by Spike Black
Everett jumped to his feet. “No.” He snatched the receiver, returning it to its cradle. “There’s no time.”
“One fourteen?” the doctor implored him. “One thirteen?”
“What? I don’t understand…”
“One eleven?”
Everett grabbed his arm. “For God’s sake man, just do something. I’m dying here!”
The doctor turned and grabbed a bottle of pills from the shelf.
“What? No, no, it’s too late for that…” He stopped, snatched the bottle and unscrewed the cap. What the hell. He dry-swallowed the remaining pills.
“Ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five…”
Everett fell back into the chair, dropping his head in his hands. It had all been for nothing. He was a dead man. He was about to ask the doctor if he had any scotch when suddenly he heard the peals of an approaching siren.
He sprang to his feet. “Thanks, doc.” Everett burst out of the house to find an ambulance parked on the road and two paramedics carrying a gurney up to his own front door.
“Wait!” he called out. “Wrong house! I’m over here!”
The paramedics turned and looked over at him.
“Quick, charge the paddles, or whatever it is you people do. I’m about to have a massive —”
Before he could finish, a lightning bolt of excruciating pain shot up his arms and across his shoulders, incapacitating him. He tumbled forward, arms by his side, his face hitting the concrete steps with a sickening crunch, teeth splaying outwards.
Death was even more painful the second time.
***
Everett gasped. His head jolted from the pillow.
10:00.
His eyes remained glued to the digital display.
09:59… 09:58… 09:57… 09:56…
Okay. No time to waste. He leapt from the bed and ran out of the room without even bothering to grab his robe and slippers. Crashing out of the front door, he vaulted the steps and cried out: “Taxi!”
A minicab screeched to a stop before him, and he climbed inside.
“Hospital. As fast as you can.”
“Nine twenty-eight,” the taxi driver said, with the same inflection that someone might use when saying okay, no problem. He didn’t seem to care that his fare was wearing pajamas.
The cab sped down the street and peeled onto the main road. The traffic was surprisingly light for whatever time of the morning this happened to be. Everett allowed himself a moment of hope. Maybe he was going to make it, after all.
The meter ticked over at the front of the taxi: 08:32… 08:31… 08:30…
Above that, the dashboard clock continued in perfect sync. Everett couldn’t stand to watch his life ticking away. He glanced out of the window, catching sight of a clock outside the bank, flicking through the seconds. A digital sign in the road up ahead continued the countdown. He grimaced, screwing his eyes shut, and concentrated on his breathing.
Bhangra dance music emanated from the car stereo. Thankful for the distraction, Everett nodded his head in time with the infectious beat. The lyrics appeared not to be in the usual Punjabi, but in English: Seven nineteen, seven eighteen, seven seventeen, seven sixteen…
He clamped his hands over his ears and kept his eyes shut for the rest of the journey.
When at last the taxi pulled up outside the hospital, he threw some money at the driver and leapt out.
“Fifty-eight!” the driver responded as he pulled away, and Everett realized how little time he had left.
As he exploded through the doors of Accident & Emergency, a nurse approached. “Forty-two? Forty-one?”
“In forty seconds I will be dead,” Everett said. “Please help.”
Overhearing him, a passing doctor stopped and came over. “Forty seconds?”
“Yes.”
The doctor shined a light in his eyes. “How can you be so specific?”
Everett gasped in realization. “Wait - I can understand you. Why aren’t you counting down like everyone else?”
“It happened to me, once. Long ago.”
“This? The countdown? Then how did you…? How did you get out of it?”
“Mister…?
“Clay. Everett Clay. Please, help me…”
“That’s just it, Mr Clay, I can’t help you. Nobody can. You have to help yourself.”
“What do you mean? I’m on my last few seconds here.”
“Look,” the doctor said, continuing to examine him, “you’re stuck in a rut. It’s always the same, and will continue to be. The only way out of this is to…”
A sudden, searing pain ripped through Everett’s arms and along his shoulders. He dropped to his knees, struggling for breath. The nurse eased him onto the floor. His chest felt like someone was standing on him.
The doctor knelt down. “You must confront the one thing you’ve been avoiding, Mr Clay. The one thing you’ve been resisting all this time.”
With his last breath, Everett expelled one word. “What?”
The doctor stared down at him and sighed. “Change.”
***
Everett Clay awoke to discover that his alarm clock read 10:00.
A cold terror ripped through him. He sprang out of bed, the fog of sleep blown away by a blast of pure panic. No! Dear God!
He had the meeting with top brass at 9am about the Unilever account. Adamson would cut off his balls if he missed even a minute.
He stood there rigid with shock, so conflicted about what to do first that he realized he wasn’t doing anything. He looked again at the alarm clock.
The display read 10:01.
He stared at the bright red digits for a long moment, watching as the colon separating the hours and minutes blinked on and off. Something niggled at him.
He dismissed it with a shake of the head. Opening the drawer, he took out his watch and slipped it around his wrist. A flurry of sounds, images and ideas suddenly bombarded him. It was all too much to take in. He blinked them away.
Glancing down, he realized he was clutching his chest.
He reached over and plucked his phone from the charging dock. Unlocking it, he found a number and dialed.
The call connected. A woman’s voice was on the line. “Good morning, Barry Adamson’s secretary.”
“Margaret, hi. It’s Everett.”
“Oh, good. Listen, Everett, I think you’d better get here as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, about that. I need you to tell Adamson something for me.”
“What is it?”
“Tell him…” With a sudden rush of insight he clutched his arm, the ghost of distant pain haunting his veins. “Tell him…” He grimaced as the crunch of broken teeth echoed faintly around his skull.
“Everett? Hello? Are you still there?”
Everett took a deep breath. His heart lurched into his throat. “Tell him I quit.”
Dead End Job
She came to sudden consciousness at a workbench, the fog of disorientation clogging her mind. She wore a bright blue tunic over jeans and a T-shirt. Small metal components were clasped between her fingers.
A barrage of questions sparked, battling for answers inside her head. What’s going on? How did I get here? Where the hell am I? And perhaps most pertinently, who the hell am I?
Three other women sat at the workbench, snapping components together. They, too, wore bright blue tunics over regular clothes. Beyond her own bench she saw a vast factory floor. Men and women sat at identical workbenches, in identical blue tunics, interested only in their work.
A rush of hot panic consumed her. This is not my life. I don’t belong here.
She’d never been in this building before. Didn’t know these faces. She was pretty sure she wasn’t even a factory worker. And yet, as she glanced down, she discovered that her hands knew instinctively what to do. Her long, thin fingers slid the small components together, encasing them in two pieces of black plastic housing that snapped together to create a lock. The lo
ck then slid through a hole stamped into the shell of a handle painted gunmetal gray, which she placed neatly into a box containing hundreds of identical handles.
That’s great, she thought. I don’t even know my own name, but I know how to make a lock.
The women at her bench continued glumly with their work, paying her no attention. She wanted to ask them any one of her many questions, but she found that she had no control over her own body. She could not even open her mouth to speak.
She wondered if it was the same for all of them. Were they, too, trapped inside bodies that may not even be their own? She heard the general hum of work, the distant, garbled sound of a pop tune playing on a radio somewhere, but no chatter.
Just then, a memory bubbled to the surface. It was there for a brief moment, and then popped away.
Her name.
Agh. She had it. It was right there. Think.
Her hands continued making locks. A supervisor in a long coat roamed the workbench, picking up random handles and examining them.
Concentrate. Your name. Come on…
Pippa. It was Pippa.
Pepper.
Poppy.
P-P-P… Paula.
She settled on Pippa. It was the first thing she had thought of, the name that had instinctively leapt to mind, and besides, she wanted to resolve the whole name issue. It seemed to be the least of her problems.
Her fingers moved nimbly. Click. Turn. Snap. Push… Click. Turn. Snap. Push…
This wasn’t how she had ever made her living, she was sure of it. She had no memory of a prior career, but she knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t this. Her carefully manicured, callus-free fingers were not the fingers of a factory worker, or a manual worker of any kind, for that matter. An air stewardess, perhaps. A secretary. Graphic designer. They were good-looking hands. Tanned and elegant and shapely. Maybe she was a model.
Click. Turn. Snap. Push… Click. Turn. Snap. Push…
The supervisor hovered over her shoulder. Excuse me, sir, she wanted to say. There’s been some kind of mix-up. I’m not supposed to be here.
She filled the box. A young man in overalls appeared, moved her box onto a trolley, and left an empty box in its place. She began filling the new box.
Click. Turn. Snap. Push… Click. Turn. Snap. Push…
How do these people stand it? she thought. Much more of this and I think I’ll lose my mind.
At that moment a bell rang. Her co-workers dropped what they were doing, climbed off their stools and walked away. As she watched on in astonishment, Pippa suddenly realized that she now had complete control over her body.
She got up and swiftly followed.
***
The workers headed to a door at the far side of the factory floor. Pippa fell in line behind a rotund woman with badly bleached hair.
“Excuse me? Hi. Do you… do you happen to know my name?”
The woman’s eyebrows knotted. “Who gives a shit?”
Pippa was taken aback by the woman’s dismissive attitude. She tried again. “Where are we going? Is it home time?”
“Ugh.” The woman shook her head. “New people.”
Pippa followed the employees into a large break room. Plastic chairs scraped back as workers found their seats. Vending machines lined the walls. Pippa felt in her pockets for some change, and found none. The woman in front of her pressed a button on a coffee machine and a cup dropped and filled. The machines didn’t require payment, it seemed. Maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all.
Pippa grabbed a coffee and a granola bar. She caught sight of her reflection in the glass of the vending machine. She was a good-looking woman: blonde, slim, a fine set of high cheekbones.
Pepper.
Paula.
Pandora.
Oh, give it a rest.
She found a spare seat next to a broad-shouldered woman with stubby, nicotine-stained fingers.
“Hello,” she said, sitting down. “I’m Pippa.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”
Pippa was stunned into silence. Her mind raced. She looked around, aware of a hush in the room. Even now, none of her fellow workers spoke to each other. It was creepy and weird and made her head spin. What the hell is this place?
She kept her voice low. “What’s your name?”
The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. Cinder-fuckin’-rella.”
Pippa got the message. She sat back in her chair and looked around. The silence was spooky. “Why does nobody talk around here?” she whispered.
The woman snorted. “Because,” she said, not bothering to lower her voice, “everything’s been said.”
Pippa nodded, pretending that she understood. She sipped her coffee and opened the granola bar. Looked through the break room window at the factory floor beyond. Half of the workforce remained on the floor, their concentration fully on their work. It was their break next, she figured. She wondered how much longer there was to go until home time.
But where was home? And who would be waiting for her when she got there?
She checked to see if anyone was wearing a watch. Scanned the walls for a clock, but couldn’t see one.
That was when she noticed a familiar-looking handle at the base of one of the window frames. It was gunmetal gray, with a black plastic lock embedded in the center.
***
When the bell rang to signify the end of tea break, her body took over. The coffee cup that she had been nursing was pushed aside, and she stood, entirely against her will, along with the rest of the workers. Her legs marched her out of the room, along the short corridor and onto the factory floor, depositing her at the same workstation as before. Her fingers began snapping components together the moment her bottom was on the stool.
Click. Turn. Snap. Push… Click. Turn. Snap. Push…
It was like being trapped in some kind of flesh and blood robot - she didn’t even need to look at what her hands were doing, they were so accomplished at the task.
Click. Turn. Snap. Push… Click. Turn. Snap. Push…
The boxes filled with handles. The young man came and swapped the full boxes for empty ones. Pippa watched out of the corner of her eye as he wheeled away the tower of boxes. She wondered where he was taking them.
Click. Turn. Snap. Push… Click. Turn. Snap. Push…
Given that the job required zero thought, Pippa decided she should spend the time thinking. But what was there to think about? She didn’t have any idea who she was or what was waiting for her beyond these walls. Was she married? Did she have kids? Was this just a temporary job until something better came along?
Or was this it?
If she had been able to shudder, she would have.
***
On her next tea break, Pippa sat opposite the woman with the nicotine-stained fingers once again.
Cinder-fuckin’-rella.
She would think of her as Cindy.
The room was silent, and again it made Pippa terribly uncomfortable. She leaned forward. “This isn’t where I work,” she whispered. “I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be here.”
Cindy laughed, a sharp, high-pitched cackle that caused the whole room to turn and look at her. “Tell me about it, love. I’m actually an architect. Or a pop star. Or maybe I’m the Queen of England and don’t even have to work.”
As Pippa looked around the room, she saw that all eyes were on her. She felt her cheeks flush. “Excuse me,” she said, tapping her wrist, “does anyone have the time?”
They all continued staring.
“Anyone at all?”
A few women dismissed her with a shake of the head.
“I just wondered if it was lunchtime yet,” she said.
At that moment, the whole room exploded with laughter. Pippa blushed, but the laughter was infectious. She found herself chuckling. As the laughter died down, she turned to Cindy. “Why is that so funny?”
“Because,” Cindy said.
Pippa blinked
hard. “What?”
“That’s about as dumb as asking where the toilet is.”
Pippa was completely lost. She fell silent and waited out the tea break.
***
Click. Turn. Snap. Push… Click. Turn. Snap. Push…
Pippa wanted to kill herself.
Click. Turn. Snap. Push… Click. Turn. Snap. Push…
***
Pippa sat opposite Cindy. “Long day.”
Cindy gave her a look that suggested she couldn’t even be bothered to formulate a response. She pulled a carton of cigarettes from her pocket, took one out and lit it.
Pippa was shocked. “You can do that here?”
“It’s my break time. I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“What about the smoking ban?”
Cindy laughed, exhaling a plume of cigarette smoke into Pippa’s face.
“If we can do whatever we want during our breaks,” Pippa said, “then why are we still here?”
“Give it a rest, darlin’,” said a woman on a neighboring table.
“But we’re being treated like slaves,” Pippa said. “It’s disgusting. Something has to be done. I think we should all just rise up and walk out of here. Come on!” She leapt to her feet and addressed the room. “Who’s with me?”
Everyone stared, but nobody moved.
Pippa looked over at Cindy for support.
“Knock yourself out, love,” Cindy said.
“Fine.” Pippa pushed her chair in. “That’s fine.” She marched out of the room and onto the factory floor, aware that her colleagues were watching her through the break room window. She crossed to a set of double doors on the far side. Pushing them open, she expected a hand to drop onto her shoulder, or for someone on the other side of the doors to usher her away. But nobody stopped her.
She found herself on another factory floor, of identical size to her own. Once again, workers sat at benches, heads buried in their work. The difference this time, however, was that they were not making locks for window handles. She moved closer for a better look. The supervisors roaming the floor paid her no attention.