I
believe we do, but I can’t remember your name,” Stacey said, sitting across
from the giant, accepting the gigantic handshake offered over the table top.
The guy’s grip was amazingly gentle, I mean the strength was there all right,
but the big guy knew how strong he was and was being as gentle as possible.
“That’s
okay, I don’t remember my name, either,” the big guy said.
“You
really don’t remember your name?” Stacey said, leaning his elbows on the table.
He instantly trusted this giant.
“No,
I don’t even know how I got here, I just remembered where Michael lives, but
when I knocked, he didn’t live there anymore, not since he was a little kid,”
the big guy said, and he sounded as if he might burst into tears.
“Michael,”
Stacey said, a bell ringing, distantly, inside his head. “Michael and Joshua.”
“Joshua?
Is that my name?” the giant said, his eyebrows drawing together in
concentration.
“I’m
not sure, but I think so,” Stacey said. “Have you always been black?”
“Am
I black?” the big guy said, with some surprise, looking at his arms, and
comparing his skin tone to Stacey’s. “It looks like I might be, but I can’t
remember anything. I guess I’ve always been black, but I really can’t remember.”
“You
remember Michael?” Stacey said, feeling especially empathetic with the big guy,
because even though he had all his memory intact, still, he was about as
discombobulated as this giant. Thank God it wasn’t only him, and Stacey was not
alone in this crazy world, thank God.
“I
think so, his legs, and canes,” the big guy said.
“Yes,
very short, and he looked like a meerkat,” Stacey said, and then wondered at
that. What in the world did he mean, he
looked like a meerkat?
“A
meerkat, those cute little things? I don’t think so, but maybe. I can’t
remember anything, not much. I remember we had to save poor Wolf the wolf, he
was in a cage.”
“Wolf
the wolf,” said Stacey, concentrating, that sounded familiar. Wolf the wolf,
and Wolf the man, was that right?
“He
had to get to Stacey,” the big man said.
“I’m
Stacey,” Stacey said.
“Yes,
that’s right, you are Stacey. Hello Stacey, nice to meet you, I am...well, I
still don’t remember my name. But it’s very nice to see you again, for the
first time. Uh, you know what I mean, I think? Is it only me?”
“No,
it’s me too, Joshua. That’s okay, we’ll just go with Joshua, for now, okay?”
Stacey asked, wanting to help this giant. He felt they were bound together
somehow.
“I
guess I’m okay with Joshua, but I was hoping I was Michael Jordan,” he said,
and bellowed with laughter.
That
set off some warning bells. Stacey looked at the giant. Please, no more
crazies, at least for a little while. He needed a break, a good rest, and only
then, go ahead, bring on the crazies, after the rest.
“I
was kidding, I was kidding!” Joshua said, smiling the biggest and sweetest
smile Stacey had ever seen.
“Listening
to you two is giving me a headache like you wouldn’t believe,” the little girl
said, coming around the Jack tree. “You’d think you two were from a different
world, or something.”
Stacey
looked at the little girl. Uh oh, he remembered something about her, but he
could not remember what it was. But whatever she said, he was going with that.
Thank goodness, someone with a brain had shown up, because he doubted that he
and Joshua together could make up one brain.
“Hello
little girl,” Joshua said. “I hope your memory is working better than ours. Or
are you totally bonkers, as well?”
“Oh,
I remember both of you, big guys,” the little girl said, climbing onto the
bench next to Joshua, sitting directly across from Stacey. “You two are my
favorites, you always have been.”
“We
know you?” Stacey asked.
“Oh
not yet, but now you will, in your own times and places, because you are pretty
much dead in High Vale, Stacey, and Joshua did die there, so I had to bring
Joshua around in another world, a very similar one to where you grew up, and
where he grew up, I mean originally. You were the best way to get him, even
though you had to jump through a few hoops first. I really am sorry about that,
Stacey. Technically, I’m not supposed to be doing any of this, I mean I’m
breaking a whole lot of rules. But it’s helping me make up my mind about a few
things, so I think under special circumstances, it’s okay to break a few rules,
you know, the smaller ones, the kind that never made any kind of sense anyway.
Right?”
“Sure,”
Stacey said, sitting up straighter. “Do we have to watch out for guys with
umbrellas?”
The
little girl laughed. “No, not them, I can handle them okay. But the other guys,
the ones with feathers and melted faces, they all look alike, keep an eye out
for them. They usually like to wear athletic clothes and sneakers. If we see
any of them, we could be in trouble.”
“Do
you mean like...those guys?” Joshua
said, innocently, pointing across the park to group of men that were coming
across the green at a trot. Some kind of team of athletes, carrying black
spikes in their hands.
Stacey
glanced and knew instantly that they were indeed in trouble, because trouble
emanated from these guys. About six of them, and they all looked the same. He
glanced to the other side of the park and saw a similar group—no, it was the
same group, but there were more of them—racing toward them from that direction.
“Oops,”
the little girl said, “I should have been watching better. Come on, both of
you. Stacey, if you please?”
Stacey
looked to where the little girl was indicating. She was waving her hand toward
the Jack tree, to the engraving, which now glowed like a fiery rainbow. Stacey
nodded, a distant memory detonating in his brain, and he came around the picnic
table and placed his hand upon the carving.
A
bright circle of light ignited about under the Jack tree.
“Down
the rabbit hole,” the little girl said, giggling, and she stepped through,
vanishing.
“In
you go, big guy,” Stacey said, shoving Joshua through, and forgetting to warn
him about the fruit.
Stacey
glanced back at the group of men, who were now running all-out pell-mell toward
him, but they were still an easy fifty yards away, and Stacey was so, so happy
to again be leaving this world. I hope I never have to come back here again.
Oh, am I glad to depart.
He
flipped the bird to the oncoming group, then turned and flipped off the group
racing from the other side.
Thank
God, he thought, as he neatly dove into the portal, vanishing, again.
© Copyright 2016 Douglas Christian Larsen. Vestigial Surreality. All Rights Reserved by the Author, Douglas Christian Larsen. No part of this serial fiction may be reproduced (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Wolftales UNlimited, but please feel free to share the story with anyone, only not for sale or resale. This work is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental (wink, wink).
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