by Davi Cao
“This way I’ll never finish my story. I think we should ask for more time, don’t you agree with me? Mr. Alden’s the boss and the client in this case, so what’s the rush?” Angeline said.
“Maybe ... Maybe I can talk to him. We should have more time for ourselves, because I want to read your story.”
“Are you sure? You didn’t seem very excited when I showed you my first sketches. Good calligraphy takes time, and not everybody appreciates that, so maybe it’s not the kind of thing you like. No problem in that, I just don’t understand why you’re asking me again.”
“I want to look at it with fresh eyes. This time I’ll know what’s interesting when I see it,” Colin said.
“Well, if you say so. The thing is, I’m still far from finishing it, and I always take work home with me, and it’s killing me. I’d say it’s a consequence of bad management, if you weren’t my friend.”
“I’m not like that as a manager, you know that. What can I do if Mr. Alden makes all decisions? He’s the boss.”
“Oh, chill out, I’m just teasing you. It’s the job that sucks, that’s the truth. Solving humanity’s problems? We could do that. Instead, we’re making disposable stuff. It’s worthless.” Angeline touched her food with a lazy fork.
Her words slapped Colin's face not once but twice. “Worthless” echoed in the land by the World Voice's pain, and to hear his beloved one speak of a similar frustration signaled red alert. The town leaked, creations lived in constant peril. He imagined extra layers, he imagined himself recreating each person continually until the end of that horrible world to escape his loneliness.
Colin talked to the others, assigning their tasks. Angeline finished her lunch and got to work, filled with activities. He spied often on her, hoping to see her smile, happy to be again by her side. She labored seriously, however, focused on the screen, hypnotized by its glow.
After one hour, she stood up, walked to the small kitchen on the back of the office, and didn’t return. Worried and curious, willing to have some time alone with her, Colin went to the kitchen.
She cried over the small table, her hand pressed on her forehead, her eyes staring at the wooden table, her mouth twitching. He approached the chair in front of her with silent steps and sat down, touching her shoulder. She looked up at him and turned her face sideways, ashamed of her situation.
“Let me help you, please. What can I do, just tell me?” he said.
“God, I feel awful. I don’t know what you can do. Probably nothing. I just feel ... bad. Useless, like trash. I hate this job, I hate this company, I hate this life. I wish I could just get away!” Angeline said.
“Calm down, ok? It’s just a job. I’ll talk to Mr. Alden and see what we can do to decrease the workload on everybody.”
“It won’t change anything. Come on, Colin, can you tell me that you’re happy with your life?”
“After a long time, yes, I am now.” He looked at her with watery eyes.
She analyzed his emotional answer and instead of forcing her grief on him, she expressed a secret wish, “I want to run away. Would you come with me?”
“Angeline, I want to stay here. Stay here with you. You’re just having a bad day. Tomorrow you’ll be feeling better, trust me.”
She nodded in agreement, swallowing her honest desire. Looking him up and down, she bit her lips in disgust. They got back to the computer room, each taking care of their assigned duties.
Home, at night, Colin crafted food on the kitchen’s table. He imagined it for the entire town, and so it materialized everywhere. Francis and Sarah wore nothing but their underwear, and both stood under the shower. The water fell on their wet hair, a tiny waterfall bathing them.
“You’re wasting too much water, you two. Come on, it’s dinner time!” Colin said.
“We’re not wasting anything. Water is infinite, and it’s so good,” Sarah said.
“Leave us here, please. We have nothing better to do,” Francis said.
“Aren’t you hungry? Don’t tell me you stayed under the water the whole day!”
“We’re not, and yes, we did.”
Colin turned off the water in the bathroom, under the lazy eyes of his parents. He feared an aggressive reaction, although they were docile. Without water, they left the shower and descended the stairs, dropping water on the floor, zombie-walking. Sarah smiled when she saw the big pizza Colin had cooked for them, being the first one to cut it into small pieces.
“That’s a beautiful pizza, son. You made it yourself?” Francis said.
“Yes, I hope you like it. Go on, sit down, let’s eat together.”
“Haha, sure, sure, we’ll eat it, you’ll see ... We’ve nothing better to do, or do we?” Sarah said.
“I’m not hungry, I told you already,” Francis said.
She threw a piece of it on her husband’s face. He took the same piece and did the same to her. She laughed, taking small pizza squares and using them like stones, running around the kitchen to escape Francis’ revenge. He fought back with a serious man's rage, his attitude as childish as his wife’s.
“What’s wrong with you guys? You’re wasting food! I’m getting worried about your sanity, I really am,” Colin said.
“You know what, life sucks! We’re going to die anyway, we’d better laugh at it,” Sarah said.
“Dad, even you are entering this madness? Help me here, come on,” Colin said.
“I’m trying, son, but she’s too much for me! I’m fighting back, believe me, I am.” Francis held four pizza squares before throwing another one at Sarah.
Colin watched their food war immersed in defeat, his face sinking onto the table. They had wrinkles, they had wet hair, their underwear dissolving, slimy. The World Voice got to everything, melting everything down, their minds going first.
When they stopped, Sarah went to a corner of the room, lay down and began to sleep. His father went to the opposite corner and did the same. Two animals gone crazy, two victims of the pervading wind of sorrow and misery that haunted that world, no matter how strong the protection around them.
During the night, he heard the World Voice’s laments and he wished that he could talk to it the same way he did with Angeline. Hours elapsed before he could account for the damage caused to his self-esteem, because in the end, he didn’t want to get out of bed. The next day at the office, Colin feared the world.
Two people skipped work, making the office emptier than the day earlier. As Colin walked past the door, a grave shout greeted him:
“Colin, come here now!”
He went to Mr. Alden’s room, aware of his immortality, yet shaking. The man’s angry voice had the power of authority, being Colin’s superior on all fronts.
“We’re damn late on the schedule already! Where are the roughs I asked you for yesterday? Everybody went home and left nothing for me to see? I want to see it now, do you think I’m joking? This is urgent stuff, OK, urgent stuff! Quit being an amateur and start acting like a serious person, for God’s sake.”
“Ther ... there was nothing in the papers indicating th—”
“Shut up! Just shut up! Get those papers you took from me and do something useful for once.”
The real world, in his face, scary now, in the underground city, scary then, in old Terra. Mr. Alden imposed himself, the absolute boss, arousing fear and shame in the same intensity he'd always done. Colin got back to his computer and Jason, two chairs next to him, sang a melancholic melody using the World Voice’s words.
“I’m worthless and alone, the world is burned and gone, send to me some company, get me out of this agony ...”
He sympathized, but he had hopes. His heart warmed all of a sudden, with Angeline's arrival. Late as usual, embarrassed, she wore the same clothes from the other day, the smell of sweat and bad breath following her body. She entered the room while locked away in her own world, quiet even while her computer started up. Colin, by her side, waited for her to settle down, and she did so without g
iving him or anybody any attention.
“Do you still want to run away, Angeline?” Colin whispered to her.
“I tried it,” she said. “The world didn’t change.”
Her eyes burned with angst, wet and reddened, the eyes of a person who'd spent the whole night awake. The town was tiny and Colin imagined her walking every street alone and stopping at every dead-end. If he knew that, he wouldn't have lay down on his bed listening to the World Voice all night long.
“This is a worthless life ... How could someone do this to me ... To create me just to watch me suffer ... Who trapped me in here?”
It had an impact on the recreation of his life, out of his control, slowly corroding the ones he loved the most. Another day inside their safe haven, how far would their madness advance? If he wanted success, he had to fight the Voice’s power.
“Run away with me, Angeline. We can go anywhere we want.” He whispered again.
“I don’t believe you anymore. You’re more in love with your job than with anything else,” she said.
“That’s not ... that’s not right. Angeline, please ... Angeline, I love you.”
She breathed heavily, turning her face to him. She pressed her eyes, investigating his face's contractions, looking for sincerity. At that stage, her distressed countenance expressed misery in levels Colin couldn't begin to fathom. He waited for her reaction, caressing her curly hair that fell disheveled on her shoulder.
Angeline stood up. She went to the kitchen area and locked herself in the small bathroom, walking stiffly like a stone. Colin watched her go and waited for her return, as his job had lost all meaning. The circumstances became too strange to allow for mundane worries. She came out after two minutes, carrying several curls of her black hair between fingers. Her head lost its harmony, deformed by the awkward cuts she inflicted on her strands, shaved into baldness on one side. She delivered her cut hair on Colin’s computer table and got back to work.
∙ 17 ∙ Mad creations
Colin’s wardrobe melted first in his bedroom. He opened it in the middle of the night because he heard noises, and its door crumbled, detached. It fell to the floor, dissolving into a soft mass of molten wood. To have it back, he could simply imagine a new wardrobe and wish for it. He did so, and it showed up intact again. To do the same for his confined world's melting people, though, involved a moral harm he couldn't handle.
Like a corpse in his coffin, Colin waited for the passage of time on his bed. His parents slept on the first floor, each at one kitchen corner, and every time he tried to take them upstairs to their room, they got back to their chosen spots. He spent the hours looking through his opened window. The night in there grew to become an evening in a big warehouse, quiet, wide, jailed.
He heard noises in front of his house. Banging sounds got closer to his bedroom, coming from outside. A hand showed up from beneath the window, soon followed by Mr. Alden's head. Colin stood up and stared at his boss, helping him come in.
“You should be working, what the hell are you doing here at home? Am I paying you to sleep, hm, is that how you treat me after all the trust I had in you?” Mr. Alden said.
“Sir, it’s 2 am, speak quietly, please. You can’t expect me to be at the office at this time,” Colin said.
“You dropped your responsibilities, you abandoned your duties, that’s what. You did nothing of what I asked you to do, and you think you can get back home and have sweet dreams while I can’t get any sleep just thinking about your inaction? No, I’m going to take you back to work right now, yes, you owe me this one, let’s go, move over, you’re going to show your worth now.”
“OK, OK, Mr. Alden, I’ll go with you, just calm down. Here, I’ll show you the way out of the house, there’s no need to jump out the window.”
They left through the porch, after silently walking downstairs to avoid waking up Colin’s mad parents. The street slept in dead dreams, empty, an abandoned scene. The boss went ahead, leading his employee, his true leader's shoes crushing the concrete at every step.
Few light splotches highlighted the sky's black ceiling, lampposts shining with the strength of fantastic energy. Roads opened in broad gaps through houses, devoid of cars. Trees on the sidewalk stood motionless under the windless atmosphere, their thick leaves giving them a fake look. Feet banged on the asphalt, a promenade in a huge echo chamber.
Mr. Alden stopped in front of Angeline’s house. It had only one floor, its main window slid sideways. He put his head inside and soon entered with his whole body. Colin grabbed his shirt to hold him back, scared at the man’s invasion.
“You’re breaking into people’s houses! Someone will call the police,” Colin said.
“They’d better call, so that they may know my employees walked out of my company and refused to comply with our contract. They’d better call the police, they better—” Mr. Alden said.
“Can’t you just wait for the morning? The world is not going to end until then, you know that!”
“Nobody’s sure of that,” Angeline said.
She watched TV in the room next to them, awaken. Her partially cut hair dripped on her shoulder, tomato sauce decorated around her mouth, and her eye bags pierced her skin to the depths of her brain. Mr. Alden marched towards her, took the remote control from the couch, and turned the TV off. In the dark, Colin turned the lights on.
“Get to work now. Now! Go do something with your life, young lady, you’re wasting it in here,” Mr. Alden said.
“I don’t care about that job. If you want to stay here, sit down, and let’s chat, but don’t you dare speak of work to me. I’m sick and tired of that crap,” Angeline said.
“Worthless chatting, what a stupid idea. Get up now, come on, Colin is coming too, let’s all head back to the office and take care of the accumulated stuff you left in there.”
“No way. I quit. You can have your dumb job or find another idiot to do things for you. Are you happy now? Good luck with that project, you’ll need it.”
Mr. Alden pressed his lips and clenched his teeth, shaking his head to reprove Angeline’s behavior. He turned his back on her to leave the house, calling Colin to go with him. She turned the TV on again and invited Colin to stay.
“Leave him alone. He’s crazy, and life’s too short to work on useless projects. We can talk if you stay.”
“Don’t listen to that witch! Look at the state of her, such a dirty woman, I bet she hasn’t showered for days. Let’s get to work, Colin, let’s keep the world moving.”
Colin followed his boss out of the house. They walked together for one block, then they parted ways, Colin sneaking out of the man's sight. He wouldn't go to the office with him.
To go to the world’s surface, Colin headed to the main street's end. He turned right on a dead-end path, surprised by all the trash someone had placed in there. Pulling broken chairs and rotting food, he cleared the passage to a hidden door at the town’s wall. He then climbed the steep stairs, opening and closing all the intermediate barriers he crafted to avoid the leakage of his own world into that of OOOO.
He hoped to see a blue sky, the Terra of his dreams, because living again with the people from his old life had a nostalgic effect in his mind. Purple dominated the vastness of space, though, even without air to give it color, for the void itself was tinged that way.
Colin came out from a hatch on the melting ground and met a wide expanse of flattened land in all directions. The buildings and mountains that still resisted before he took shelter in his safe haven had crumbled, and their semi-liquid remains flowed through new rivers of sadness.
Slime disgusted him, gorging on his feet, it disconcerted him. He halted to look for OOOO’s presence, and he began to sink, falling prey to quicksand. To avoid getting trapped, he wandered aimlessly.
Far to his right, big gray stones raised from the surface, covered in mud, under the World Voice's great pillar. On the horizon, the world's rugged surface felt the pressure of gravity and its indentations
leveled down. To his back, the biggest mound his eyes could see had two black dots on its top. He ran there.
At the mound’s base, Colin waved at the figures at the top, flailing both his arms in a vain attempt to be seen. He made his presence known not by his sight, but by mere existence. The telepath found him.
“Here to rejoice in the beauty of me, at last?” Bibi said.
“I need to talk to OOOO. Tell it that, please. It must help me,” Colin said.
“We’re playing a game now, sorry. Come here and tell it yourself. Perhaps you can join us.”
“I have no time for games.”
“Yes, you do. We all do,” Bibi said.
Colin reached the top with difficulty, slipping at every step, using his hands to find more support. His fingers sunk in the mud, which he used as clamps to help his climb. Near the summit, he heard his companionship's excited words.
”—immaterial swimmers feeding on falling grace,” OOOO said.
“Grace blocker through hellraising,” Bibi said.
“Pulses of hyperactivity to cause overexcitement and self-implosion.” OOOO noticed Colin’s arrival.
“Perpetual leapers of—”
“Look who’s back! You came to share your creations, didn’t you? Tell me, tell me all about it!”
“We were playing here. Don’t interrupt us,” Bibi said.
“I didn’t interrupt anything,” Colin said.
“I did it. We can continue later, can’t we? Let’s just give it a break for now. How is new Terra going?” OOOO said.
“Fine, fine. People are still alive, everybody is taking care of their business. But I need to ask you something, and—” Colin said.
OOOO interrupted jumping around in excitement. “It must be fascinating, must it not? When can I go there? I want to see it.”
“Listen to me, I have an important request to make.”
“Yes, please! It’s so interesting, isn’t it?” OOOO touched Colin, trying to fit in with him.