As Roger watched, a piece of popcorn fell from her hand and landed on her lap to join the tiny pile of greasy kernels already staining her silk pjs.
“Glenda?” Roger asked.
“Ack!” Arlo barked and slapped a hand over Roger’s mouth before he could say one more word. “We’re finally making real progress here. Don’t go resetting it all now.”
“What?”
“Look,” Arlo said. “This place is…” He glanced around. “I don’t know, some kind of alternate reality or something. And there’s something wrong with it. Haven’t you noticed the people that don’t move? Or how you never seem to be able to remember what happened before?”
“Down the rabbit hole,” Roger said sedately.
“Exactly!” Arlo yelled, suddenly excited. “And Gillian and I discovered it, but every day you reset things and it starts all over again.”
“What? How could I do that? I don’t have the authority to do anything but file paperwork, send emails, and meet new hires.”
“I don’t know.” Arlo shrugged and a nervous chuckle escaped his lips before he could bite it back. “But it has to be you. You’re the one constant here, Roger.”
The sudden shift of color on the TV drew both Arlo and Roger’s eyes to the screen. The bright colors of the game show were gone. The screen was all white with blocky bright red letters across it that read: 404 ERROR. FILE NOT FOUND.
Form 37B
Roger blinked and glanced slowly around his office. What happened? The last thing he remembered was standing in Gloria’s living room with Arlo Black.
As the lights subtly brightened, Roger glanced at the bright red numbers reflected on the glass wall. 7:29 AM. The unnerving sound of running footsteps on carpeted flooring in the hallway caught his attention. Roger glanced at the door to his office in mild surprise as the new hire ripped open the glass door and bounded into the room. Arlo panted slightly as he bent over at the waist, hands on his knees before Roger’s desk, catching his breath.
“It’s later,” Arlo wheezed. “Let’s try again.”
“So,” Roger said. “The agency sent you?”
Arlo paused from his panting to stare incredulously at the spiritless supervisor. “Seriously?”
“Call me Roger.”
Arlo hung his head in defeat. A low groan of frustration rumbled out to fill the sterile silence of the workspace.
“You will be…” Roger said.
Arlo stood up abruptly and marched out of the office, swinging the door closed so forcefully behind him that the glass rattled in the frame.
“…shadowing a senior staffer,” Roger finished.
The harsh buzz of the intercom sounded loud in Roger’s tiny glass box of an office.
“Yes,” Roger said into the speaker.
“Roger, you have a call on Line 1,” Bertha said over the speaker. “It’s someone from accounting.”
Roger sighed. “Okay.”
He tediously tapped the tiny button next to the blinking red light and Phil’s angry voice immediately carried over the speaker. The pedantic pencil pusher was positively livid.
“You do realize that the inmates have taken over the asylum, yes?” Phil barked.
“I don’t…” Roger started.
“Your drones keep missing their shifts. How are we supposed to keep the hive running smoothly without worker bees?”
“Well…”
“I realize that you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, seeing as you are barely competent enough to answer the phone, let alone fix this mess. But I’m getting yelled at by the higher ups.”
“I’ll handle it,” Roger said.
“You couldn’t handle your hose with both hands,” Phil snapped. “I’ve been crunching the numbers. Your charges have been late and/or missing from their desks seventeen times now. Often only by fractions of a second, but on a few notable instances, by minutes. And I was just informed that not only is one of your employees missing for the second day in a row, your new temp just walked out. Again.”
“Ummm,” Roger said. “I’m not sure what you want me to…”
“I need you to fill out triplicate form 37B,” Phil said. “Get it to me before the end of the day. And review the handbook about insubordinate charges. They are your responsibility. Get them back in line now, or else. There are worse jobs than supervisor, you know.”
Roger swallowed the large ball of anxiety lodged in his throat like a toad. “I’ll do my best.”
“No,” Phil said. “Your best isn’t good enough. Do someone else’s best.”
“O…kay…” Roger said.
Phil abruptly disconnected the call. Rising ponderously from his padded office chair, Roger trudged through the hallway to Bertha’s receptionist station. He stood in front of her desk and let out a long sigh.
“Yes, Roger?”
“I need triplicate form 37B,” he said. “And a current handbook.”
Bertha’s eyebrows rose in surprise above her glasses, nearly disappearing into the bangs of her impressive coiffure. Rising regally from behind her receptionist counter, she retreated to the rack of open cubbies on the wall behind her, filled with stacks of paperwork in every hue under the heavens...uh make that halogens.
Bertha grunted with the effort required to lift a massive stack of pink and yellow sheets from the cubby in the exact center of the wall and carry it to the counter where Roger waited. The form fell with an audible thud onto the Formica surface, one lone top sheet floating lazily in the air before settling to rest on the sizable stack.
Form 37B was a foot-thick sheaf of paper that the accountants created to torture supervisors. It wasn’t really in their job description to torture but they received a sinister satisfaction from forcing subordinates to prepare paperwork by hand.
For some reason, Phil had apparently taken a special interest in Roger. Receiving special interest from the accounting department was not something to be excited about. But it’s not as though Roger got excited about anything.
Every day of Roger’s life felt exactly the same as the one before. Roger had been handling the data entry division for nearly as long as he could remember. Roger suffered from an overabundance of apathy, a condition which made it nearly impossible for him to function at anything other than sitting at his desk day in and day out, typing emails, answering calls, and waiting to introduce one damned soul to another. It wasn’t a very good job but at least, until lately, it was easy.
“Form 37B,” Bertha said as she pulled a small brown pamphlet from below the counter. “And a current handbook.”
Bertha dropped the handbook on top of the giant pile of multi-colored paper. Roger stared morosely at the mountain of mindless paperwork for a moment before forcing himself to scoop it up in his arms and turn for the door.
“Where are you going?” Bertha asked.
“The watering hole,” Roger said. “I might be awhile.”
As Roger approached the door to the coffee shop, he was relieved to see an older couple in Aloha shirts coming out just as he was about to go in. The woman held her cup of iced green tea in one hand and pressed her hip against the door, holding it open so that Roger could enter without having to shift his armload of paperwork.
“Thank you,” Roger said.
“Your circus, your monkeys,” the woman answered.
“What?” Roger asked, confused.
She and her husband nodded toward the sign on the door. The epithet was scrawled in large red letters across the whiteboard.
“Huh,” Roger said. “Okay.”
The woman stepped away from the door as soon as Roger crossed the threshold and the black glass panel swung closed behind him. It was empty in the shop. The only other soul in sight was Joe Jr, waiting patiently behind the register. He glanced from Roger’s eyes to the impressive pile of papers in his arms and said, “Rough morning?”
Roger sighed heavily and dropped the form on the nearest table. The spindly piece of furniture shuddered
under the weight.
“Missing employees.”
“Uh oh,” Jr said. “Form 37B?”
Roger nodded. “Phil needs it filled out by the end of the day.”
“Bureaucrats,” Jr muttered.
Roger’s heart stuttered slightly. “What did you say?”
“I said the whole accounting office is a bunch of bureaucrats.”
As if on cue, Arlo walked in to the coffee haus at that moment. Roger heard the faint shush of the door swinging open behind him and knew that it had to be the tardy temp without even looking.
“Hey, Joe,” Arlo called to the barista behind the counter. “Hey, Roger,” he said as he breezed past Roger to pick up two cups of coffee waiting on the counter.
Arlo turned around with the cups in his hands and cocked his head slightly at the foot-tall form on the table before Roger.
“What’s that?”
“A form,” Roger said. “The accounting department noticed that my employees keep missing shifts. This is my punishment.” His eyes drooped in defeat as he considered the mound of menial busywork morosely.
“Your circus, your monkeys,” Jr said.
“Really?” Arlo seemed highly interested. He set the paper coffee cups down on the little table, and sat on a stool beside Roger to look at the first page. “Truancy and/or Job Abandonment by Worker Class Cells aka Drones must be handled in a most expeditious manner. Failure to properly correct errant behavior by charges will result in the handler being severely punished…” He glanced up at Roger in surprise. “Roger, what exactly do you do at Forever Pharma?”
“Well…” Roger said. “I…” He furrowed his brow in thought. “I…”
Arlo pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Holding it above the table, he snapped a pic of the top sheet and uploaded it to his Instagram. He hadn’t posted a new entrée or cactus photo for a while and his followers might be disappointed by the unexciting snapshot, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t for them. It was for himself.
An interesting thing that Arlo had discovered was that while time seemed to reset every day, the posts he shared through social media never went away. Even the embarrassing or strange ones. Especially if a post received a negative comment. That shit got retweeted and shared for all eternity.
“I mean,” Roger continued mumbling nonsensically, not realizing that the man he was attempting to explain his job duties to no longer cared, because he had become once again distracted by his handheld link to the universe. “My main duty is just to connect experienced workers with new trainees.”
“Right,” Arlo said absently. “But what do you really do there, Roger?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Okay,” Arlo said. “Never mind. How about this, next time you see Phil, give him a message for me, alright?”
Roger shrugged. “Sure. I suppose. What message?”
The First Step
7:31 AM. The little accountant was standing in front of Roger’s desk with his hands braced on the faux wood. His chest was so swelled in anger that he was in danger of popping a button on his navy-blue vest.
Roger blinked slowly. Phil was steaming. Literally. The man’s bald pate was so red and sweaty that a haze of superheated air rose from the glistening surface.
“I said I needed that form by the end of the day!” Phil yelled.
“Ummm…” Roger mumbled. He glanced around at his desk. No form in sight.
“Go tell Bertha you need another one, and if it’s not completed and on my desk in the next hour… you don’t want to know what will happen!”
“Phil. I need to tell you something.”
“What?” Phil snapped.
Roger’s brow furrowed in thought. He knew there was something very important he was supposed to say. But he couldn’t quite remember…
Phil turned to go, giving up on Roger’s scatter-shot memory.
“Oh!” Roger said. “Arlo Black wanted me to tell you that ‘He’s on to you’.” Roger frowned. “Do you know what that means?”
Phil didn’t answer. He just abruptly stalked out of the room, slamming the clear glass door behind him.
As the angry accountant stormed off down the hall, Roger could no longer deny that strange things were afoot at the office. Until very recently, Roger had been, if not happy at his job, at least semi-content in a listless, bland sort of way. Each day of his life felt exactly the same as the one before. Boring and pointless. But Roger wouldn’t have expected anything else out of life. He’d always known that there was nothing special about him. He didn’t have a quirky but endearing personality. He didn’t have a reasonably attractive face, or an interesting sense of style. He didn’t even have any friends to spend his free time with. What he did have was a near crippling dose of depression and a mostly unsatisfactory supervisor job at Forever Pharma. But while his role as supervisor in charge pro tem wasn’t an especially good job, it was still better than a sharp stick in the eye. Probably.
Bertha was waiting behind the receptionist desk when he walked around the carpeted bend in the hallway. She stared blankly ahead, unmoving until Roger approached her. As he neared the corner of her counter, she craned her neck to look at him, cat’s eye glasses taking up most of her face. Her fire engine red lipstick was dark against her pale skin, and the massive brown beehive of her teased hair rose majestically above her. Roger was entranced.
“Yes, Roger?” she said.
“Bertha,” he said.
“Yes, Roger?” she repeated.
“I need…” He broke off, gazing curiously at the various forms in their neat little boxes lined up all along the wall behind her.
He had done this before. How many times before? And why? Why bother? He’d never get the proper paperwork filled out in time. His charges had abandoned ship. Phil would be angry at him no matter what. So, what was the point of it all?
“Would you like to go out sometime?” he asked.
She looked confused.
“See each other outside of the office?” he said.
She blinked a few times before turning on her heel and walking to the wall of cubbies behind her. Roger watched as she grabbed a giant stack of pink and yellow paper and carried it back to the counter. Dropping the pile with a plop, she pulled a small brown pamphlet from beneath the counter and set it on top of the foot-thick form.
“What’s this?” Roger asked.
“Form 37B,” she said. “And a current handbook.”
Roger sighed. Grabbing the handbook, he tucked it into his shirt pocket and turned to go, the ponderous paperwork left lying on the Formica surface.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I quit,” Roger said.
Turning dejectedly from the beautiful Bertha, he trudged through the door and left the office. As he shuffled across the beige carpet in the beige halls of the bland office building, Roger began to feel gradually better.
As he passed through the lobby, a few scratched letters above the sliding doors to the street caught his eye. Glancing up, he read the words carved into the concrete blocks by a sharp pocket knife:
‘We are all just prisoners here.’
It may have been meant as a warning. Or maybe simply a statement of the meaninglessness of existence. Roger found the phrase to be strangely comforting. Knowing he was a prisoner felt like the first step toward freedom.
When Roger wandered into the coffee shop a few minutes later, Joe Jr was waiting for him behind the order counter. The young-seeming barista with the pimply face and coffee stained apron cocked his head curiously at the thin man in the too-big work shirt and horribly hand-painted kitty cat tie.
“You seem different today, Roger,” Jr said.
Roger’s face slowly stretched as a smile spread across his features. Abandoning his job/life left him with a sense of lightness. The suffocating blanket of depression lifted and for the first time in forever he felt… good.
“I quit my job.”
“You…” Jr
glanced around the coffee shop quickly. “You what?”
“I’m sure there will be hell to pay in Accounting,” Roger said. “But I don’t care.”
“Does Phil know?”
Roger peered over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone with Jr in the shop. No bucolic bean counter in sight.
“He was steaming this morning. He had some form he wanted me to fill out. But I just decided that I didn’t care anymore. About anything.”
“You can’t just quit.”
Roger shrugged. It seemed pointless to argue whether or not he could do something that he’d already done. He glanced over at the order counter where two coffee cups waited to be picked up: one medium sized, one far too large to be healthy sized. Roger rose to grab the cups and put them in one of the pressed paper carriers sitting in a stack nearby.
“Whatever.” Roger shrugged. “It’s not as though I like my lot now. Sometimes change is good.”
He dropped a handful of coins in the empty tip jar beside the register with the little hand written note taped to the front that read ‘If you fear change, put it in here.’
“After all,” Roger said, “It’s not like things can get any worse.”
Part IV: Worse
Twilight Zone
Arlo hummed lightly to himself as he hurried down the sidewalk to Gillian’s apartment, weaving through burning Saguaro and frozen pedestrians. Gillian hadn’t shown at the coffee shop again this morning. Not surprising since she’d apparently given up caring a while ago. That attitude was wholly unlike her, and also a massive step in the right direction, as far as Arlo was concerned. She was finally starting to come out of her water-tight shell. She’d even sort of smiled at him yesterday.
Arlo reached the door to Apartment 42 and knocked briskly on the door. He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet happily as he waited for Sleeping Beauty to answer.
Hell Is Other People Page 8