by Andrew Gates
“Right, right. But you wouldn’t need a scale. That’s what I’m saying. You know that they’re 20kg dumbbells,” Karen explained.
“That’s right. 20kg.”
“So you know how much they weigh.”
“No, I don’t!” the voice debated.
“Oh my god,” Karen muttered under her breath. She wiped her face and leaned back in her seat. “Look, you’re shipping a set right, so that’s two?”
“Right.”
“So just put the weight down as 40kg on the online form.”
“But how do you know that? Are you just guessing?”
“No, I’m not guessing.”
“Then how can you be sure that’s the weight?” the voice asked, still not getting it.
“Look, just put down 40kg, okay? You have a nice day.” And with those words, Karen hung up the phone. Another idiot she didn’t have time to handhold.
She let out a deep sigh of frustration and took a moment to gather herself before waving in the next customer. These types of morons were all too common.
“I’ll take the next person,” she said, hoping this next person would be more intelligent.
Two people walked up, one woman and one alien with green skin and a long thin neck. As they arrived at the desk, they accidentally bumped into each other as if they did not intend to walk together.
“Oh, I am sorry,” the alien said. “I did not see you there. My neck is so tall, sometimes I cannot see people when they are right in front of me.”
“It’s okay. The woman called me to the desk so that’s why I came up here, but you can wait your turn for the next one,” the woman explained to the alien.
“Well, I do beg your pardon, but she did look at me when she called the next customer,” the alien retorted.
“I don’t care who is next,” Karen said, putting an end to that. “If this woman says she was next, then she was next.”
“Well, perhaps I should introduce myself,” the alien continued, ignoring everything she had just said. “My name is Tarzakolaxaran and I come from the planet Jalanariendingopen Polleranthanopper.”
“Tarzako-what?” the woman repeated.
“Sir,” Karen said. She cleared her throat. “I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you did, as long as you-”
“I love you,” the alien said.
“You… what?” Karen asked. She could not follow any of this.
“I said that I love you. I love all creatures. I love you, and you, and you,” he said, pointing to various people in line. “And to show my love, I have come to bestow a gift to a select number of your species, a treasure of knowledge.”
“Huh?” the woman asked.
“What she said,” added Karen.
“I have come to bestow a gift, a treasure of knowledge,” the alien repeated.
“Yeah, we heard you. What did you say your name was again?” the woman asked.
“My name is Tarzakolaxaran, but you may call me Tarzan for short,” the alien continued.
“Aah, okay, now I get what’s going on,” the woman in line said. She nodded her head as if she understood everything. “You’re doing that story again, the Tarzan story where you take people to the gate to get infinite knowledge.”
“Yes! That is exactly right!” Tarzan confirmed excitedly.
“And you want us to call your planet Jalapeno Popper for short, right?” the woman asked.
“Exactly!”
“Alright. I see what’s going on here,” the woman continued.
“What is going on here? I don’t get it,” Karen asked. She was so lost.
“Look, it’s obviously the same character from the first story and he’s come back in this one,” the woman said, motioning to the alien. “He was in the story about the fraternity brothers who don’t want to tell that they’re virgins. He showed up at their house and then they went on a spaceship and they never got to access the infinite knowledge. Remember that one? It’s the first story in this book.”
“Ooh,” Karen said. She hadn’t read that one and didn’t know what this woman was talking about.
“Now why do you think you can just come on in here and pop up in a totally different story?” the woman asked, turning to face Tarzan again.
“I… I don’t know,” the alien replied, shrugging. “I suppose the author thought it would be fun to have a nod to another story in the collection by featuring the same character twice.”
“There’s a nod and then there’s using another character,” the woman debated. “A nod is clever. Using a character again is just lazy. Plus, it makes it all confusing. If a character can show up in a different story, then does that mean all the stories are connected?”
“No, no. Not at all,” Tarzan replied. “None of these stories are connected in any way. They are all standalone stories.”
“Well this one sure isn’t standalone,” the woman debated. “If I read this one first, I would have no idea what’s going on.”
“This one is the exception, then,” Tarzan said.
“But that’s my point. If there is one exception where one story is linked to another story, then that gets all confusing because now it makes everyone wonder if all five of the stories are connected.”
“No. The other stories are not connected,” Tarzan clarified.
“Still, it seems pretty lazy to me. I mean, you weren’t even like a major character. What was the author trying to do? Write the plot again except with postal workers as the main characters instead of fraternity brothers?”
“I disagree. I am a main character,” Tarzan debated. “I’m on the cover!”
“Where?”
“I’m the guy with the long neck! I’m right there on the cover art,” he explained.
“Oh. To be honest, I wasn’t sure who that was supposed to be. Well hey, good for you! Making it on the cover. That’s nice,” the woman said. “Wait… hold on, how did you know you’re on the cover? The only way you could know that is if the cover for this book was made before the stories were all finished being written. Otherwise, how would this scene make it in?”
“Then I guess the cover was made first before the stories were all done.”
“Well that’s weird. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“I don’t know. Don’t ask me.”
“Well I am asking you, because none of this makes any sense!” the woman said, throwing up her arms in frustration. “And look, now we referenced another story in this collection and the cover art. What’s with that? What’s the point of this whole story anyway? Why are we at the post office?”
“I think the author just thinks it’s funny to be self-referential. I think that’s the whole bit,” Tarzan replied.
“Well it’s not funny. It’s lazy. Making references to things isn’t humor. Plus the author already did the self-referential bit in the asteroid-man story when he left out an entire paragraph on purpose.”
“I’m sorry, I haven’t read this book. What are you two talking about?” Karen asked. She had been silent for the last few minutes but was unable to follow anything they were talking about.
“Oh, so you’re not one of the self-aware characters I take it,” the woman said. “That’s a shame.”
“You can’t have too many characters that know they’re in a book,” Tarzan debated. “Otherwise it becomes complete nonsense. You have to have some characters who don’t know they’re characters.”
“This story is already complete nonsense. That ship has sailed already. We’re not even 2,000 words into this one and it’s already gone off the rails. Hey, by the way, do you think this is going to be another one of those longer stories or one of those half-assed short 5,000-word ones?”
“I think it’s another short one. We’re running out of pages,” Tarzan said, looking ahead to the end of the book.
“Damn. I like the longer ones better. You get actually know the characters that way. What’s the point of these super short ones?”
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br /> “They’re more like vignettes than they are stories,” Tarzan said.
“Right. Good word. Vignettes! They should call this a vignette collection with two short stories in it, not a short story collection.”
“I’m sorry, but you two are holding up the line and I really don’t know what you guys are talking about,” Karen said, butting in. “How about you go first,” she said, pointing to the woman, “and you go back in line?” She pointed to the alien now.
“That’s right. I forgot. We are in line waiting to ship something,” the woman said, suddenly remembering the plot.
“Very well. I shall go back in line,” the alien replied before turning and walking out of the scene.
“Alright, so what can I help you with?” Karen asked to the woman, who now stood all by herself.
“Look, let’s not drag this out, okay? That was obviously the whole bit. Anything else we do or say now is just filler to add to the page count.”
“Lady, what the hell are you talking about?” Karen asked.
“Look, why don’t we just end this here, okay?”
About the Author
Andrew Gates was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. He now resides in northern Virginia, but frequently revisits his hometown.
Andrew has enjoyed writing since high school, but did not start writing seriously until college. He enjoys writing anything from short stories to full-length novels. His favorite novel is The Lord of the Rings.
When he is not writing, Andrew is an avid runner. He works for a local Virginia-based running company and participates in a variety of races from 5Ks to Marathons.
He hopes to one day share his love of running with his future dog, yet to be named.