At one minute to work time, Arlo stood morosely beside Supervisor Goodspeed. “Call me Roger,” the supervisor said. Arlo would try to remember. They were about to meet his training officer. ‘Officer’ wasn’t really the term that Supervisor Goodspeed Call Me Roger had used for the employee that Arlo would shadow throughout the work day. But Arlo thought of the as yet unseen employee as an officer because Arlo felt like he was in prison. A colorless tan prison filled with tan furniture, walls, and carpeting. His coffee tinted to tan clothing matched the prison/office space so perfectly that he seemed to blend right into the walls and carpeting. One more bland piece of furniture that no one would notice. The horror.
“Jolene,” Roger’s bland voice droned from the door to the bland cubicle before him.
“Yes, Roger,” a faintly familiar female voice drifted out.
“You have a trainee.”
Arlo looked upon the face of his jailer. A face with perfect makeup, perfect hair, and perfectly clean, not at all coffee tinted clothing.
“It’s you,” he said.
A nervous titter escaped his throat at the strangeness of seeing her again so soon.
“Do you remember me?” he asked hopefully.
Please, God, let someone somewhere remember.
Arlo couldn’t imagine anything worse than being ignored. Or forgotten.
“Arlo,” the ice princess said.
“Yeah!” Arlo smiled wide, pleased. “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.” He winked at her.
He’d never been very good at flirting.
Gillian slapped him in the chest with a manila folder. “Copy room. End of hall,” she practically growled.
Ooh. Feisty. Nice.
“Oof,” he said, puffing out his cheeks and pretending to be hurt by the folder. Women love it when guys are funny.
He laughed lightly at his joke and turned on a heel to walk the length of the hall to the copy room. Today was looking like a good day.
Remember
Arlo stood stock still and watched the woman in the black skirt and jacket cross the last square of sidewalk to enter the door of the coffee shop. She seemed oblivious to his stare. Oblivious to the crowds that acted like players on a stage, moving carefully to the left or right to intentionally block her path, forcing her to cringe and speed toward her caffeinated destination.
Arlo watched the white-haired couple in the loud lounge shirts with the dancing hula girls follow the woman through the door. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he checked (for the twentieth time) the perfect picture that reflected back from the mirrorlike surface of his perfectly uncracked phone screen.
Arlo had not imagined it. Of that he was certain. For the first time in… forever… he remembered something.
Every day of Arlo’s life felt exactly the same as the one before… until yesterday. Yesterday, all of his troubles seemed so far away… until Arlo discovered a secret. Something of vital importance. Something that made him question if his reality/life was just an illusion. A nightmare.
Approaching the mirrorlike surface of the black glass door that looked almost exactly like a man-sized version of his phone screen, Arlo caught his reflection staring back at him. Arlo loved his own reflection. He had been diagnosed with what the shrink called a Borderline Personality with a hearty splash of Narcissism. He loved being loved. That was why Arlo posted every minute detail of his (really woefully average) life on the internet. Every artfully designed plate of overpriced delicacies. Every wall of trash that some ingenious entrepreneur convinced the masses was “art” at every experience that wasn’t an experience at all but merely an excuse to pump coins from already cash-strapped souls desperate for affirmation.
Like Comment Share. The mantra of an entire generation.
Averting his eyes to the bulletin board to break the connection with his lovely reflection, Arlo read the words written in red on the white board: ‘You can check out any time you like, but you can never leaf’ with a comically drawn maple tree leaf with a smiley face on it scrawled underneath.
It was meant to be funny, surely, but Arlo did not laugh. His nervous giggle did not rear its reasonably attractive head to break the awkward silence as he waited patiently just outside the door. Closing his eyes, he listened to the subtle sounds drifting out from inside the coffee shop: People talking softly. The thunk of a coffee cup coming to rest on a counter. The clack clack of heels against scratched Pergo planks approaching.
Arlo drew in a deep breath and braced against the glass. At the first hint of a shove, he yanked the handle outward toward himself and stared triumphantly at the shocked woman framed in the doorway.
“We meet again,” Arlo said dramatically, “For the first time.”
“What the hell?!” Gillian yelled. “Are you insane?”
“Yes,” Arlo nodded sagely. “But also… not insane at all. I know where we are. We’re in… the Matrix.”
Gillian stepped around him, coffee in hand, and continued walking down the cracked sidewalks crowded with suddenly still walkers. She didn’t seem to notice how strange it was that everyone and everything around them was frozen in time. But Arlo noticed. There- a bike messenger who’d mowed him down as he crossed the street. There- a man in a yellow hat who’d asked him the time. There- a kid with a melting ice cream cone who’d cried as the pink froth dripped down his hand to the ground… frozen halfway between now and forever in the blazing heat baking the bizarre scene.
Arlo scurried along beside her, dodging the silent strangers who came to life as they passed- a curious mix of still life ahead and unhampered movement behind as the players went on with their day in the wake of Gillian and Arlo’s passing.
“Did you hear what I said?” Arlo asked.
Gillian ignored him. She didn’t like people. And people who spouted Science Fiction and conspiracy theories- least of all.
Arlo stuck by her side as she crossed the street. “Street” being a pretty liberal term for the one long lane that ran through Downtown. More like dirt road covered with a healthy layer of gray gravel. No cars ever went down the lane through Downtown. Only bicycles. Bicycles of every hue imaginable- white, yellow, green, black, blue, and red. A veritable rainbow of color that splashed against the bland background of the world they lived in. And of course, the people. Men, women, children in duds of pale, washed-out tones that appeared even more drab by the occasional pop of color from a bright blue scarf or yellow hat.
The sliding doors of the office building where Gillian worked glided open on greased rails to greet them. Stepping on the tan tile in her tan heels, Gillian began a beeline for the restroom, Arlo at her right.
He smiled triumphantly as she stopped, mid-step, just outside the door to the unisex. She pivoted to face him with a strange expression on her face.
“I don’t need to use the bathroom,” she said softly.
Arlo nodded, a nervous giggle escaping even though he’d fought tooth and nail to hold it back.
“Neither do I,” he said.
“Do you know…” she said with a far-off look, “A lot of famous people have died on the toilet…”
“I did know that,” Arlo said. “There have been a few kings throughout history that were murdered on the toilet actually. I think one was even stabbed with a spear from underneath...”
Gillian’s eyes opened wide as he recounted this brief, horrific history lesson.
“Pretty bad way to go, for sure,” Arlo said, “Alone. But at least a death like that is remembered. Worse to be forgotten.”
“Dying alone doesn’t frighten me,” Gillian said.
She glanced at her wristwatch. Fifteen minutes to get to her desk. She spun on her heel and marched toward the staircase that would lead to her floor.
“Where are you going?” Arlo asked, trotting to keep up with her stilted pace.
“To work,” she said matter-of-factly.
Who was this guy? her sneer seemed to say.
“But…” he muttered.
His steps slowed and he stopped on the landing. Gillian hurried on, leaving him behind in the beige stairwell that led up and down to nowhere in particular. He had been so sure that she saw.
Taking a deep breath to center himself, Arlo took a quick mental stock of his current situation. Somehow, he had broken out of the loop. Gillian, on the other hand, was apparently still sipping the powdered fruit drink and blundering blindly through the maze. He would need to go through the motions of another today. How I long for yesterday.
Arlo trudged up the steps to the second floor, turning down the first hall to the left and approaching the rotund receptionist waiting for him to enter into the bubble of her existence. The moment he passed over the halfway demarcation of door to desk, she looked up, cat’s eye spectacles facing him as she smiled mechanically.
“Hello. How may I help you?”
Her nametag read, ‘Bertha Brobdingnagian.’
“Arlo Black to see Supervisor Goodspeed,” he said for the who really know how many nth time.
Bertha punched a button on the multiline phone and repeated his words back into the receiver. A moment later, she hung up and motioned him through the door to the infernal internal offices.
Roger Goodspeed sat behind a large desk inside a glass booth around the first corner of the hallway under a large sign with the word ‘Farewell’ written in elaborate letters under an upside-down horseshoe. He looked exactly like how one would not expect a boss to look.
Roger wore a short-sleeve, button-up dress shirt that was at least two sizes too big for his painfully thin frame, and yellowing under the armpits with a nostalgically wide tie hand painted by a novice artist. What was supposed to be a herd of palominos racing majestically across a desert looked instead uncannily like a herd of white cats prancing across a sand box. Or was it a litter box? Anyway, the “artist” clearly had never seen a horse before but may’ve been uncomfortably overly familiar with felines to paint them so fantastically.
No one in the office seemed to notice or care what Roger was wearing expect for Arlo, who was keenly aware of fashion faux pas. He cringed inwardly at the lurid kitty kat katastrophe on display and feared that he would suffer PTSD from the incident.
“So,” Roger’s dull voice drifted across the confines of his glass box to Arlo’s eardrums. “The agency sent you?”
Obviously.
On Roger’s desk was a small imitation wooden plaque with his title: Roger Goodspeed, Executive Assistant Supervisor in Charge Pro Tem painted in white letters.
“Yes, Supervisor Goodspeed,” Arlo said. “Arlo Black. Data entry.”
“Call me Roger,” Roger drawled.
Roger’s boring voice was soothing. Arlo’s immediate instinct at the sound was to close his eyes and fall asleep. As the circulated air began to dry out his irises, involuntary tears formed at the corners of his eyes.
“You will be shadowing a senior staffer,” Roger said.
“Do you think that’s necessary, Sir? The shadowing, I mean,” Arlo said. “I’m pretty good with the computers.” He chuckled lightly.
Roger blinked so slowly that each eyelash in his droopy lids was framed against his face for a full second.
“Call me Roger.”
Arlo sighed. “Yes, Roger.”
The monotonous man in the oversized and outdated outfit stood up from his desk and sauntered slowly past Arlo through the narrow doorway in the glass walls of his box/office.
“Follow me.”
“God speed,” Arlo whispered to himself.
“What was that?” Roger asked, facing away from Arlo.
“Nothing,” Arlo muttered.
Arlo fared fairly well at following the thin man through the narrow corridor. If he kept his mind on the task at hand, he could concentrate on walking just slow enough to not bump into Supervisor Goodspeed Call Me Roger’s backside.
They rounded a corner and the hall opened up into a large room filled with tiny roomlike spaces partitioned off by beige cloth covered walls. The cubicles were around 4 x 4. Barely big enough to squeeze in a modular desk and office chair. Most of the cubicles were empty. Only a handful contained engrossed employees typing on computer keyboards. Arlo gazed intently on the fourth cubicle before him. A thin placard hung on the nubby surface at face height. This plaque contained the name of his jailer, as far as Arlo was concerned. The one who presided over his life sentence.
Gillian was bent over her computer, nails clacking on the square keys of her wireless keyboard. Not one hair out of place. Next to Arlo’s stylishly rumpled locks, her precise do looked like a wig. A little too perfect.
“Helen,” Roger’s unvaried voice broached the silence.
“Yes, Roger,” she replied without raising her head.
“You have a trainee.”
Her fingers froze a full inch above the keyboard, casting a comical shadow puppet against the wall beside her like two spiders facing off for battle.
Arlo watched her chin lift, neck twisting to tilt in his direction as a brief but powerful wave of unreality washed over them both.
“We’re all just prisoners here,” he said.
Gillian reacted like he’d just shot her. Jerking back from her desk, her chair wheels squeaked in protest. The burgundy handbag beside her tipped over and a disturbing mix of cold coffee and makeup tipped out, rushing toward Arlo’s feet. He hopped back out of the way of the tiny tidal wave.
Arlo waited for a full minute for Gillian to say something. When she continued to mutely stare at him, he said, “So… you want to hand me those reports to copy?”
She frowned slightly and glanced down at the manila folder on her desk. She seemed to hesitate before picking it up and slowly holding it out for him at arm’s length.
“Thanks,” Arlo said. “Anything else I can do for you? Coffee?” He chuckled. “Actually, you probably wouldn’t trust me to get you a cup of coffee, would you?”
Gillian just blinked at him. Turning away, she rolled her chair forward and started typing as though he was no longer there.
“Oookkaayyy…” Arlo drawled. “Nice talking to you, Gillian. I’ll get right on this.” He headed down the hallway to the copy room to copy the same file as yesterday and who only knew how many days before that. It looked like today would be no exception.
Try Anything
Arlo fiddled with his phone. The glistening glass screen no longer gave him the same sense of fulfillment that it once had. Of course, the handheld cellular device was still beautiful. The black reflective surface perfectly smooth and unblemished. His face shining back at him from the dark depths. The unlimited access to apps available at his fingertips. But now it felt like a dead thing. A lifeless lump of glass and plastic heavy in his palm. No longer granting the warm, fuzzy feeling of happiness that he’d come to expect.
The clickity clack of heels on concrete pulled his gaze from his own mesmerizing reflection to the woman approaching the coffee shop. Arlo had speed walked down the sidewalk this morning to reach the corner before her. As she brushed past cactus planters, shoulder bag clutched tightly at her side, he darted forward to intercept her.
“Gillian,” Arlo greeted her, feet planted squarely in her path.
She stopped and looked at him with raised eyebrows. The sea of pedestrians slowed around her, tiny waves of individual walkers lapping against the edges of the walkway. The concentrated center of the horde of humans came to a standstill as she stared at the stranger hailing her.
“It’s me! Arlo.”
He gave her an awkward little wave, a nervous chuckle escaping for a moment before he could cover it with a cough.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
He held out a fist in front of her surprised face.
“If you take the blue pill…” he began but wasn’t able to finish his favorite quote before Gillian shoved past him.
“I’m trying to free your mind, Gillian,” Arlo said with sincerity. He was practically running to keep up with her stilted pace.
“Are you crazy?!” Her words drifted over her shoulder to his ears as she reached the door to Java Joe’s.
“Well... I don’t really like labels.”
Labels like: Borderline Personality Disorder. Or Narcissism. Or maybe just maybe A Complete and Total Break from Reality…
The white bulletin board placed smack dab in the center of the glass door perfectly at eye level made a stark contrast to the black glass. Written on the board in blood red letters were the words ‘You can’t fail if you never try.’
Arlo giggled nervously. Java Joe, you sly dog, you. Always reading my mind.
“What does that even mean?” Gillian asked softly.
“Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?” Arlo said from right behind her, thoroughly invading her wide personal space bubble.
The old couple in the island style shirts crowded close to Arlo. He could feel Time backing up again like a clogged toilet ready to regurgitate its unholy contents all over his holey couture jeans.
Gillian shoved the door to the shop open, barging toward the barista as Arlo stuck close to the heels of her heels, refusing to give her any space. He was determined to make her see… somehow.
“What’ll you have?” Joe Jr asked.
“A medium latte-ˮ Gillian started. Arlo interrupted. Blurting his own order on top of hers.
“A large caramel-ˮ
“With a single shot-ˮ
“Macchiato-ˮ
“Of espresso-ˮ
“Hot-ˮ
“Skim milk-ˮ
“Extra whipped cream.”
“Iced.”
Jr stared back and forth between the two of them with wide eyes, not tapping away at the register. Not sharpieing cups.
“Ummm…” Jr mumbled.
“You know what,” Arlo said with a wave of his hand. “Forget the coffee. We weren’t going to drink it anyway.”
Gillian spun in a drill instructor’s wet dream of an About Face to frown at him. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides and for one fleeting moment, Arlo wondered if she was going to hit him. Hey, at least it’d be a change of pace.
Hell Is Other People Page 5