by Ufuk Özden
I ask the janitor if he ever made a mistake. He shakes his head. And how does he spend his weekends? He’s been working on his play and shopping for groceries. He needs lots of sugar, eggs, butter, and flour for baking. And he occasionally treats himself to one of those big burgers with many layers. He’s also fond of garlic mayonnaise.
“Have you ever tried writing the script?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “I was afraid that it wouldn’t come off like I’d imagined.” I ask him if he’s ever tried making a burger. He shakes his head again.
“Let’s try to make a great burger tomorrow,” I say. This time he nods.
I leave the janitor in his workshop and walk down the stairs to find Baco. I find him shitfaced, trying to find his head so that he can scratch it.
“This is boring,” he murmurs. “Everything is. I am the universe experiencing boredom in a body.”
I tell him to cheer up and help the janitor with worldbuilding. What we do no longer matters anymore. It never has, obviously.
“Let’s break into the clerks’ offices,” I suggest. Baco says that he already did that. All the rooms are empty. Not even a single chair or a desk. Baco assumes that they just stand in those rooms for eight hours unless they’re capable of fitting convertible offices into their pockets.
I text my friend, tell him about our road trip, and the janitor’s play that’s never meant to happen.
In response, he tells me that he got engaged. He talked to the store manager and put a few bills in his pocket. When she came to work and started pressing the Enter keys like she always does, one of their photos popped up on the screen. Each screen showed a photo taken in one of their pleasant moments. The last screen at the end of the aisle displayed the lovely question of, “Will you marry me?” Then he ran out of the storage room and proposed to her. I ask him how many people that screen proposed to before her. It was about four. But they just laughed it off. Good for them.
I tell Baco that my friend’s getting married. He burps.
“Ignoring the inevitable is a common defence mechanism,” he says. He argues that he’s yet to discover an advanced species with multiple genders or a species with individuals who decide to establish a supposedly permanent bond based on temporary hormonal spikes. He tells me about a species with seven different genders who had to manage through a complicated procedure for breeding. It required a perfect and well-timed collaboration or else the baby would be born in a vegetable state and die.
“Shush!” I say. “Let beings enjoy being.”
I attempt to take a wine bottle from Baco’s stash. As I bend over to grab a bottle, my vision gets blurry for a split second. The colours seem pale as if they were washed in the wrong machine programme. I feel the ground shaking. It’s more of a tremble though. It goes away in a moment. I grab a bottle.
“They’ve been calibrating their equipment,” Baco says. “I’ve read about this. The Trip can happen anytime now. This is the end. We might have a few weeks left. Or a few days.”
I sit down, take a few sips from Baco’s terribly dry wine, and tell him that we should stage that play.
Baco agrees. “My boredom has reached new heights,” he snorts. “It’s a great shame that all life will be wiped off this marvellous planet full of wonders. I just hope that my clones had, have, and will have a better time,” he says.
“Do you hear yourself?” I ask him with a grin. “You’re being sarcastic knowingly. The spirits of the theatre are guiding you.”
He shrugs. “I see you’re amused as I intended. Humans are easier to please than goats.” We toast.
I ask him why he desired to please me. He says he’s so bored that he would like to intervene in the most mundane human affairs like our ancient Greek gods. Every time two small cities fought, every time someone set sail to transport pots and grains, every time someone watched their reflection in the water, or every time someone went to the forest to pick up berries, the gods of Olympus would show up. You would get mad at your uncle for not paying back the money that he’d borrowed for his blooming olive oil business and at least two gods would get involved in the upcoming dispute when you knocked on his door. Apparently, they spent their days walking around turning people into things or turning themselves into things so they could do things to people because they were mad or jealous.
“They were just bored,” Baco says. “I know them. They have a few hundred thousand individuals living in a comfortable and self-sustaining space station. They used to travel to planets and pretend that they were a league of deities. The group that visited Earth was relatively quick to return. I know it because I’ve seen them on a reality show. The one playing Hades is now an indie musician. He’s singing in a band he formed with a group of genetically modified livestock. Now you’ll need to excuse me, I’m mildly intoxicated.”
“Career changes can make good stories. But we need focus,” I say. “I’d very much rather that we stage this play before we get disintegrated. Let’s wake up with some plans tomorrow.” Baco nods and throws up.
It’s Hard to Open the Curtain
I t’s been more than a week and none of us has ever woken up with any plans, at least, not with any plans that are even remotely related to our play. Baco has been busy soldering circuit boards and complaining about our analogue computers. The janitor has been busy perfecting the fine details of a model submarine he’s built for the play. His submarine is an empty barrel with a pipe sticking out in the middle for a periscope. I tried to help him by cleaning the dust off of the seats in the theatre but eventually left for a break and never came back. I spend my days walking the halls on the ground floor and stapling stacks of empty paper for fun. The clerks show up in the mornings and leave in the evenings, all according to the schedule. We have brownies for breakfast, pie for lunch, and cherry cake for dinner. If any of us ever talks, it’s usually about the weather. If the clouds look beautiful, it must be the air pollution. The heat is okay but then it’s the humidity that makes it unbearable. That sort of quality talk.
Today, we’re having lemon cheesecake for dinner. I text my friend to tell him that I’m having a lovely time here and couldn’t possibly have imagined a better way of spending my last remaining days. There’s something soothing and numbing about procrastination in comfort. The same goes for having a mind occupied with fixed tasks. It’s all about the repetition whether it’s about repeating nothing or cycling through a few selected tasks. Whatever turns you into a floating debris floating down the river. There’s nothing left to be behind but the longing for more procrastination.
Good for you, he says. I received an unexpected call this morning. Someone asked me if I would like to stay on Earth with my fiancée, based on their assumption that I would appreciate company. We agreed to it and they’ve put us in this house that we cannot ever leave. It’s quite spacey but we need to learn how to adjust the rooms and what’s in them – they’re constantly changing. He says we can recreate everything infinite times to our liking. Apparently, our only task is to make ourselves at home. I don’t know when The Trip will begin but it’s been quite a ride, and thanks for being my friend. Cheer up! Goodbye.
I tell Baco that they’ve picked my friend and his fiancée for an eternal life on Earth. He says that the harvesters must have some surplus budget left that they’re trying to deplete before the new fiscal year.
“I cannot think of any other motives to justify such an investment. The technology and resources required for building those houses is beyond your comprehension.”
“Or maybe,” I say, “we aren’t as dull and insignificant as you claim us to be. You don’t have a shred of creativity in you. You couldn’t write an elementary school level poem if your life depended on it. Some primal poem about peaches and how much you love your mother. You’re not cold, bitter, and insensitive on purpose. It doesn’t matter whom you fuck. You’ll never be a hormone bag like us. You’re just a sociopath and luckily, a harmless one at that.” Baco says that he needs
to reflect on my outburst. I tell him that I don’t give a flying fuck.
“I think a flying dragon would be good for the play,” the janitor says stepping in. “I think we can make it breathe fire.” I sigh and walk out of the room. I walk down the empty halls illuminated by the moonlight before I turn out all the lights that I can. I walk up the stairs to clerks’ floors and open every door as I walk. They’re all empty like Baco said. I walk down the stairs to see myself, a ghost of myself, walking on the ground floor. He takes a few steps, looks out the window, shakes his head, and goes back to his patrol. Obviously, it’s too late to ask the medium for a refund.
I storm back into the room and tell them that I’ll write the script. “There’ll be only one line of dialogue,” I say. “That will be all that we’ll ever need. We’ll get it over with, bow down to greet any audience we might have, and then hopefully we’ll all be gone. I don’t want to think about what could or might have been different. Afterall, all endings are mundane and insignificant. Everything will dissolve. Nothing can be eternally wasted. No goal can be truly fulfilled. We cause minor gastrointestinal issues in the bowels of universe.”
Baco remains silent for a moment and attempts to applaud although he ends up looking like a clumsy monkey clapping its hands. I bow in response.
“Why do you even want to stage the play then?” asks the janitor. I tell him that it’s the will to be and then the will to beat the boredom. It cannot be beaten but can be compromised to a certain degree. “Baco has unintentionally shown me that there’s this will that has been woven into the fabric of our existence. It’s nothing but reskinned combinations of familiar concepts. A ridiculously limited recycle of the same repeated ideas. Baco’s immortal and he speaks like a talking clock, but he’s willing to do something that he hasn’t done before. You’ve survived a war and decided to follow the exact same routine for years. There are only patterns and templates. There’s nothing beyond it and yet we’re bound by it. It’s all that we have, and we cannot ignore what we’re scared to ignore. Perhaps the universe, the whole universe which is stuffed with all the boring or painful junk in it, is trying to personify itself within us. It knows it doesn’t have much to offer so it tries to push us somehow. It hopes that we’ll put up a good show and make it feel alive. A paralysed craftsman who’s watching his apprentices as they toy with the assets that he left behind.”
“Putting the human drama factor that you cannot avoid aside, your assumption might be factual,” says Baco calmly. I draw up a chair, sit down, nod, and ask Baco if he was serious about shapeshifting for sex.
The Last Script
I wrote our script while Baco was busy installing the new circuits to modify the transportation system. It’s all automated now and he says that the whole process is fourteen seconds faster than the janitor’s manual routine. The janitor calls it cheating. The clerks, on the other hand, seem indifferent.
After the clerks were sent where they came from once again, we gather around in the recreational room in the basement which is empty save for a sink that was once white, a couch that smells like a white cat urinated on it, a few old metal chairs, and an old table with a pile of stale cupcakes on it. Baco and the janitor take their seats in the distant corners of the room. I stand at the centre of the room, ready to begin my presentation. I clear my throat and look at my fellow artists. The janitor looks at the small square high up on the wall. Baco is trying to touch his nose with his toe. I grab a cupcake and sit on the smelly couch between their chairs.
“Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” I say. “Please feel free to stop me when you have any comments.”
I tell them that the play is about nothing. They shrug. “But there’s room for personal interpretation.”
They say they wouldn’t mind any personal interpretation. So, I tell them that when we open the curtain, there will be nothing to see on the stage. It’ll be pitch black. We’ll close and open the curtains a few times. Because the universe isn’t meant to begin yet. It’s broken. Perhaps there’s something wrong with the matter and anti-matter balance. But the universe wants to be. So, it keeps on trying. The fifth time we open the curtain, there will be the singularity on the stage.
“I don’t believe we have the means to reproduce the singularity,” Baco says. “Just some sphere tied to the ceiling by the rope,” I say. “Don’t ask me why it’s a sphere. It just needs to be a very small one. So, this time, some matter survives the shitshow. The universe gets a cold shock and subatomic particles are born. I saw some marbles lying around in the workshop that we could use.” I tell them that we’ll put a nebula on the stage next. We can use the fog machines and the lights.
“There will a warm spot in that gigantic gas cloud. A nice warm spot with lots of raw materials floating around. It sucks in all the atoms. Atoms are like grumpy goats who cannot keep it civil by their nature,” I say looking at Baco. “Atoms headbutt each other with no care for the consequences. Everything is made of little, aggressive pieces that are looking for an excuse to create havoc. Life is born out of a gang fight. And gravity just wants to see the universe on fire. The marbles keep headbutting each other, releasing a tremendous amount of energy, and before they know it, they form a star converting hydrogen into helium. We’ll need to mess with lights and demonstrate the whole thing with marbles. Good thing they have catwalks on top of the stage. We’ll need some coordination up there.”
I tell them that there will be two planets in the habitable zone of the star. “The first one will turn into a galactic hell because of the greenhouse effect. We’ll have to cover a sphere in a dark yellow smoke and change its colour to orange. The other one will get hit by a meteor. The meteorites are loaded with essential sugars, amino acids, and some other stuff to create life. We can attach labels to small balls crashing into the sea. In the next act, there will be a plush rat with three legs crawling out of the water. It’ll evolve into a land octopus, horse, a knight, a diver, and finally into an astronaut. We can discuss the order. But I insist that the astronaut should be in the final act. He gets out of a submarine and says that he’s happy to exist. Then a gamma ray burst destroys everything. Then we close the curtain.”
The janitor asks why the astronaut is happy.
“That’s for the audience to find out,” I say.
“Is this a joke?” he asks. “You’ve turned my life’s work into a joke,” he protests. “All these years-” he huffs and puffs, “-when-” he sighs, “I’ve only…” He puffs and pants. Then he goes quiet, looks at floor, and collapses in his chair, like a thick duvet someone tried to fold in a hurry. I run to shake him and lift his head. His face is twisted without a visible shred of peace in his contracted muscles.
“It appears to be a case of myocardial infarction, although further examination will be required,” Baco says.
“The fuck it will,” I say. “He’s having a heart attack. Help me!”
I run to the telephone and call for an ambulance.
“Did you mean an emergency care bus?” the voice on the telephone asks. “No one leaves their busses these days, why are you still loitering inside a building? You wouldn’t want to be caught outside your bus when The Trip begins, now would you? Anyway, here’s what we’ll do: we’ll park the bus as close as we can to the main entrance, and you’ll have to carry him to the bus.”
After giving him CPR to no avail, Baco carries what used to be the janitor outside and thus we wait. I just stand around like I did when my cousin died. It’s funny, that we have this instinct that urges us to stand and stare when the tragedy strikes, and the curious satisfaction that our conscience gets from it. The game of solidarity that we love to play by simply standing.
The bus arrives an hour after I called, stops in the parking lot area, and honks a few times. I tell Baco that I’d like to help and grab the janitor’s feet. This way his head won’t get smashed if I drop my end of the body, which eventually happens twice, as we have to drag it around for a few good minutes until we make it
to the bus. Two nurses open the front door, pick up the janitor’s body, as if we’re delivering their pizza, and close the doors. There’s only one nurse when the door opens again. She says that he’s gone. She says that she’s sorry. She’s asking if we would like the body back. We say that we don’t. She says that’s fine. The driver turns the engine back on and drives the bus away. The bus stops right before it makes a turn into the main road. They open the middle door, dump the janitor’s body, and then drive away.
“He literally died a theatrical death,” I say. “He was never going to stage that play. He was mesmerised by the pure raw idea. Hypnotised by the flow state that he put himself in. He couldn’t stand watching his dream come true. The moment we stop dreaming and start doing, the light fades away. All those feelings crumble.”
“Myocardial infarction is usually caused by plaque in an artery and is not affected by one’s mental projection skills,” Baco answers calmly. “But if I were capable of feeling any pity, I believe that this would have been the moment. A sentimental species of low intelligence whose behaviour is a manifestation of their uncontrollable DNA sequence and chemical reactions. It’s brutal, as humans would put it, for an individual in the universe to be able to comprehend how insignificant and faulty they are without having the means to advance. Your entire improvement depends on a few individuals who were born with a more practical DNA sequence. But most of you are capable of understanding how stupid you are.”
We Were Never Going to Be Happy Anyway
I woke with my pillow drenched in sweat. I drag myself to the restroom for an intense facewash session and then to urinate. The sweat must be the reaction of my body that’s been making fun of the things that I thought I understood and embraced. Not the bits with consciousness, but the jigglier and multicoloured bits with all the hormones, instincts, and learned helplessness. A malfunctioning machine with self-awareness that cannot fix itself. A scared and violent primitive beast that cannot be tamed. But at least it’s potty trained.