Marta and the Demons
First published by Preyed Press August 2014
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© Jo Lindsay Walton
ISBN 9781311919953
1.37th edition, August 2016
I. Stocks
Marta jogged past. I hadn’t seen her in like three months.
‘Marta!’
She looked angry. Wait, was she angry because I’d seen her?
‘Myeong!’ she puffed. ‘Follow meee, baby doll!’
‘Marta, what have I done? Hey! Hell no – I can’t keep up!’
‘Myeong, you gotta keep up, okay?’
I was in jeans. This was ridiculous. As in, “hey-everybody-in-the-park!-ridicule-us!”
But . . . I hadn’t seen Marta in like three months.
‘Is somebody after you?’ I gasped. ‘Are you in . . . some kind of trouble?’
‘Dee-mons,’ Marta explained in her lilting, matter-of-fact manner.
‘Demons? Here’s me thinking we lived in a science fictional world.’
‘We do, baby doll. They’re apparitions.’ Marta tapped her phone on her utility belt, then her ear piece. ‘All in the mind, eh? In the app.’
‘The app?’
Okay. So in my jeans and my low-heeled pumps, on this crowded, pollen-fragrant spring day, here I was, tagging along with Marta’s gamified jogging regime?
‘Can’t you switch it off for a minute?’
‘Faster, Myeong! Demons!’’
My skin prickled with the puzzled, judgmental gazes of picnickers. ‘Demons!’ I agreed.
Soon my skin also prickled with sunlit sweat. My legs found their long rhythm. Soon my breath did too. It felt good. For so long I’d felt like an outcast. This morning I was a team.
‘So – good – to – see –’
‘Moo-loch!’ squealed Marta, and pulled away.
I stumbled. The barbeque smoke surrounded me like Roadrunner’s dust cloud.
§
I found Marta doing cool-down stretches beside my bench.
She wore a sympathetic, slightly condescending look. ‘Moloch ambush,’ she explained. ‘I evaded her.’
‘Marta,’ I said. ‘Bros before leaderboards?’
I tried to make it rhyme.
Marta shook my shoulders vigorously like she was plumping a pillow. ‘How are you?’
Marta is a great believer in affectionate semi-violence. We were both glistening. Like mirrors in a hairdresser’s: me reflected in Marta and Marta in me, forever.
‘I’m not doing great,’ I admitted, desperately wanted to make light of it. ‘I haven’t had a real job in ten weeks, Marta. Unless you count guarding the old bench.’
Marta’s eyes went comically huge. ‘Oh no! Myeong!’
I laughed it off. ‘Hey, at least it gets me out. Good to get out.’
‘No, no, no.’
My throat tightened. ‘I come here for a reason,’ I muttered, hefting my tablet. ‘We’re close enough to steal the university wi-fi. Li Shu gave me her password, so I do gigs and I job-hunt. My resume is visible, like, everywhere? My resume is like this town’s bat-sign. Any day now –’
Marta grabbed my arm. ‘You will have my job!’
For the next five minutes Marta insisted I “have her job.” I had been unemployed, Marta raved, and now it was her turn.
She seemed totally serious. It was lovely and hilarious.
It was also a relief. At first, when Marta’s eyes had gone all big, I’d felt like a pariah again.
That’s when it hit me. Why I’d been feeling so bad lately. It wasn’t the stupid gigs. It wasn’t the stupid job market.
It was my stupid girlfriend.
It was Carly.
Carly treated not having a real job like not having a real soul. Marta wouldn’t judge me. It’s unnatural to judge someone, for something like that. In our heart of hearts, we are all unemployed.
§
Sometimes Carly goes to a park near her work – this is a different park, we have separate parks – just long enough to eat her vegan shredded-carrot-and-glass-noodles wrap. Most of her colleagues eat theirs at their desks. Because Carly leaves the building at lunch time, they all think of Carly like a hippie, an alternative person,
Anyway, Carly told me about this straight couple she saw canoodling in her park.
‘They were hugging and kissing really passionately,’ Carly told me.
I imagined the glass noodles dangling from my girlfriend’s munching mouth as she perved on these straight dudes.
‘But not like “eww, get a room” hugging and kissing,’ Carly clarified sternly. ‘There was this spark in the air and for second I assumed they were saying goodbye. But then I realised they must be saying hello.’
Somehow I’d known I was supposed to ask, ‘What do you mean, saying hello?’
‘Hon, I could just tell. It just wasn’t a good venue for a goodbye. There’s no bus or train nearby, and it wasn’t where the paths branch.’
‘You Sherlocked it,’ I said. ‘Like when Sherlock sees the AR tags come up, and the splatter trajectories. Only with you, the splatter was drool.’
‘Exactly,’ said Carly. ‘I Sherlocked that they were a new couple. All romantic and in love – like the girl put her hand on the back of the guy’s head when they kissed. And when they hugged we caught each other’s eyes over his shoulder. Her eyes were all smoky. Anyway. Why am I even telling you this?’
Carly usually says girl whereas I usually say woman.
‘You must have been standing really close,’ I said.
‘Anyway. Sherlock doesn’t understand smoky eyes though. That’s human heart stuff. Anyway.’
§
What if we could just give each other our sketchy jobs, just like we give each other sketchy looks?
§
‘Myeong,’ Marta chided. ‘Monday, then?’
‘Obviously I’m the one being unreasonable.’
‘Myeong. Give my job back one day, or don’t. No presh – for my future, I have Stephen.’
‘And I have five-star profiles on ClickWorker, and Giggl and GigSquid and VirtualBee.’
I didn’t mention GigTwig to Marta. GigTwig is so awful I’m not sure it’s even exploiting me properly. I might complain.
‘Myeong! Why are we even still talking? I must focus on my jogging this week. You must focus on acclimatizing yourself to my job.’
‘Plus I think I have at least a star or two left with Carly.’ By now I was getting pretty firm with Marta, figuring she was just baked on aerobic activity. ‘Besides, Marta. Employees can’t just give their jobs to their friends! The law won’t allow it. Companies won’t allow it. Society won’t allow it. This isn’t –’
For some reason “the Golden Khanate” sprang into my head. It didn’t seem like an example of a society where friends could give their jobs to their friends. So I just trailed off.
‘I can give you my phone. I can give you my clothes. So I can give you my job.’
‘Please, Marta. No.’
‘You can give me your cat. Who’s gonna stop us, HR? I am HR! I am HR, Myeong, I am HR!’
Did I mention Marta is in HR and that she’s coco-bananas? Coco Chanel. Co-Codamol. CocoRosie. Coca-Cola and Coco Pops. With extra nuts.
I shook my head smilingly. ‘This is the issue, Marta. You are HR and I am not. The only trump card you have is to quit, Marta. And even if you did quit, at least they could hire
someone, um, a bit qualified?’
‘Oh, no, no, no. I’m not gonna quit,’ said Marta. ‘Those bastards, I’m gonna make them pay for never hiring you.’ She pouted and added, ‘They are lovely Myeong. You gonna love ’em on Monday.’
You can never tell how much Marta’s joking. She transcends jokes. ‘Marta, I love you. Where have you been hiding?’
‘I’ve been jogging,’ Marta said darkly. ‘Where have you been for a year, eh? Sitting on that bench?’
A stupid small part of me was already anxious to get rid of Marta. Every ten minutes GigTwig will award you a green leaf just by doing a CAPTCHA to prove you’re online and waiting for work. When you earn enough leaves you can – I’m not sure, actually.
‘So I guess you’ve finally quit smoking?’ I asked, eyeing up her tracksuit bottoms and glistening, clinging crop-top.
Warily she produced a five pack of Silk Cut.
‘Twosie?’ I suggested.
She nodded very seriously. Suddenly I had a flashback to the Year of the Crush on Marta which Marta Must Never Suspect.
We linked arms down an avenue of cherry trees. I didn’t notice any demons.
‘Think about it like this. They give me “job security.” Now, a security, what this word means, a thing that can be traded, eh?’
Her arm tucked in mine, her shoulder brushing mine. Was it only a flashback, or Hellmouth yawning? The Year of the Crush hurt. Be careful, Myeong.
Before we parted, I promised I’d come to her flat Saturday afternoon. We could do this properly, she said. We could do this properly.
§
‘I ran into Marta today.’ I giggled. ‘Well, next to her. Well –’
‘Mm,’ said Carly.
‘Why is it that geek words sound so funny coming from mainstream people? “Dee-mons.” “Zombies.” They’re so, like, impassive about it! Like it’s just one of the normal things in their life? Like Starbucks or something?’
‘Any luck with the job-hunting?’ said Carly.
§
‘Hi Marta.’
‘Hello, mate!’
I went in for a cheek-kiss and ended up in a
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