Drama ensues when Athena invites her dirtbag boyfriend on her dysfunctional family’s vacation.
I sit in a beige chair in front of a beige computer mounted on a beige desk that lines the beige walls. To my right, so close that his elbow invades my space, sits Mike. No one sits to my left. Seniority has given me the prized position by the door. Beyond Mike are more drones, typing at more computers, twelve of us in this tiny room, with beige walls, and high AC, and fluorescent bulbs. The smell is sweet and sterile and alcoholic.
The smell is always there.
A single radio controlled by a single admin set to a single station plays the same ten to thirty songs over and over and over and over all day with the same ads in between. Every week or so, a song will fall and be replaced. The ads change more frequently than the songs. The admin changes too, the admin whose only job is to watch us and indiscreetly check her phone. I think they change admins so there’s no chance they’ll befriend the drones.
At my feet is a cardboard box full of folders. On my lap sits an open folder. Inside the folder are letters and numbers. I type what I see in folder into a corresponding spreadsheet on the computer. I copy as fast as I can. I am paid by the record. Sometimes there is a lot of information in a single record, and it takes a long time to copy. If many records like that come out of the box, I will make almost nothing.
I do this from eight to five, Monday through Friday, with a forced hour for lunch at twelve.
After work, everything hurts. It feels like coffee is running down the middle of my leg from time to time, though I’m dry. My lips tingle. My neck feels like ten thousand million different aches. I can’t afford a new bike, so I walk home now. I stop at a bar and slump over the counter, experimenting with wacky poses to discover which one creates the least amount of pain.
What can I get you? the bartender asks.
How many shots are you legally allowed to pour me at once? I ask. I’m in a lot of pain.
What kind of pain?
Physical. My body hurts. And emotional because the pain makes me feel like I am dying, and I’m afraid to leave this world behind. And spiritual because the world is dying too, and I am powerless to save it.
The bartender squints at me, and says, What are you drinking?
Bourbon. House is fine.
Let’s start you off with a double.
I drink it and then two more in quick succession. A ringing in my left ear spreads to my right, each at a different pitch. The ringing widens, and becomes a washing sound like a thousand flushing toilets, water running down a tube. The washing carries all other sound away and is now so familiar that my brain cancels it into silence. I am deaf.
I slap cash on the bar and head to the street. It’s eerily peaceful walking down the street in total silence. No music, footsteps, car groans, or jackhammers to botch my drift. I look both ways before crossing the street and while crossing the street and after crossing the street. My feet are numb and tingly; true sensation begins at the knees. This must be how ghosts feel.
Charlie trips down the stairs at my approach and his fat, furry ass tumbles two steps before he catches himself. I double over laughing and something in my ears pops. Sound funnels in like a cyclone.
Meeeeeooooow! Charlie headbutts my shins.
Oh, my precious baby, I say. I scoop him up and grip him in a hug. Double dinner for the fat cat!
I feed him a teensy bit extra and fall into the couch. Charlie finishes his food in seconds and burrows into my shirt.
Okay! I say to my phone. Play super chill playlist.
Playing bird sounds, my phone says.
Eh, that’ll work.
My skull is pounding and Zak is sprawled on the chair across from me.
Where did you come from? I ask.
I’ve been here all night, Zak says. You got twenty boners while you were passed out. And you were snoring.
Lies, I say. Oh my god, my head is killing me.
You should drink more water. It’s hot out.
I can’t drink water. No drinks allowed in the record room.
You’re kidding, Zak says. He puts his phone down and looks at me. They don’t let you drink water at work? That’s gotta be against the law or something.
They don’t want anyone spilling coffee or something on the records. You’re allowed to get up and walk down the hall to the water fountain. But nobody does it because it takes too much time, so you’re losing money and then if you have to get up and pee later you’re losing even more money so we all dehydrate. I’m pretty sure this one guy is wearing a diaper, but I don’t have proof and I don’t want it.
I go to the sink and stick my head under the stream of the faucet, gulping greedily. I can feel the water slosh along my empty stomach.
That’s really fucked up, Zak says. You need a better job.
Don’t I know it, I say. I tell you, it hurts to sit down all day. I feel like I’m aging fifty years. My knees hurt, and my wrists hurt, and my back hurts, and my neck hurts, and my eyes get all watery. It was bad in the warehouse when I had to stand and sort all day, but this is almost worse. I’ve seen people come in and gain fifty fucking pounds in a month because they’re just sitting all day, and they eat the slop at the food court every lunch. I’d probably weigh nine-hundred pounds if I weren’t too broke to eat there.