MOAB � Mother Of All Boxsets

by George Saoulidis

  Then he went to work. It had been months since her death and things were crazy, but he had used up his paid-leave and he really needed to get back there. It was insane how much funerals cost, and his wife wasn’t really good with budgeting her credit cards. So he readied himself for the big coming back and stepped foot into work.

  It was a boring type of job, corporate, not even central offices, just the offshoot offices they send people who do inane work for inane hours and nobody wants to see their miserable faces around. The building was grey and ageing, bought from some public use so it was practically condemned. They were inhaling asbestos and rat feces in there, but nobody cared and nothing ever got fixed.

  He got a lukewarm welcome at work. Some people said their condolences, others just nodded and said hi. Some patted his back. His boss called him in, spoke in platitudes, we’re here for you, this is your family, yada yada.

  Then he got back to his cubicle and started working. The specifics of his job are not important. For while he worked, he couldn’t help but see himself in bird’s eye view, like the holoselfie would if he used it in here.

  What would it see?

  A guy–with a patch of baldness on the back of his head that everyone could see but which he ignored because he couldn’t notice it in the mirror–hunched over a keyboard, sipping his coffee. And the coffee wasn’t even that good, but the holoselfie wasn’t yet advanced enough to have taste, but you could see it. The surroundings in which you experience some food or drink matter as much as the cooking. It was impossible to taste anything other than miserable coffee in this miserable place.

  He did do something: he went to pee a couple of times. He spoke to the man in the next cubicle, stretched his legs a bit.

  That was all.

  An entire 8-hour work day, seen from a bird’s-eye view.

  Pathetic, he thought, and it was his wife’s voice.

  How had it all changed like that? Tony used to be fun. Nah, he was never cool, but he was fun. Fun to be around, fun with his friends, fun with Alex. That’s why she fell in love with him. They had so much fun.

  Now, it was all bland and grey and pathetic.

  Tony clocked off work and went home, to find a wet bag of shit on his doorstep.

  A usual occurrence, after what Alex did. He got inside, took off his jacket, took some absorbing paper and a trash bag and threw the stinky thing away.

  It was hard for him to hate people. Losing eighteen kids is a good excuse to be mean to people.

  Tony kicked off his shoes.

  “Don’t track mud inside! I told you so many times, scratch them there by the door,” Alex yelled at him before turning back to wash dishes.

  “Yes, babe.” He obeyed his dead wife and then started a microwave meal.

  As the microwave spun, he watched his wife prepare dinner for him. He remembered what she didn’t like about that particular recording. “Ugh, those sandals, terrible. And that hair bun. Tsk, tsk, my posture, again. I keep forgetting to stand straight over the kitchen sink, that’s why my back hurts. And look at that, I scratched my butt without thinking. I told you, Tony, you need to notice these things so that I can stop doing them!”

  The microwave dinged.

  He pulled out the meal and sat in front of the smart TV. It noticed him sitting there so it turned itself open and played his favourite show.

  Tony caught himself thinking about the holoselfie. What would it record now? Misery. Yes, the surroundings were slightly better than the depressing office, but now it was the cooking itself that ruined the taste buds.

  He scratched his chin; there was stubble. He laughed at himself. This morning, when he was about to get in the bathroom and get shaved, his wife got in before him. He had forgotten she wasn’t really there and just skipped it and went to work. He was still stuck thinking about her as if she was more than a recording.

  He had an idea. He went to the holoselfie gadget, it was the newest thing in the house, and pushed the display. It showed a menu. “New user detected, keep recording and render last 24 hours?”

  He tapped “yes.”

  He didn’t look back at the gadget, ever again. He just left it there to do its job. Tony went about his daily rituals: shave, shower, fix the bed, read a book, sleep, wake up, get ready for work.

  His wife didn’t greet him. When the gadget recorded, it didn’t show anything until the next day. It needed to process the data or something like that. Tony never read the manual.

  He got ready for work, cleaned the new bag of shit from his porch and went to his 9 to 5.

  The work was the same. Even blander, if that was possible, because the novelty of him coming back had worn off. This time only a couple of co-workers greeted him, and he spoke only with one.

  Those were people he’d spent fifteen years of his life next to. He knew stuff about them, overheard conversations, saw their profiles and their photos. But did he even know them? Did they even know him?

  Did they show up at his wife’s funeral?

  No.

  Only the reporters did, and they got their news.

  Thankfully, they quickly forgot about him. Some other man might have put on a better show, been more dramatic, more newsworthy. Even the vultures knew that Tony was boring.

  Tony finished his eight-hour shift and went home.

  No bag. That was an improvement.

  He got inside, and started a microwave meal.

  He glanced at the gadget, it recorded religiously.

  He watched his favourite show, then cleaned up after himself and went to bed.

  He hit the snooze button. He checked the time. Twenty-four hours of holoselfie time. Twenty-four hours of his life, indicative of the entirety of his existence. Inane. Pathetic.

  The holoselfie showed himself on the bed, transparent, bluish, like his soul standing up and going out of his body. Even his bed placement was aligned, his life was that predictable.

  His holoselfie stood up and yawned, then started getting ready for work. His wife appeared, walking around the room.

  “You stupid man, can’t you see my nail polish is chipped?” his wife said.

  His holoselfie said, “Good morning, love.”

  Tony said nothing. He hooked his tie on the top of the door and hanged himself.

  His wife stormed into the bathroom, and his holoselfie forgot to get shaved for work.

  The End

  The Impossible Quest Of Hailing A Taxi On Christmas Eve

  The Impossible Quest Of Hailing

  A Taxi On Christmas Eve

  George Saoulidis

  A modern retelling of

  “A Christmas Carol”

  By Charles Dickens

  Stave One

  “Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that,” he read out loud from the first page and then shut the book closed. He exhaled, a puff of frozen breath forming in front of his mouth and said, “And this is supposed to be a fairytale? How morbid.”

  He held the book in his hands, a real, physical print of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. It was only a mass-produced cheap copy but it was vintage enough in this time and age. His late partner had left it on his desk, with a handwritten dedication for him. Scrooge never figured out why.

  His name wasn’t really Scrooge of course. He was John.

  People just called him like that, and the nickname stuck. It was just that every Christmas Eve since his business partner’s death on the exact same day, he was reminded of the man. Scrooge didn’t have any pictures or anything, just the worn old book in his drawer. He never got to read the thing, it was too dour. He just held it in his hands, feeling the paper, thinking. There’s something about the texture of books that appeals to people. The shiny, glossy surfaces of the reading devices nowadays just don’t evoke anything similar.

  Across the freezing office was his assistant, Clara. She was a single mother of one, in her late thirties and needed a new dye of blonde hair. She could have been attracti
ve, if she had managed to get some sleep, enough money to pay her bills and a miracle to lift the worry off her shoulders. She was an accountant, the only employee to Scrooge, and she ended up juggling every single job, manning the phones, doing the accounts, fixing technical issues with the techs, keeping the office livable with a couple of plants.

  She was currently rolled up in a blanket like a gyro wrap, shaking and sniffing her nose. The frigid office was dark, illuminated only by the lights outside, some colourful ones from the Christmas decorations, others simply street signs and lamp-posts, and also by the computer monitors on their desks. She was wearing knit colourful gloves and was tapping away on her phone, constantly stopping to check out something on her monitor by pressing a button, sighing, and then turning back to her phone. It was doing gling sounds all the time, filled with incoming and outgoing Christmas wishes to old friends and faraway family. The glove tips wouldn’t normally work on the touchscreen, but she had those popular touchscreen gloves with capacitive elements sewn in the fingers. It was a small comfort in the cold office.

  “Mr. Tsifoutis, it’s still not working,” she nagged to no one in particular.

  “The server works half the time, so it’s good enough. How many hours do you need to input a few accounts woman?” Scrooge grunted, his eyes not lifting towards her.

  “But I’m waiting for over an hour to finish this up and go home. The IT isn’t responding, they must have left the office for Christmas Eve.” She sniffed her nose. In the beginning, she was trying to do it quietly, discreet like a lady should, but after years and years of enduring a winter office she had just given up and pretty much blew her nose like a loud trumpet.

  “Bah! Customer service they call it! It’s the same thing every Christmas, you just can’t get any work done anywhere,” Scrooge spat out, his face turning sour.

  “People just want to go home to their families Mr. Tsifoutis,” she explained softly.

  He got the hint. “Days off with pay… In my day, you could work 14 hours a day 7 days a week and not get paid till four months later,” he said shaking his finger.

  She waited calmly for him to finish his rant, pulling up the blanket in a futile quest to make herself warm.

  “Christmas! Bah! Nothing but a marketing ploy, I tell you. Selling Christmas ornaments and Christmas gifts two full months before the holiday itself. And the waste of it all! The city lights, paid with my taxes. Stupid snow frosting on buildings, requiring money to put on and then money to clean off! A waste. They slap a Christmas packaging on products and mark-up the price by 30%!”

  “Thirty percent,” she nodded patiently.

  He still had more coming but he suddenly felt tired, so he sagged back into his chair. The back was worn and some screws were poking out of the lower back, making it really uncomfortable. He didn’t spare any cash to get new office chairs of course. They were fine and sturdy, they still had at least 10 years of good use. “Anyway, go home. I’ll finish up here and upload it in a while. You’re gonna drain my account anyway, you can have the day off tomorrow.”

  She stood up and smiled, putting her stuff in her bag, arranging her desk, pulling down the blinds.

  Scrooge grunted at her, “But I want you here the next day half an hour earlier!”

  “Yes mister,” she said, and watered the plants, cleaned up her cup of tea, picked up his cup and put a new cup of water in the boiler. She left it boiling, cleaned up the tiny little kitchen, went to turn off the Christmas lights she had brought to decorate the office, remembered Mr. Scrooge had already demanded her to stop wasting power and turned it off, went back to her desk and sent the accounts of the day to her boss, went to his desk, threw away the trash, dusted off his hanging coat, leaned to his computer, pulled up the accounts so he could update them as soon as the server was running again, went back to the kitchen, poured hot tea, brought it to his desk savouring its warmth for a second too long, stood in front of his desk ready to leave and then said goodnight.

  “Good night Clara,” Scrooge said with the tone a boss has when he allows his employee to leave.

  “Maybe we should do the upgrade Mr. Tsifoutis,” she said hesitantly. “Our service depends on it, it’s been years. I’ve shown you the cost, it’s not that high and…”

  Scrooge raised his hand interrupting her, “I know. I’ll think about it.”

  She was referring to their service, which was their object of trade really. Scrooge was running an accounting internet service for small businesses. Despite that their platform hadn’t been updated in, pretty much ever, they were still competitive due to their low prices. The cost was kept down of course, by skimping on things like proper furniture, internet hosting, required employees and, office heating.

  “Merry Christmas sir,” she said cordially and turned to the door.

  “Bah. A marketing ploy I tell you. Don’t you listen to anything I say woman?”

  “Of course I do, but Merry Christmas anyways,” she said and she meant it.

  As she was opening the door, Scrooge’s cousin showed up. He was fat and huge and was always huffing from exertion, making his cheeks red. He made a great Santa Claus, so he showed up in costume. “Hello Miss Clara! Merry Christmas to you,” he said and presented a small gift to her. “For your son.” Then he reached into his red Santa bag and fished out a party horn as well.

  “Merry Christmas Mr. Tsifoutis,” she smiled back. “I’m sure he’ll love it.”

  “Ho ho ho!” the cousin bellowed out and then leaned in to whisper, “Is Scrooge still here?”

  “Yes,” she replied, “Go right in, he’s just waiting for the system to unfreeze.”

  “Unfreeze? Why, in this cold it might take some time,” he said with jolly, half-stepping in the office.

  She sneezed and then blew her nose loudly like a trumpet, that echoed into the corridors. Cousin Santa blew his own party horn in a similar note.

  They both laughed and wished each other happy holidays.

  Scrooge hid his face in his palms. He didn’t really want to face his cousin, he was dodging his invite for days.

  The cousin Santa came in and bellowed, “Ho ho ho dear cousin!” and blew his party horn, in a loud prrr. He then went to the decorated Christmas lights and turned them on, illuminating the place in various flickering colours.

  Scrooge stood up and ran to the lights, turning them off. “Are you trying to bankrupt me man?”

  “Come on, a few LEDs wont make a real difference. Be merry! Be jolly!” he said, blowing his party horn and turning the Christmas lights on again.

  Scrooge turned them off. “Bah! It’s just a marketing ploy.”

  Santa turned them on. “Will you come to our Christmas dinner tomorrow?”

  Scrooge turned them off. “No. I have work to do at home. Clara won’t be coming to work tomorrow, I have to keep up the pace.”

  Santa turned them on. “You can’t possibly work on Christmas Day! Come to us for dinner. There’ll be turkey! And sweets! And chocolate. We’ll have a merry old time…”

  Scrooge turned them off. “A waste, overpriced dinners when you can’t afford them. Don’t be coming to me for loans in a few weeks.”

  He was referring of course, to actual loans. He’d never lent out money just like that, not even to family, whatever little of both he had left. They were actual personal loans, signed in triplicate, incurring interest at “market average” rates.

  Santa sighed and gave up. “Fine. I know you’ve seen my invitation days ago. I know the message I left to Clara was passed to you. This is just some excuse, I don’t know why you don’t want to spend the holiday with family. Anyway, the offer stands. Our door is always open for you,” he said, blew out the party horn one last time, though it was something sad this time, and left.

  Scrooge shut the door and sat back down to his uncomfortable office chair. He pressed a button on his computer and waited for the server to respond. It took more than two minutes for it to spit out an “error: unreachable” me
ssage.

  It was fine. He could wait. The hosting service he used was the cheapest one there is, and that meant it was poorly maintained and came with customer support that didn’t really care.

  He picked up the tea, that was scalding hot when Clara brought it but now was barely warmer than the freezing room, and sipped, while staring outside into the dark Christmas Athens. It was still afternoon but it was already pitch going for black.

  Someone knocked on the door and he stood up, protesting loudly all the way. “What now? I told you I won’t come to the damn dinner,” he mumbled and opened the door.

  He looked down and saw three little children, fluffed out with big coloured coats and knit caps and gloves. The girl was Romani, the boy was Greek and the second boy was Nigerian.

  They cheered in unison, “Na ta poume?” which was the protocol of Christmas Carol initiation. They didn’t really have the patience to wait for a proper reply so they began jingling away their little triangles and singing.

  It was so merry and sweet.

  Scrooge yelled at them and shushed them. “Stop this racket! Stop at once. Who told you to start with this cacophony?”

  They extended their little gloved hands and waited for their treat. Their paycard was in hand, a simple tap from another would confirm a small-amount transaction instantly.

  “I’m not giving you anything, you little extortionists! Coming here uninvited, mangling out a couple of verses and then demanding payment. No. And you, aren’t you a Muslim?” he said and pointed at the little Roma girl.

  “We like Christmas, it’s a time for family and happiness,” she replied with her sweet little voice. “That’s what mommy says,” she added.

  Scrooge squinted. “Do you know how insane that is? Celebrating the birth of Christ from another religion? Tell your mother that I won’t be fooled by those pigtails and those big round eyes. A fine scam, if you ask me. Getting money every year without a receipt,” he nodded.