Fear and loathing in the hills behind metropolis.

There's a creek that sits a dozen yards behind my house. Recently, I've gone down there after my Dad finally falls asleep, and taken what feels like real long walks down it. It doesn't seem that dangerous, a few crawfish and raccoons, but they don't bother nobody. Animals have always been real friendly to me anyways. If you walk far along enough down the creek, there's a bridge that supports the train tracks. Every Wednesday at 3 AM there'll be a train that stops on that bridge for a good 10 minutes or so. My Uncle who works at the yards tells me that it's a shipment of foodstuffs on its way to Memphis. Our town is its second to last stop. I get so tempted some nights to get inside of one of the train cars and make my way to the big city. I get scared that I'd miss my Ma, so I never do it. But one of these days, maybe after I finish 8th grade, I'll go there. Boys at school keep talking about how the wind storms gonna blow over this dirt trap, and I'd best get out of here as soon as I could. Georgia ain't as much fun as it used to be when I was young.

300 words or less.

 MY SOUL rests on an indigo night in the rainforest. Away from taxi cabs,overpriced delis, red lights and green lights. There are no economic theories here. Only a horizon that sits beyond the trees. There is no energy crisis. Only the tall glass of midnight oil sitting in the sky. 

 I sit at my cramped kitchen table, watching the clock drip past 3 A.M. Cigarette after cigarette breaks the boundary between me and the real world. I wait for the train to pass. A rumble in the jungle ever seven minutes, they say. There isn’t a perfect formula to living in this town, thus the need for 3 AM trains. 

 I forgot to close the bedroom door when I got up. Even as the light glares on her back, my wife doesn’t stir. She’s grown accustomed to these types of things. I used to be a salesman before I grew up, and I gave her the best pitch of my career. I wonder if any of my other customers are this miserable.

 As all sorts of animals graze underneath,in and above the plethora of trees, it breaths again. It walks along the river to a pond that is as still as it is clear. It does not bother, nor does it consume any of the liquid inside it. All it needs to do is watch it.

 A second train rides by. I’m going to be a mess at work. There doesn’t seem to be a place in this world where I can sleep. I need to work things out with the woman I chose to spend my life with. I need to quit smoking. I need to get through another night in Brooklyn.

Typing

“Well, Ray, we love your stuff. You seem like you’d be a great fit here. We have to do some background checks, standard procedure, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about. We’ll get back to you in a couple of days.”

That’s how every interview had ended since I lost my job. I would leave the room feeling confident. Sometimes I'd even celebrate with a few drinks. Okay, most of the time.

Every time. Even when the interview didn't go well. I would tell myself it did, and that was excuse enough to celebrate. Reason, not excuse. Reason. It's not an excuse unless you feel guilty about saying it. 

 I was new in Denver. All of the friends I had made here still worked at my old job. I wasn't going to call them. So really, it wasn't a choice to drink alone. It was all I could do. That was my rational, anyway. It worked well enough for the bartender at Pressure, so it was good enough for me. 

I'd finish off my victory lap of unemployment with glass after glass of gin and tonic. It really was a sight. I was a fun drunk, a loving drunk. I was able to reciprocate my joy with total strangers, and it felt right. Every time I opened the door to that tavern, I convinced myself that I was free from the tyranny of my impoverished living situation.But after a couple of days, without fail, a dissapointed voice would be meeting me on the other end of a phone call. 

“Hi Ray. 

We’ve been evaluating the available position, and we’re not sure you would be the right person for the job. It’s nothing personal; we just want to go in another direction. We’re sure you’ll find something soon.

It's a shame. I was really looking forward to working with you.” 

This was what they said every time. It was like a goddamn script. Except for that last bit. They would always ad-lib that. 

After being unemployed for a while, your brain starts to get bored. It's no longer happy without structure. It needs a repetitive task that it can look forward to. Whether that's waking up at the same time every morning, or filing the same paper work every other wednesday. The brain needs structure. But when that structure is not around, the brain needs detail. It devours it. It is the organ's carnal instinct to just consume and consume and consume all of the little things it sees. The crescent shaped mustard stain on the left shoulder of my red Clippers T-shirt that gets recycled into clean clothes every four days. Or the way the bathroom carpet feels stale against my left cheekbone at three in the morning. I always thought it was dried toothpaste, but further examination leads me to believe that it may have been some sort of make-up that a date spilled that caused the roughage. Regardless, I can't get it out because it set in before I could wash it.

Like I said, details. 

It was this consumption, nay, addiction to details that made me notice the conversation pattern I always had with these people. They greeted me with a tone of disappointment. They didn't want to give somebody the kind of news they were about to give, it was supposed to destroy me. They didn't want to do that. I always wanted to tell them before they started that they couldn't hurt me, and that they shouldn't be so disappointed to be doing this. It wasn't their fault. But that would defeat the purpose of their phone call in the first place, wouldn't it? There was no need to continue the call if I already knew the conversation. So I played along. It was a good exercise for them anyway. The only thing harder than dealing with rejection is dealing rejection when you don't want to.

Inhale.

They always would inhale deeply before they started speaking. It was recital. These people were given cards with a little speech on them. Whether they were there to ease the pain for them or me, I couldn't tell you. A little bit of both, probably. They would go through it as quickly and as clearly as they could. As to leave no doubt in my mind while making it end as soon as possible.

Exhale.

Then came the personal apology. The "it wasn't my choice, and I don't like the decision."  
At first I asked them to elaborate on this decision. They would get all hasty. As if that wasn’t supposed to be a part of the conversation. They would usually go on apologetically about nepotism, that it was a favor for some higher-up at the company. Sometimes though, they would just hang up. 

I stopped asking them that after a while, though. I would thank them, say I had been looking forward to working with them too. That these situations happen. That life goes on and that they were a very good company who would find an amicable employee soon enough. That I was sad things weren't going to progress, but I understood why they couldn't. Even though I didn't. All of my words were just to make them feel better, because I knew it wasn't their fault. It was the reverse break-up speech. 

I had interviewed at just about every office in Denver. I was thinking about going into construction and giving up life in an office. Working with my hands had always seemed nice, I just would hate to give up on keeping appearances. I wanted to work 9 to 5 in a suit and tie. It wasn't work to me. It was maintenance. It was giving my brain a duty an occupancy. It was purpose. But if I had to give up that luxury of pleasuring my brain so that I could keep the lights on, so be it. I was beginning to accept that. 

That’s when I got the letter. 

It came a few hours after the rest of the mail. The flag had not been lifted up, so it was nothing but a trance that led me to checking the mailbox a second time that day. When I opened the metal hatch and looked inside,  my eyes were not unlike saucers for what felt like hours.
 What drove my fixation was nothing but a pale white envelope. I know, it sounds minute. But that was the beauty of it. The envelope was the purest piece of postage I’d ever been presented. It was so specific. I was addicted, if only for a moment, to looking at that white envelope. I felt restitution of the convoluted emotions in the deepest parts of my soul that I hadn't felt since I was a young man and that I had forgot even existed.  I saw in that envelope everything that would accumulate my mind,soul,and body for the next thirty years. From fear to glory, then joy to anger, and finally an empty, cold death. And it was all in that simple tin mailbox. Had I known  that this canvas for a poorly painted oriole would be the home for such a glorious dedication to omniscient casing, I would have made better arrangements.

I truly believe that the only thing that stopped me from looking at the envelope for the rest of my life was noticing the writing on the front. 

RAY CONAN. 

When I read that, all of the things that my soul had just gone through was sucked through a vacuum. I forgot it all. I was back to being Ray Conan, a simple client executive.

There was nothing else written. No address, no return address, not even a stamp.

I looked on the back:

DO NOT OPEN UNTIL SATURDAY.

It was Thursday. I knew myself. I couldn’t wait that long, so I didn’t even try. I practically tore the letter in half trying to open it. Inside was a yellowed piece of paper. It looked like it had been sitting in an attic for years, and crumpled at the touch.

It read:

Ray-

We appreciate your excitement, although in the future, we ask that you follow the rules. 

We have a job offer for you, Mr. Conan. We cannot give you very many details, but don’t let that offend you. It’s just not in our plan at this moment.

On 1400 West, you will find a tall, black building. The door will be unlocked. Let yourself in, but DO NOT draw attention to yourself. Take the elevator to the thirty-first floor and enter room 556. In there, you will find further instructions. You start this Friday.

I wasn’t sure what was more disturbing: The fact that they knew I was going to open the letter, or that I ran down West every day and had never noticed a tall black building. Certainly not one large enough to host thirty-one floors. 

Every crevice in my brain was filled with neurons shouting “Don’t test it.” But I needed the money. Almost as important, I needed a job. I had begun to get a little stir crazy sitting around, doing nothing all day. I felt like a zombie. 6 months of all by myself. Nobody is meant to think for that long.

When I woke up the next morning, I wasn’t sure if I should even try to find the place. I began to believe more and more that this was a hoax. I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach as I walked out the door. 

Sure enough though, at 1400 West stood a tall, black sky scraper. It looked to go on forever, endlessly shooting up into the clouds. I looked around, nobody was paying any attention to it. Everybody was acting as though it hadn’t just appeared over night. On the corner, there was a newspaper vendor. I ran over to him.

He was a larger man, with a grease stain on an avocado-green t-shirt. Even for nine in the morning, he looked entirely natural with a cigar in his mouth. 

“Excuse me, sir? This may seem like a strange question, but it’s to test my own sanity. That tall, black building right there, how long has it existed?”

The man looked at the building, then back at me. Then back at the building a second time. His mouth started to open, but nothing came out for a few seconds.

“Well, um, I’m afraid I don’t know. I would love to say that it’s been here for years, for my own sanity’s sake, but I’ll be damned if that’s not the first time I’ve ever seen it. Funny thing is, I didn’t really notice it until you pointed it out. It just...fits.”

“Hmm. Yes.” I replied. “It does fit. Maybe that’s the answer. I’ve run past it every morning for the past six months, and this is the first time it has caught my eye.”

“Well what made you spot it this time?” He asked.

I hesitated before answering. I remembered the directions from the letter, and decided against telling him why I was there. 

“I guess the street was in a different light this morning.” I stammered. 

I walked off. Now I had to wait until he wasn’t looking. That didn’t take long, though, as he immediately got a customer. I walked into the building.

What awaited me inside the heavily tinted windows was an immaculate lobby. Large, plush carpets, a mural on the ceiling, portraits on the walls, and I counted 3 chandeliers. It was one of the nicest buildings I had ever been in. The only problem was that it was totally empty. The lights were on, music was playing, but nobody but I was there to enjoy it. I looked over to the elevators. There were six of them. 5 were masked over with caution tape, one was open.

I felt less comfortable than I had the night before. I wanted to go back home. My curiosity got the better of me, though, and I entered the elevator. Inside, there was the largest elevator panel I had ever seen. Eighty-five buttons for Eighty-five floors, and I had to go to the thirty-first. I knew that when I hit that button, it could be the last time I was every on ground level. It was a risk I had to take.

When the doors closed, though, two metallic sheet-doors did not meet. Instead, a new hallway wiped through the doorway, from left to right. Like a scan. At first, I thought it was a single door closing, but then I realized the hallway was ready. 

It was surreal. Stepping through the elevator, my body shivered. It thought I was entering another climate. Or another dimension. The hallway was similarly styled to the lobby. It was carpeted, well lit, and smelled like it had just been cleaned. But in a good way. That’s when I looked out the window. I realized that I wasn’t in Denver, anymore. It was storming outside. 

I appeared to be  in a cornfield, but why the hell would there be a building out in a cornfield?

 Nothing was making sense. I didn’t want the job anymore. I spun back around to get in the elevator. The doors were closed, and there was caution tape wrapped across the threshold. Taped to the ‘down’ button was another bleach white envelope. I tore it open. It read:

Nobody leaves until the job is done. Go to room 556, do the work, and the doors will open.

I began to panic. I started pounding on the doors and pressing the button, yelling at nobody in particular. 

“Bring it up! Bring it up! I don’t want to do this anymore. This isn’t fucking funny! Give me my goddamn elevator.”

After about two minutes, I realized that I had no choice but to try working. I started walking down the narrow hallway. As I walked by the first door, I peered inside the glass window.

It was an empty, dark room. I could hardly make out a roundtable in the center of it. I noticed red light directly across from my side, inserted just above a wooden door. It looked like a confession booths at church.

The light flickered for a moment before turning off. When it did, the room flared with overhead fluorescents. I looked around, and the entire wall was lined with about a dozen similar doors. The only difference was that the one across from me was the only one with a red light.

People began to enter from all the doorways, men and women in business attire. They were speaking, but I couldn’t hear a word they were saying. They all looked so familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

“Help! Somebody open this door. I’m fucking stuck!” I yelled. Nobody answered, or even looked up.

Then I realized why all of the people looked familiar. They were all people who had interviewed me for the past 6 months. Entering through the door with the red light were three other people. A man in a suit and a mechanic, neither of whom I recognized, and a casually dressed, overweight man with a cigar in his mouth. It was the man from the newspaper stand. His demeanor made him looked more out-of-place than his attire did. He was shifting in his seat uncontrollably. He was constantly looking around. He didn’t seem as trusting of the suit as the others were.  

The suit was clearly running the meeting. He went around the room, asking questions to each person seated at the table. When he addressed them, they would look down at the floor, or at the ceiling, appearing to avoid eye contact with him. Then he got to newspaper man.

The suit started asking questions, and newspaper man looked directly at him, speaking with more confidence than any of the others. The suit then took a more direct approach and began asking questions more rapidly and with more edge.

Newspaper man wasn’t having any of it. He stood up and began shouting furiously at the man in the suit. The suit looked to be trying to calm him down, but almost half-heartedly. Newspaper man climbed onto the table and started charging towards him. The man in the suit began to yell, and pulled out a gun. The rest of the table members looked aghast, and tried to calm the newspaper man, but he wouldn’t stop. 

The man in the suit fired one shot, right through his head. He didn’t fall. or even bleed.

He just fucking evaporated. 

The rest of the table members were unanimously shocked, their mouths hanging wide open. One of the men began to cry. Nobody dared comfort him, though. The man in the suit yelled at him, pointing the gun in his direction. He shut up. He looked around at all of them and began speaking in a very firm, very direct way, still holding his gun toward the crier. The nodded their heads and looked down in fear.  

The man in the suit picked up his papers and exited through his own door.

I couldn’t feel my body at this point. I would be wondering what was going on, but my brain had lost the ability to ask questions for the time being. I didn't know who was dealing with anymore. 

I was so distressed that I didn’t notice the man in the mechanic coming to the door. I finally saw him coming as he felt the door knob, and I stumbled onto my back. I tried to get up, but he was already in the hallway.

“Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me. I’ll go do my work I swear.” I said. Even in the moment, I was a little ashamed of my begging.

The man rolled his eyes.

“Take it easy. I’m not here to kill you.” He said.

“Aw Jesus man. You can’t scare a guy like that. Well who the hell are you? And what are you doing here?” 

“I’m the elevator repair man. Once you get your work done, I’ll get that thing fixed and bring you back to Denver. But you have to actually do it. You can’t bribe me, I’ll promise you that.” 

“Where are we now if we’re not in Denver?” I asked.

“Well there’s some stuff I can tell you and other things I can’t. This is one of the things I can’t tell you.”

“What can you tell me, then?” 

He looked around.

“Um. Nothing actually. Nobody ever asks anything else. I don’t know why I said that. Now go to work.”

I didn’t want to end the conversation, but it seemed I had no choice.
TO BE CONTINUED

Six word stories

I don’t know where I’m going.

Drinking lemonade, she watched her slaves.

Super hot fire. I spit that.

He’s lying to you right now.

I got 99 problems, help me.

I only have six words, so

In the end, she was disappointed.

Through thick and thin, they lost.

ICU

I once tried to kill myself by chugging a bottle of hand sanitizer. Back then, I wasn’t super good at planning things out. If I had been, I probably wouldn’t be around right now. The whole thing was pretty impulsive. I was sitting at my desk, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to get out. So I popped off the top of the 8 OZ bottle, and started drinking.

See, the thing Purell doesn’t want you to know is that while that gel might kill 99.99% of germs, it tastes like shit. And I have a tendency to hold things in my mouth before swallowing them. At first, I was holding it down pretty well; I can handle my alcohol with the best of them. All of a sudden, though, I started feeling pretty sick. It was like I was going to start puking out everything from my feet, up. But as soon as my stomach started bubbling, my chest locked up. It wasn't going to let anything else out or in. I started stumbling around, and then everything got blurry. Then black. The last thing I remember was my mom shouting from down stairs “Jeffy, quit stumbling around up there. Are you okay?”

 When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed, my parents in tears, being hugged by my Aunt Karen.Her husband, Rick, sat sheepishly in the back chair. When they realized I had come to, they all breathed a sigh of relief, which was followed by a flurry of angry comments.

“Jeffy! What the hell were you thinking? You could’ve gotten yourself killed! Don’t you know that stuff is poisonous? If you’re feeling sick, just get a glass of orange juice.”

“You had your mother worried to death. You teens and your dumb ideas. You’re lucky to be alive!” Aunt Karen said.

“Son, if you want a beer, just ask for one. I’d rather that than you start boozing it up on Purell.” My Dad said, in what is still today the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard said in a serious tone.

I was thoroughly confused. Did they honestly believe I thought drinking hand sanitizer wasn’t dangerous, but in fact good for me? I suppose there isn’t much to say to people after a failed suicide attempt, but when the people around you don’t even realize it was suicide, words are even harder to come by.

“Look at you.” Mom said. “This little experiment has made you as pale as a 

church mouse.” (Mom tended to mix up phrases.)

“We should get him some food.” Karen said to my Mom.

“That’s a good idea. How about Chinese? Jeffy, is Chinese okay?”

I hated Chinese. Beyond that, I was pretty sure you couldn’t bring food to ICU patients. But I wasn’t in much of a position to argue. In their eyes, I was the kid who drank hand sanitizer to cure a cold. I nodded my head in agreement.

My Aunt and Mom left the room. My Dad was never much for one-on-one in awkward situations. He excused himself to smoke. That left Rick and I.

Uncle Rick never spoke much with me, but I didn’t take that personally. Karen did most of the talking, and he didn’t converse with anybody in the family.

There were a few seconds-that-felt-like-minutes of silence before he broke it.

“You, uh, really had us there for a second, kid.” He said, looking in any direction other than my bed.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I said, laughing, trying to break the tension.

“You gotta be more careful. If anything ever happened to you, you parents would be crushed. We all would be.” 

“You’re right, it was a dumb mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

He paused, and looked at me for the first time, a stern look manifesting itself on his face. I had never seen anything like it come from Uncle Rick before.

“I know exactly what you were thinking.” He said, his tone matching his demeanor. “You were trying to end it.”

“Wh-what?” I said, not expecting this sort of detective work from Rick.

“The others, your mom, your Dad, Aunt Karen, they’re all in total denial. They want to believe that you’ve just made a dumb mistake, and that they don’t have to worry about anything. But we both know that’s not the case. You wanted to kill yourself.”

I was paralyzed. In all the years I’ve known Rick, he had never seemed like the type of guy to be so confident in an accusation like this, let alone correct.

“I’ve been in your position before. In fact, I did the same god damn thing. Hand sanitizer doesn’t work unless you’ve got a lot and you aren’t near anybody. But if you’re drinking hand sanitizer to off yourself, you’ve gotta be pretty desperate and pretty impulsive. Am I right so far?”

I nodded my head, mouth open in shock. 

“ I know this is tough for you right now. The next couple weeks are going to be the most disillusioning time of your life. But it pays off, because you get to meet your Aunt Karen. And people start being nicer to you, and all of a sudden, you have purpose. So don’t quit. Because we like you, and other people do too. Okay?”

“Okay.” I said. 

Karen and Mom walked into the room, with bags of Chinese food underneath each arm, unaware that the man who said three words at his own birthday party had probably just saved my life.

“Okay, who’s hungry?” My Mom asked.

As the words left her mouth, a nurse walked in.

“Excuse me, you can’t have food in here.” She said. “This is the ICU.”

Ketchup

  Why do they keep changing where they put the ketchup? I've asked myself this each time I've entered this grocery store. Actually, that's not true. The first time I came here, I didn't buy ketchup. And I guess that means the second time I wouldn't have known if they had moved the ketchup or not. The point is, the ketchup is moved a lot. 

Cooks

 Have you ever walked in on something that you know you weren't supposed to see? My whole life is based around situations like this, and making them go away. We're called cooks. As a casual cook,I get hired by a few companies every year to get rid of a bank account or two, or convince 5 or 6 people that the fire across the street wasn't started by those men in ski masks. It's all quite glamorous. 
 Calling bullshit already? I don't blame you, I would too. Because I'm sure what you're thinking is something along the lines of "Men in Black" running around with memory wipers. No, no. I don't have anything near that kind of technology. All I am is a pretty face with a suitcase full of money and a pocket full of negotiating techniques. 
 The big boys in my industry don't work on suitcases and good looks, however. Cooks for the government may or may not have the technology to wipe memories, but even if they do, chances are they've never used it on you. Instead, they'll use reverse theories to convince the public that a conspiracy is for the birds. 
 My favorite example of this is 9/11truth.org, which my buddy Gus wrote. In 1999, some people asked him to make up some ideas on how they could make a government-funded terrorist attack theory look like a meth-addict's logic string. Gus told them "If you want people to believe a lie, you have to make the truth seem even crazier."
 So that's what they did. The men who came to Gus wrote the true reasons for "why" 9/11 happened, and connected it to fake ways of "how" 9/11 happened. Things like jet fuel not being flammable, or bombs being inside of the building. So when the people have crazy ideas, or have gaps in logic, everything they believe is refuted.It's really quite brilliant.Nobody even thinks to consider that Bin Ladin was working for the U.S.F.G.