The Atmospherians

by Alex McElroy

  Blair sprinted back to the main stage, passing men shouting, “Stop!” or “Hang on!” He folded a metal chair flat to use as a weapon. He rode up the escalator to the second floor. His windpipe had thinned to a straw. Men funneled at the base of the escalator. Others charged across the main corridors. He took the only path available, ditched the chair.

  “Do not hurt our guest. Treat him with care and respect.”

  The mob swelled at his back. Their mouths widened with screams. He ducked inside Victoria’s Secret—The Crucible—and skulked down a thin hallway of changing rooms. Light spilled out from beneath silver doors. Someone entered the store. He hid in the closest changing room. He braced himself for obnoxious sexual images, a box of tissues, guidelines for how to suppress the desire to masturbate. Mirrors covered all four walls. A gold plaque on the door read:

  INSTRUCTIONS

  1 Remove your clothes.

  2 Think nothing bad about the body you see.

  Blair laughed at the stupidity of the instructions. Footsteps grew louder in the hallway. He covered his mouth, but his throat seized. Coughs cluttered his breaths until he was bent over, hacking into his hands. A pair of sneakers appeared beneath the door. It opened. Sasha stood over him. She wore a loose blue dress and black tights. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail. She held his inhaler. She knelt beside him and brought the air to his lips.

  * * *

  Sasha and Randy walked Blair to her office: a frigid concrete room in the basement. Round patterned rugs covered the floor. The office was long rather than wide. Near the entrance were couches, a Zen garden, a fountain shaped like a beehive. Framed articles promoting The Atmosphere hung on one of the long walls, across from a bank of video screens displaying every angle of The Atmosphere.

  Blair stared at the screens, rigid with awe and terror.

  “It’s my job to pay attention,” said Sasha. “If it’s bothering you.” She thumbed her phone. The screens switched to a clip of the ocean lapping the shores. “That better?”

  The waves made him even more uneasy. They eliminated the world beyond this room. But he nodded nonetheless. His powerlessness seemed immense here. He wanted to leave more than he wanted the story about Dyson. There was no story here. Nothing worth dying for. He would apologize to Sasha. He’d promise to not publish anything. He’d never tell anyone he had come here—so long as she let him go.

  Her desk hulked at the back of the room. She sat down, directed Blair to one of the two chairs facing her. Randy sat in the other. On her desk were framed photos of her and Dyson together, at least ten years old. Photos of them in college and high school. Young, beaming.

  “Perhaps it’s best if you left,” Sasha said, to Randy.

  “He’s a hothead,” he replied.

  Blair coughed out a laugh, gelatinous from exhaustion.

  “He’s less of a threat to me than I am to him.” Sasha smiled at Blair.

  Randy saluted her from the door, then stepped into the hallway.

  “Sometimes I just wanna…” She gritted her coffee-stained teeth. “You know people like him? Always there. Puppy dogs. Yap-yap-yap.” She made a dog mouth with her hand.

  Blair said, “I don’t think I’ve—”

  “Hold that thought.” She entered a room behind her desk and emerged a few minutes later wearing sweatpants and a billowy gray T-shirt smudged at the collar. She had rinsed off her makeup. Her face was cratered with pale scars on her forehead and cheeks. Her hair hung loose, in frayed strands. Bluish bags deepened her eyes. Yet her eyes, themselves, had a disquieting intensity that never seemed to lose focus on Blair. “You must be spent,” she said. “Of course you are. You’ve been through so much today—not even a full day—so much trouble.”

  “I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

  “Who does?” she said. “We so rarely mean any harm, but at the end of the day, we look back at a field of scorched earth. Friends, lovers, coworkers, siblings—everyone caught in the fire.” She snapped her fingers. “Do you know about me, Blair? What I’ve done?”

  He knew she’d been a lifestyle coach—he knew about the man she bullied into killing himself, the preacher, the father of three. “I know what you did to Dyson.”

  “Dyson comes later. I have a lot to say about him. But for now, I need a coffee. You?”

  His hands were already trembling. But he said, “That sounds great.”

  She called Randy. “Two coffees. One black and one…”

  “Cream and two sugars.”

  She grimaced. “One with cream and two sugars. Thank you.” She hung up. “You know that’ll kill you, right? Sugars and creams. Fifty calories here, there—they add up over time.”

  “Don’t try to make me feel bad.”

  “I’d never do such a thing.”

  “I saw what you make them do… how they… in the food court.”

  She shook her head. “Disgusting. A terrible habit. I want our men to be healthy. Eating disorders? That’s not healthy. It’s a holdover from Dyson—you know about Dyson, right?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’d always felt terrible about his body—and he did terrible things to it, things like you saw in the food court. Randy thinks it’s an homage to him. But Randy’s a fool. That’s why I keep him around. Keep your enemies close? Sure. But keep your fools even closer, right at the top where they can’t get into trouble.”

  Randy knocked.

  Sasha slipped on a white cashmere sweater she kept in a drawer and inched her chair deeper into the desk, to conceal her sweats. She punched a code into her phone. The door slid up.

  Randy carried in two steaming mugs. He seemed like a docile pet, now, nothing like the Randy that Blair had feared in the chamber. “You’re fine in here?” he asked.

  “Splendid,” she said, dramatizing her annoyance. “I was just telling Blair about Dyson.”

  “His death was a tragedy,” Randy said.

  “So unexpected,” said Sasha. She sounded genuinely hurt; her voice even cracked. She thanked Randy in a tone of get out. He got out.

  She reached into her desk for a bottle of whiskey and poured a few glugs into her mug.

  “The Atmosphere’s dry,” said Blair.

  “What’s the point of leading a cult if there aren’t any perks?”

  “I knew you were a cult,” he said proudly, as if he’d tricked her into the confession.

  She pretended to gasp. “Blair,” she said. “Of course we’re a cult. We’ve been a cult from the start. That was Dyson’s vision for this place. Embrace the cult qualities. Reclaim the word. Hell: you wouldn’t be here if we weren’t a cult.” She shook the whiskey bottle.

  He stretched his mug to her. The first sip of liquor blitzed his empty stomach, yet emboldened him. “I’m here because I received a letter.”

  “Be more specific, Blair. That’s what I’m always telling the men: Be. Specific. They hide in the ams and the abs and the eves: ambiguity, abstractions, evasions.”

  “The letter said you covered up Dyson’s death,” he said. “It said experienced swimmers don’t drown in ponds.”

  “It was more of a lake, we discovered. After his death.”

  “It says that you murdered him.”

  “But how, Blair? I’d like to know how. I’ve heard hundreds of theories—poisoning, strangling, gunshot, knife to the chest.”

  The letter didn’t specify how she had killed him, only that he was murdered and Sasha had covered it up. No body was found. No autopsy performed. “Pretty convenient,” Blair said.

  “You call that convenient? That’s the least convenient thing that could happen. I’d rather put this behind us. I’d love to clear this up. I’d love to bury my oldest friend.” She dabbed her eyes. “Try knowing the person you love most in the world is stuck in the bowels of a lake decomposing. There’s no dignity in a death like that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “People’s lives are so empty of meaning and purpose. They waste
their days concocting elaborate stories. Conspiracies. I should be used to it—but it hurts every time I hear some new story about how I killed my oldest friend.” She flattened her hands together in front of her mouth. She inhaled slowly to collect herself. “Do you have it?”

  “I left it in Oregon,” he said, a senseless lie.

  “You’re sure it’s not in your bag?” She lifted his backpack from behind her desk and dropped it onto the surface. “If I look in here I won’t find it?”

  “I’m so scattered,” he said. “I barely remember what I brought.”

  “Take a look.”

  Blair reached immediately for the compartment inside where he’d stored the letter. It was empty. He dug around elsewhere, pushing aside cameras and wires and socks, grasping and grunting, increasingly frantic. He dipped his head in the bag.

  “Blair-Blair-Blair,” said Sasha. She fanned her face with the letter. “I don’t need another death to clean up.” She laughed. So he laughed. She read the letter aloud: “Dear Blair Hastings.” She inflected obnoxiously, widened her eyes, gasped—she loved gasping—at the vague assertions put forth. Her tone gave the letter a farcical quality.

  He tensed with shame. “Please stop,” he muttered.

  She held up the letter. “Who do you think wrote it?”

  “I don’t think it matters,” he said.

  “It’s the key to everything, Blair,” she said. “Do you think it’s someone you know?”

  “I don’t know many people.”

  “But you insert yourself into people’s lives. You infiltrate and sabotage groups for your own financial benefit. Maybe they’d want you to embarrass yourself.”

  “I hardly make any money.”

  “Not yet,” she said. She pointed her thumb at her chest. “We’re your big break.”

  He apologized again. “I won’t tell anyone I was here.”

  “Surely there must’ve been thousands of other truths to uncover. Thousands of letters. We never did anything to you.”

  “I wanted money. You’re right. But I don’t want it anymore.”

  “Blair—money is one thing. This is about more than money. Be honest with me.”

  “Forget I ever came here,” he said. He held his hands up, leaned away from her. “Forget I ever asked about Dyson.”

  “Forget, Blair? I’ll never forget you. I like you. I really do, Blair. And because I like you I think you deserve to hear the story you came here to get. Dyson would want you to know. Hell, I want you to know. I want you to thrive—get the cash. I know you need it right now.”

  “I’ll find other work,” he said.

  “Aren’t you curious to know what happened to Dyson?” She leaned over her desk. “How I killllllled him?”

  “I don’t need to know anything.”

  “Well, I need to tell you. Because I need to tell someone. And it may as well be you. Consider it my favor to you: your big break. I spend my days with these earnest, naïve men who guzzle down whatever spills from my mouth. Don’t get me wrong. It’s important. It changes lives. I’m saving the world. But what I tell them isn’t true. Not in any meaningful sense.”

  “He drowned. It was an accident. I’ll tell everyone whatever you want me to tell them.”

  “I can’t sleep. I hardly eat. I hide my drinking from everyone here—I get it delivered in discreet pink packaging the men are too nervous to touch. This is no way to live, Blair. I’ll die if I keep living this way. I need to tell someone the truth.” She stood and beckoned for him to follow her. They settled on opposite couches facing each other in the center of the room, close to the fountain. She placed her clasped hands in her lap and started to speak: “The men were outside my building,” she said. “Four of them, ruddy, dressed in camouflage shorts.”

  thirty-nine

  “TWO WEEKS AFTER his suicide,” Sasha said, “Dyson’s body resurfaced on the northern shore of the pond, close to where I made phone calls. Randy helped me bury him that afternoon. None of the other men knew.”

  The revelation knotted Blair’s thoughts. Sasha had been talking for nearly six hours, and he was exhausted in ways he had never known. He felt like a dishrag being wrung out. “Why would you hide it from them?” he asked.

  Sasha took a sip of bourbon—her fourth glass. “The remaining Atmospherians stayed on to rebuild a few sheds to sleep in as they looked for ways to return to their lives. I stayed because I had nowhere else to go. It was supposed to be temporary, and without the pressure of transforming these men, I found them hospitable and even kind. But one morning, a few days before Dyson’s body resurfaced, two gruff men in their fifties emerged from the woods wearing hiking backpacks. The Atmospherian men and I were lounging in the grass, eating breakfast. They immediately stood and surrounded me, creating a wall of protection, but I made them sit back down. The men from the woods didn’t scare me. I sensed, immediately, why they were here, and I waited for them to come to me.

  “Are you Sasha? one of them asked. I nodded. We need your help, said the other. I welcomed them to The Atmosphere. When I found Dyson’s body a few days later, it seemed more prudent to bury him quietly and let the men believe something transcendent had occurred.”

  “You lied to them,” Blair said. He shifted forward, closer to Sasha. Her revelation awoke something in him, and he felt the intense charge that had drawn him into this life. It was as if he were eating again after months of an illness. “You took advantage of those men. Your life is a lie. You founded this entire place on a lie.”

  “I prefer the word story,” said Sasha. She shrugged. “I told them a story. It’s not my fault they believed it.”

  “Whose fault is it, then? Is it Dyson’s fault that you’re trapping men here against their will? It’s definitely not the men’s.”

  “Everyone here is free to leave,” she said.

  “You kept me hostage here. You had your men chase me around knowing I suffered from asthma. I could’ve died.”

  “Those are wild speculations.”

  “Don’t think I won’t tell everyone what you told me today. Don’t think I won’t take this to the Times, to the Guardian, the Washington Post. They won’t treat them like speculations.”

  “There’s nothing I’d love more than for you to expose us,” she said. “Do you know how boring it is being me? The same day every day for the rest of my life? But I made a promise to Dyson to do everything in my power to keep this place running. Let’s say, however, I were tricked by a young, relentless reporter, a reporter who worked tirelessly to uncover the truth about The Atmosphere, who against all odds extracted the story from me, despite my protests, then I did everything that I could. I merely made a mistake. Undone by a superior mind. Why do you think I sent you the letter?”

  Blair shook his head. “No, no, no,” he said. “You didn’t send me the letter.”

  “Who else would have sent it?”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I already told you, Blair. I like you. And because I like you I’ve given you the story of your life: your greatest conspiracy yet. The faster you bring what you know to the—where was it? The Times and the Guardian. Did I miss anyone?”

  “The Washington Post,” Blair muttered.

  “That’s the one. The faster you expose me the faster I’m free. Hell, do post it on your website. Do whatever is best for you, Blair. You deserve the traffic. You’ve earned it.”

  Her encouragement maddened him. “And the second I step out of this office, your goons tie me up and force me into The Atmosphere. Make me empty out, kneel in front of the scarecrow. I’m so far ahead of you.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “No, that’s not what I want. I want to tell everyone what you told me.”

  “And that’s why I brought you here. To tell everyone. To outsmart me. To finally bring The Atmosphere down.” His backpack was at her feet. She nudged it over to him. “This conspiracizing. Your mettle and spunk. It’s wearing me down. I’ve told you eve
rything you wanted to hear. I couldn’t possibly give you juicier details. I’ve told you things about myself that I’ve never told anyone—not even Dyson. You no longer have reason to be here.”

  “I’ll write about what I saw here. I’ll tell everyone everything.”

  She bit at one of her nails. “I’m very sorry that your experience here was so taxing,” she said. “I assure you, this is not who we are. I’d like to pay for your flight back home to Oregon. The Atmosphere will reimburse you for your flight here and the cost of your stay, which clearly did not meet your expectations—or ours. This is not who we are.”

  “You’re trying to bribe me,” he said, hoping to bait her into keeping him here, proving herself the person he knew she was.

  “Please accept a complimentary Atmospherian shed kit as compensation for your trouble. It will be mailed to your current residence.”

  “I live in an apartment.”

  “Everyone here at The Atmosphere is truly sorry for the inconvenience. Blah, blah, blah. We accept full responsibility.” She flicked her wrist dismissively. The door opened. “Get out.”

  Randy stood at the entrance with his hands in his pockets.

  Blair hitched on his backpack. He said, “Don’t think I won’t write about this. Don’t think I won’t publish a full transcript of what you told me.”

  “It truly was a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “I wish you the best going forward.” She tapped her phone. The waves on the video screens returned to the security footage. She reclined on the couch.

  Blair spoke directly to Randy: “Sasha told me everything. I know you’re lying to the men—to everyone. Don’t think I won’t tell the world.”

  Silently, Randy led him into the hall. The door slipped shut behind them. Blair continued talking, giving a clipped summary of what Sasha told him. Randy nodded impatiently as if Blair were rambling in a foreign language. A deep sense of meaninglessness settled into him. No one would ever believe him. Worse: no one would care.

  They walked through the main floor of the mall in silence. Men jogged past. Men spritzed cologne. Men answered phones in the Call Center, troubleshooting technical glitches in the DAM software—a partnership he now understood. Men tossed footballs on the Fitness Field. Men scrolled through The Atmospherian Doctrine. Men hugged. Men praised one another. Men praised themselves in The Crucible. Men’s names scrolled through the directory boards. Men waved hello to Blair and good-bye to Blair. Men smiled. Men offered him bottled water and a small bag of trail mix for the road. Men opened the doors at the exit.