Someone Like Me

            I can see you.

            Dearest trespasser, you must know; there is no hiding in these eleven hundred and fifty square feet of familiarity.

Even if you could hide, I would find you. There is nowhere to run. And now, you’re right where I want you. What you think is stable I say is stagnant. What you think is safe I say is vulnerable. I want you, and I will have you.

I’ve slaughtered your previous generations with no…what was that word again? Oh yes…remorse.

            Your kind is all the same: you take, and take, and hide, and hide, and your greatest frailty is that you are predictable. Your instincts are public record. You make it all too easy for someone to simply take your life from you: Someone like me.

            You must find me despicable…deplorable. Some may even say “creepy.” I understand why you may think that. I watch you. I see you. I count your breaths. I record your every movement. When you pass by your little mirrors, you don’t think that you might have just given this world the very last phenomenon that is your reflection. And you don’t see me in the background salivating at the thought. You don’t see me fantasizing of your broken neck, your mangled body, and the drippings of your blood upon the floor. How entertaining that you are so unaware of me. But I am here, and I see you.

            How could I be so cruel? What have you ever done to deserve such a fate as me? It’s not personal, I assure you. It’s in my genetic tapestry, I suppose. I was born to kill you. It is my nature.

            I was more or less “the runt” of my family. I was born small. My brothers and sisters would push, punch, and wrestle with me. They thought was inferior, but they were wrong. I grew to be strong like my father; smart like my mother. I wasn’t yet a year old the first time I saw my father kill. It was glorious. It changed me. It gave me purpose. But I had to learn his ways. I learned to listen.

Again, you make it all too easy. There you are, going about your day. You feed, you exercise, you make your bed, and you go to work. And I am always right behind you, waiting to take your miserable little life…

“Mr. Tuna, you naughty pussy cat!” Mrs. Dawson took a swipe at the cat, interrupting his intensive stares, and he leapt down onto the floor, slightly disappointed, “You leave that poor little hamster alone!”

 Happy Halloween 2015 J

Twenty-Three

“That will be eight dollars and twenty-three cents.”

“Bernie. This is a garage sale, not a Piggly Wiggly.”

“It’s my garage sale; I’m entitled to be specific at my own leisure,” said Bernie, establishing his authority by adjusting his Members Only jacket. He snorted and crossed his arms. 

Bernie wasn’t Jefferson’s favorite neighbor. Besides, there was something about a man with a unibrow that Jefferson found rather untrustworthy. Or maybe it was the way he wore suspenders and a belt at the same time. Maybe it was that little ugly dog of his: if E.T. had mated with an opossum, Bernie’s mutt would be the end result.

Perhaps Jefferson was being unfair or petty. But whatever the case, Bernie had a nice little clock to sell, and it had charmed Jefferson past the point of high-school caliber social antics. He turned the clock in his hand and re-examined the price tag in question.

“Twenty-three cents? Why not forty-two, ninety-two, or sixty-sixty then?”

“Oh twenty-three isn’t a random number. My mother—rest her soul—was born in nineteen twenty-three. My brother Stevie was born on September the twenty-third. I live at Fourteen Twenty-Three Willow Street, and my last cat, Gopher, lived to be twenty-three years old.”

“Interesting,” said Jefferson under his breath.

“Serendipitous,” corrected Bernie.

“Then why isn’t all this other junk marked with twenty-three cents on the price?”

“Jefferson, are you questioning my garage sale? I have attained the proper permit to hold such an affair on this particular date, and I am within my legal rights to price my property as I deem fit,” Bernie pointed at a nearby posting of his yard sale permit, along with a copy of the city ordinance that outlined the rules and regulation for such domestic commerce. Bernie had also highlighted certain sections in yellow. “For further questions, you may contact my lawyer.”

“Never mind,” groaned Jefferson, “do you have change for a ten?”

Bernie searched his pockets, slapping one at a time, “it appears I do not. You’ve been the only customer all day; must be the big golf tournament on TV."

Jefferson rolled his eyes and threw the ten into a Wedgewood teapot on the table. The clock was his. He left with no departing salutations and hastily returned to his gold Crown Victoria as if it were a bomb shelter. Jefferson sat in his driver’s seat and inspected the clock. It was clearly an antique but it had no obvious maker’s mark or any other clues to purvey its story. It was a square-shaped, rather plain and understated little machine—not currently operable. When he tilted it back and forth, there was something rolling inside concurrently. He would have to bring it to an expert to repair. A few taps on his phone screen later, the appropriate authority was located at Twenty-Three Turmeric Lane. There was that number again: twenty-three. It probably didn’t mean anything. Jefferson was not one to believe in fate or spiritual predestinations. Such preposterous ideas only colored life to be more interesting. The everyday mundane was made holy by the element of imagination. Twenty-three… It was only a number: not some ludicrous homonym.

            Upon opening the large-paned door to Time and Talisman, Jefferson was immediately in the presence of its assiduous owner and operator, Albert Shoe. He had wild white hair and black-rimmed eyeglasses that magnified his eyes to appear several times larger. Albert hustled and bustled, jogged, hopped, sped-up, slowed-down, whisked to the left, whipped back to the right, and turned-about cartoonishly as he reached for tools or small parts from their dedicated spaces; reaching for them as the ideas and instructions raced through his most able, ingenious mind. He was deliberate, meticulous, efficient, and his work was as carefully calculated and precise as the clocks he worked on.

            Albert hadn’t paused to greet his new customer and Jefferson was hesitant to interrupt what seemed to be the apex of a project. The door closed behind him, and Albert didn’t skip a beat while informing Jefferson “I close in twenty-three minutes and must have this Thwaites and Reed chimer done before ten a.m. tomorrow, as was promised to my landlord: it’s his clock. He’s a soul-sucking Ukrainian who bleeds money and I’d rather not test his patience. You must understand.”

            It was only business. Jefferson looked at the clock, nodded, “Thank you,” and turned to leave. Suddenly Albert threw his screwdriver onto the worktable, which made a loud smashing sound when it hit a tin plate. Jefferson turned around.

            “No, no, no!”, scolded Albert, “This is the part where you’re supposed to be insistent upon my looking at your clock within the allotted time! You drove all the way here, for heaven’s sake! Your time is valuable! Figure it out,” Albert walked over to Jefferson and (with due care) ripped the clock from his hands, looked down at it, and then jumped back about three feet with a gasp.

            “My word!” exclaimed Albert, “This is a seventeen twenty-three Franz Adenauer table clock with his experimental, internally housed, lead-weighted pendulum! There is a set of opposing magnetized springs on the inside, and when all the parts are aligned and in working order, the inside pendulum moves from left to right, and right to left, and left to right, over, and over, and over, and over again with unparalleled precision. But it was designed in such a way that it could operate without the use of gravity: the pendulum moving horizontally and within such a very confined space! It does not need winding. The story of this clock begins when it’s set into motion: never to pause, never to stop,” Albert pulled a second, huge pair of glasses onto his nose, right over the others, and turned the clock about, “…that is until some blundering blockhead has dropped so carelessly onto its corner, or shaken it like an Etch-a-Sketch!” He peered at Jefferson as if he were the guilty party. 

Albert’s phone rang once. He grabbed it and said, “It’ll be done tomorrow,” then slammed the handset down on the receiver and continued, “Careless!” 

            “I only just bought the thing,” said Jefferson defensively, “From the blockhead who most likely dropped it.”

            “You have no idea what you have!” hissed Albert. He looked back at the clock and sunk down onto a wooden stool behind him. Albert wiped some of the dust off its glass face, and caressed the smooth wooden housing. A hundred different emotions crossed the clockmaker’s face as he examined it, but the one he kept circling back to was sadness. Not just sadness: it was the memory of loss, and incurable jealously. It was hopelessness reined-in; stifled by the humility one earns with age. Albert sighed, petted the clock, and then cleared his throat. He asked Jefferson halfheartedly, “When would you like it to be done by?”

            “I’m in no rush,” shrugged Jefferson.

            “No, no, no!” scolded Albert once more, startling Jefferson, “You’re supposed to ask about the clock! You’re supposed to be curious! You’re supposed to wonder how a clock could sting a grown man’s eyes, and make him wish that,” Albert paused and swallowed, “that things had turned out differently; to question every decision he has ever made; to wonder if anything he has ever done has meant anything… to wonder if,” he ran his thumb over the face of the clock, “if I have been keeping time, or if time has been keeping me.”

            Of course Jefferson was entirely curious about the clock. But there was fine line between investigating and imposition. “All of this from an eight dollar clock,” thought Jefferson. “Well, eight dollars and twenty-three cents,” he corrected himself.

            Albert looked up at Jefferson abruptly, “I wasn’t always a clockmaker! It’s not all that I am. Or all that I was.”

            “What were you before?” indulged Jefferson.

            Albert pulled the glasses from his face, and pulled his hair away from his eyes. He looked into his reflection on the face of a grandfather clock and said, “I was young.”

            “So was I…about forty-five years ago,” chuckled Jefferson sarcastically.

            “I didn’t know what time was,” explained Albert, “Back then, I worked in my father’s curiosity shop and I was a magician. My father and I sold every sort of novelty you can imagine: shrunken heads, antique medical equipment, kidney stones, straight jackets, skulls, crystals, miniature trains, supplies for practical jokes, strange paintings, torture devices, books, crosses, tarot cards, statues, canes, fossils, teeth, voodoo dolls, caskets, kids toys, dogs toys, sex toys, taxidermy, herbs, innards, poisons, marbles—oh! And candy. We used to host live music, fortunetellers, storytellers, fire-eaters, firewalkers, face painters, contortionists, and balloon artists. We would project movies onto the back of the building and invite the entire community to come watch. My father and I lived in the upstairs of the shop. I was happy every day. Not many people can say that.”

            “More or less,” Jefferson considered.

            “One day, an old German man came in with this very same Adenauer clock. Franz Adenauer did make more than a few of these. He was only giving them away at the time to his friends and family—a hobby, more or less. But this one customer had one, and at the time I knew little to nothing about clocks. We purchased the broken clock from him for twenty-three dollars.”

            “Not surprising,” muttered Jefferson.

            “Superlative!” corrected Albert, “At the time, twenty-three dollars was the equivalent of a couple hundred when the clock was worth thousands. It’s not that we had swindled the gentleman, but none of us knew the worth of this clock. The German had asked for thirty-dollars, and it was haggled down to twenty-three. At first, my father had placed it in the shop window for the bird-brained price of fifty dollars. It’s such a plain thing, but there was something so charming about that little clock, and my father could not ignore its qualities. After a few weeks of its seeming invisibility to customer’s eyes, my father took it from the window, and placed it behind the front counter as décor, rather than merchandise. It became his prized possession. He had tried on many an occasion to fix it but was unsuccessful. I so very loved my father and his adoration for the clock, that I took it upon myself to learn about clocks and secretly planned to fix it when he wasn’t looking. I wanted to badly to see the look on his face when he saw it work again. So I began to tinker and explore those fascinating little devices. I was engrossed in my work, and obsessed with learning more. I approached the clockmaker in a nearby town and took on an apprenticeship with him. My father did not approve, but he surrendered at my persistence. I would not tell him my real reasons for wanting to become an expert of clocks. I thought of my newfound career as a gift to my father. I meant to return and fix the Adenauer clock. My father fell upon hard times from the moment I left and extent of which was not communicated to me. One person could not run that place; plan and hold all the events, buy, sell, consign items, clean, or book-keep by themselves. No one else could be hired to help, it was already too late and we had only ever made it by on a razor’s edge. The rent was paid later and later until it couldn’t be paid at all. In the blink of an eye the curiosity shop had been closed forever, and all that was left was that old broken clock. After the fact, a collector he met happened to notice the clock in his possession and made it known to him that the clock was not worth fifty dollars, but fifty thousand dollars. He never wanted to give it up in the first place, but the money was a blessing and he had nothing left. He never looked at me the same after the clock was gone.”

“It was never the clock that needed to be fixed. The fact it was broken was not important. My father never cared whether he could fix the damned thing or not. He just wanted to see how it was made, and appreciate it from the inside, out. It was his to take apart or put together: to fix or not fix: to buy and to sell. Had I stayed working at the shop, I would’ve had more time spent with my father. Our relationship would have never taken ill. He would’ve owned the business for many more years, and maybe I would have been still running it now, instead of watching gears tick from behind a magnifying glass. He would have never had to sell the clock he loved so much.”

“I spent years looking for another like it, but they are extremely rare. What I found was either not for sale, or more money than I could ever afford in this lifetime. My father was an optimistic man. He found a new happy life when he returned home to Maine and worked in another’s curiosity shop as a salesman. But it wasn’t the same, I don’t think. There were no movies on the wall, no fire-eaters or storytellers, and it was another’s prideful collection he sold…not his own. He was hourly as opposed to honored. But, he lived happily until he passed away in his sleep, almost twenty-three years ago now. And here I am now…in my shop…with an Adenauer clock…in my hands…you bought…at goddamned garage sale!” Albert set the clock down on his workbench, and shook his head; “I wasn’t always a clockmaker, my friend. I was once young, and I didn’t understand what time was.”

            Albert stared at the clock longingly. A hundred different emotions flooded over his face, but the one that recurred the most was sadness. Jealously. Loss. Hopelessness. Jefferson was floored and confused. He was astonished to find his eight dollar and twenty-three cent clock was a priceless artifact of museum quality, and in disbelief of the amazing story that came with it. 

            “When do you want it done by?” asked Albert again.

            Jefferson considered this question for a moment. He stared at the plain little clock; so charming yet understated. But now it seemed to be more of a symbol than a relic. It could never just be a clock to him again. 

That’s when Jefferson realized that it didn’t need to be fixed. 

            “Albert,” he replied, “This is the part where I give you the clock."

Rupert and the Dream Construction Zone

Rupert had walked straight into a wall, but instead of clumsily falling backwards or finding himself embarrassed, he was shocked to find he was now stuck to the wall. His face was sodden in a sticky adhesive that was fleshed in brick, and his arm was turned backwards uncomfortably. Perhaps this was what it was like for the flies his mother would trap with flypaper in the hot summers. Rupert pulled, yanked, and convulsed his adolescent body until his shoulder and arm became free. Looking back at the wall, he could see no glues or icky substances that had so strongly held him, but instead only the matte, porous brick. 

What an unusual dream this was becoming. It had had only started as walking home from school, on a typical day, with typical weather, and the typical people he would see. And then all of the sudden, he had walked straight into a wall that was not there before. Yesterday he had dreamed that the pretty blonde girl from math class, Brianna, had snuck him a kiss in the neighborhood park. That was a much better dream. She even held his hand.

With another yank, Rupert fell down to the sidewalk but it did not hurt. Looking back at the wall, he could see that it was freestanding. It was the very width of his small wingspan and was placed full-tilt across the sidewalk in such a way that it would prevent the unsuspecting pedestrian from continuing on their path. But this was easily resolved. He would step down onto the street and walk around the wall. It was hardly complicated.

But the moment Rupert stepped his blue Converse shoe onto the asphalt, the street became filled with speeding cars. Fearing for his safety his jumped backwards, back onto the sidewalk, shocked by the colorful amount of loud, honking, squealing, speeding, flashing, braking, and jolting traffic that consumed the neighborhood street. 

He would need to take a different approach. The wall was very high, even if it wasn’t too sticky to climb. It was adjacent to a building. There were too many cars to walk around the wall. Maybe this was more complicated. Or maybe it wasn’t. 

A door in the nearby building opened, and an elderly woman toddled out onto the sidewalk in a turquoise housedress to shake clean a doormat. She coughed at the dust and cat hair that swelled into the air. Without a second thought, Rupert darted into the doorway, startled the old woman, and ran down the hallway of what was an apartment building. Passing the point of the wall, Rupert shoved himself through another entrance further down. 

Outside the door was a sweltering desert. The blue sky was free of power lines and the usual suburban surroundings he was accustomed to on Market Street. A vulture circled over the cacti and then flew past him to his right. But it disappeared into the wide open of outer space, and directly into a swirling nebula. Rupert was astonished to be standing on the edge of the stars. This was becoming an especially interesting dream. And then the sound of a jackhammer broke the quiet of the desert and space.

To Rupert’s left were a number of caution signs, scaffolding, piles of plywood, cans of paint, brushes, ladders, drills, buckets, rope, cacti to plant, tumbleweeds to tumble, a dump truck of desert sand, and a small crane. There were no cars in the street, and the road ended into the desert. The desert became outer space. A man in an orange construction helmet was using a jackhammer to break apart the sidewalk. He was clearly installing the desert. The man had a long white beard, which was braided towards the bottom, and his tailcoat was embossed with pearlescent stars. His body shook from the vibration of the jackhammer. From the corner of his eye, he spied Rupert in the doorway of the apartment building. Surprised, the man stopped the jackhammer, dusted himself off, and approached the young boy.

“How—why—what are you doing here? How did you get around my wall?” he asked Rupert in a scolding manner. 

“But this is my dream,” said Rupert validly, “What are you doing in it?”

“That doesn’t matter! I design your dreams, and this is my construction zone that you are trespassing upon,” he said.

“How am I trespassing if it’s my dream?” Rupert had never considered anyone else would make his dreams aside from himself. He felt a little annoyed, and maybe a little intruded upon.

The designer looked down at a very large gold wristwatch, which many hands pointed to many different symbols. He shook his head and waved his hands back and forth, “I simply don’t have time for explanations! Any moment the entire Sioux nation will ride in from that direction, and if I don’t keep working, they will fall right into outer space and have a very nasty encounter with the inhabitants of quadrant five. And then I’ll be tied up in diplomacy for weeks until I can paint everybody back into their own dreams! Now young man, you can see that I’m very busy and the work I’m doing is very important. Now, go back through that door, and if you just happen to walk to the candy store within the next ten minutes, a certain young Brianna will just happen to be there.”

“Well, why not put up one of those sticky walls so that they can’t fall in? Wouldn’t that give you more time to work?”

The designer was about to scold Rupert again, when he paused with his mouth open. Then he crossed his arms, and stroked his beard, “I suppose I could do that…”

He peered at Rupert suspiciously and walked towards the dark and mystic scene of space. From the inside of his coat, he pulled a fine-tipped paintbrush and waved it like a magic wand. The bristles flashed and flickered, and the designer, with long strokes of his arms and lunges of his legs, created a cliff overlooking an endless canyon. It must have been a mile down from the edge. Rupert took a few steps backwards. 

“It’s not real, or should I say cognitive,” reassured the designer, “a harmless illusion. They themselves will save me the work of making a real by believing it is.”

“And then it would really be a dream,” said Rupert. He was beginning to see how this worked.

The designer was pleased, “precisely,” he replaced the brush back into his starry tailcoat, “You’re a very smart boy.”

“I have the best grades in reading and art in my class,” said Rupert confidently, “and I’m really good at video games.”

“I see,” said the designer, “So you have an extensive imagination and have attention deficit disorder?”

“You sound like my mom…”

“Have you ever considered a career in dreams?”

Rupert hadn’t, to be truthfully. He wasn’t aware that such a job existed until this moment. But he was inside a dream now! How could he even be sure it really did exist? He was sort of confused and really was beginning to think he should walk to the candy shop and see Brianna.

“It’s a great profession,” said the designer, “I’ve been doing it for hundreds of years and have yet to run out of ideas, spaceships, sand, monkeys, or paper cups. I must admit: I am awfully tired nowadays. And people don’t seem to dream big dreams any more. Only small things: new cabinetry, divorces, computer upgrades, and lottery tickets. Perhaps that’s still why I have so many monkeys in inventory. And people just don’t use paper cups anymore with this whole recycling deal...”

“Well, I did think it would be fun to be an artist. I guess it’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s very similar, yes, but it requires a little more strategy,” the designer knelt down onto a knee to see eye to eye with the boy, “I think you’d be very good at it. I’ve been looking a very long time for someone to replace me: someone who could get through brick walls. I’m tired, Rupert. But you’re young, and you are a natural born dreamer. But you could be the builder of dreams. You could be a designer like me. You could live every day in a gleam of art, music, emotion, and opportunity. You, Rupert, could spin the world on the tip of your finger like a basketball, and never worry that you will drop it. You could wear electricity like a pair of comfortable jeans, or have an entire warehouse of useless paper cups. You could feast on a thousand olives and never have a stomachache. On one day, you could live in a mountain with the peace and understanding of a brotherhood of monks, or on another you could dance on the musical staff and waltz with the minor chords. You could walk in the shadow of the stars or dig the craters that make them unique, with a shovel made for hands just your size. It would be your path to design and engineer: to plant, grow, fold, and trace over the inaccuracies of life; to patch the fine print of existence, and bring color where there is only grey. You could take a person who is lost and place them on a map where the longitude is their wants and the latitude is their needs. It is yours to change. You’ve always created, but this is different. To design dreams is to define the truth and nature of life,” said the designer, “and the pay is excellent: 401K, benefits, holidays, parking, you name it.”

“But what about my mom? What about my dad? My brothers? Brianna!! I’d never get to see them again!” 

“You wouldn’t have to be alone, you can bring whomever you like! What fun are dreams when you have no one to share them with?”

Rupert smiled, “When I could I start?”

“Silly young man,” said the designer. He took out the paintbrush from his coat and placed it into Rupert’s hand, “The job was yours to begin with.”

The Soul Deployment Agency

"I've been a janitor, a road-kill collector, an indicted sleaze-ball politician, a homeless junkie in New York, an African dictator, a Japanese prostitute, a career telemarketer—which is why I'm here again because I couldn't take it one more day! Why do I put up with this, Monty? When do I get my E.L.O.A. papers?"

The office was silent.

Monty's desk chair made a loud squeak that overpowered the quiet of the office floor. He pulled a manila file folder from a large, disheveled pile of others just like it. The accumulation of paper was getting out of hand, and he was somewhat ashamed of this disorganization. The R.R.S's (Registered Recurring Souls) hardly took him seriously as it is, even though he wore fresh-pressed, tailored button-down shirts with a tie. It was a put-together look. It was professional. But was it any use? Just look at Gene pushing his case again for the billionth time—presuming that Monty would eventually cave in to his complaints. Although he was sure a pressed collared shirt garnered special powers only the office devotee would understand, it was going to take more to put that weasel in his place. Monty slicked his hand over his bald spot and adjusted his red eyeglasses. His five-o'clock shadow was closer to six, his bleary eyes drooped from exhaustion, and his brow furrowed from impatience.

"That's your own fault, Gene. You make an absolutely terrible human being, and as long as you keep it up, you won't get your E.L.O.A.'s. Next time you terminate early, I'm transferring you to the A.I.O.C. department--you remember what that is? Animals, Insects, and Other Creatures? We'll see you perform as cockroach."

"You wouldn't! You--you would never! I've been through rotation over forty times and I have progress to show for it! Progress!"

"Progress, Gene?"

Gene adjusted himself and scratched at his bedraggled grey hair. His white bathrobe was no longer a lustering pearl as it was in his first rotation, but was instead jaundiced and stained in yellows and coffee spills that were unsuccessfully washed out. Gene looked the part of his prescribed position at the S.D.A. His eyes were close together, his face drawn and sunken, and his smile was clearly up to no good.

"Well, yeah, progress," Gene repeated, clearing his throat, "I once had a Master's Degree and I volunteered at an electronics recycling center," 

"You know what, I think I remember something like that. Why don't we take a look at your file..."

"Well, I don't think that's really necessary..."

Monty looked a little pleased with himself and opened the file to the right page on the first turn.

"--Rotation Seven, Americas District, Female, active from A.D. years 1964 to 2001...Oh, here we go: Master's Degree in Microeconomics attempted after completion of Bachelor's in the same major. It is noted that the subject dropped out after accepting a position in underground human trafficking, which sold kidnapped persons to an electronics recycling plant in China as slaves. Surprisingly enough, I'm not impressed," Monty closed the folder and crossed his arms on the desk, waiting enthusiastically for whatever terrible excuses Gene would most definitely use.

"It benefitted the economy. I was a business woman."

"Gene," Monty turned to his computer and began to click and type, completing the usual protocol of redeploying an R.R.S., "You electively make up the small percentage of assholes we have to keep the world populated with. It's a dirty job, somebody has to do it, and look at you: you're great at it. But as long as you keep leading bad—evil—existences you won't get any long-term rewards. The Big Boss promotes from within--you know how it works. Get your act together. Save kittens. Have kids. Clean a beach. Win a Nobel Peace Prize. And quit acting like it's not your fault you make these choices."

Monty pulled a yellow paper from his printer titled REASSIGNMENT, marked it with a red rubber "APPROVED" stamp and stapled it into Gene's folder, and then handed it to the reluctant client.

"No good, lousy bureaucrat..." old Gene muttered.

Monty smiled and tilted his chin, "Thank you for choosing the Soul Deployment Agency for your existential needs. We hope to have your business again."

Gene looked as if he wanted to say something else, but instead grumbled and stomped out of the cubicle. Monty chuckled to himself proudly, and then crossed Gene142955937573's name off of the schedule.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon, and his next appointment would be here any moment: Gene 142955999743. The name was unfamiliar. He scratched his head and opened an unwrinkled, pristine looking file with only white paper on the inside. The file was thin, compared to the many other files behind him that were chocked full of yellow REASSIGNMENT papers. On the inside, the white paper was titled "ROTATION 1: DEPLOYMENT."

This must have been a mistake. Monty was a representative of the S.D.A.'s redeployment center and exclusively worked with R.R.S.'s. In fact, he had never even seen a first-timer. But there on the white paper was Monty's name, listed as the main representative for this new Gene 142955999743. He stopped for a moment and leaned back in his chair, which squeaked unhappily at the weight.  He noticed an ambient ringing of telephones, and muffled voices behind the other grey-upholstered cubicles, that he had never really noticed before. Usually he was too busy to notice them. He hadn’t even noticed the distorted, softly played jazz music that came from the wood-encased speaker in the nearest ceiling corner. He was very confused. It had been many years since Monty was confused.

A very young-looking Gene sheepishly peered around the corner into Monty's cubicle. His bathrobe was a clean bright white, and his skin was bright, unflawed. He seemed anxious, nervous, and maybe even scared.

"Please, have a seat," beckoned Monty. He observed the young blonde-haired Gene and suddenly felt a little out of his comfort zone. Perhaps he should ring the department supervisor and have this Gene sent to First Deployments. This was really not his job, not his forte, and just not normal for him. 

"Gene 1-4-2-9-5-5-9-9-9-7-4-3?" Monty confirmed.

Gene thought about it for a moment, and clearly couldn't remember if that was his name or not. He retrieved a small identity card in his pocket, and he nodded when he found that the number matched. Gene bit his bottom lip and smiled enthusiastically.

"Okay then," said Monty. He looked down at the file, and read that there was a required introductory statement he was supposed to spiel off to the client. Well, here went nothing: "Welcome to the Soul Deployment Office. We'd first like to begin by thanking you for using our services for all your existential needs,"

"--what am I?" interrupted Gene.

Monty had never been asked this before. Wasn't the answer painfully obvious? Gene's eyes were wide, and his expression was excited with a childlike curiosity Monty had never ever seen. R.R.S.'s were tired, unhappy, bored, or occasionally rushed and business-like. They only asked questions regarding their long-term benefits and tended to complain a lot. 

"Well," he began, interlacing his fingers and resting his elbows onto the desk, "You're a soul."

Gene considered this answer for a moment, and eagerly licked his lips before turning to Monty again, "What's a soul?"

Monty could not believe he was having this conversation.

"Well, it's…uh, a you," he motioned his hands towards Gene, "You're a spirit who has commissioned us, the Soul Deployment Agency, to send you into the world to live as a person and be, well, a life. The life you become is kind of up to you; we just get you there and then see how you did when you come back. Some people just don't really put a lot into it and end up getting redeployed over and over again, and maybe never even stop, and either way you become an R.R.S.. Other's, well, they really make it special. And if the big boss likes the progress you've made, then you are awarded your E.L.O.A. papers--Eternal Leave of Absence. It means you never have to go back again. But you have to really work towards that, and you don't always earn it on a first try. Being a person is really hard work, and you'll make a lot of mistakes. But it's the effort that counts."

"Oh," said Gene, "What's a person?"

"You know," Monty shook his head, "I really don't know if I'm qualified to really tell you any of this. I work in Redeployment, you see, and I've been doing it since... forever. But you must understand, what you're asking isn't what I do. I should really call my supervisor."

Monty reached for the shiny black telephone handset.

"Oh, don't do that, please!" said Gene, shaking his head. He scooted forward to the edge of his seat, "I don't mean to be annoying, and I just don't understand why I'm here. I just don't understand--that's all. You're the only guy I've talked to, please help me?"

Monty put the phone back, and sighed, "All right."

Gene was pleased and was ever so ready for his answer, "A person, looks kind of like you, but could be male or female. You won't know your issued background information or gender until you get there. But you'll arrive, er—naturally… into the world—you'll be born, that is. You eventually become an adult person and do things. You'll give yourself a purpose and you'll meet other souls--people like yourself."

"Okay, well, this sounds very interesting. I suppose I'd like to try it."

"You'll experience things like...happiness. You'll like that one the best, and you can find it many different ways. Sometimes other people even give it to you intentionally. And then there's sadness which isn't really all it's cracked up to be, but it can be educational."

"I see,"

"And then there's another thing called love, and some R.R.S.'s just can't get enough of the stuff—they say it's a little like crack cocaine."

"What's that?" asked Gene excitedly.

"I think that conversation is better left for another time, but try to avoid drugs while you're down there. Anyhow, other R.R.S.'s say to avoid love at all costs because it has both happiness and sadness and you never know which you'll end up with more of—it's a little uncertain."

"Oh,"

"You can read more about these things at our Emotion Resource Center on the fifth floor, you know. They also have free chocolate and weekly meetings on what can happen if your person ends up a glutton, depressed, schizophrenic, or other things. I'm really not the best one to ask about this stuff--it's really an area for the specialists. I once had a R.R.S. that kept coming back as an attorney. I finally referred him to the fifth floor to talk to the Debased Soul Office, and see if he could start over somehow. The poor guy really got the short end of the stick," Monty laughed.

Gene smiled awkwardly; clearly not understanding most of what Monty was talking about.

"Listen, the point is, it's a job. Just get in there, do your best, and your hard work won't go by unnoticed. Do you understand now?"

"I guess so," said Gene, "It does sound like good work."

"It is," agreed Monty, "It has it ups and downs, and once you're there, you won't really want to end up back at the S.D.A."

         "Then, why will I have to come back?"

         Monty was getting a little impatient with these questions, "Because it's contract-to-contract, and people don't last forever."

"Well, why not? If it's such good work, why can't a soul just stay there as a person forever? Why is it designed that way?"

         "I've never asked—that's just how it is. Don’t worry, the termination process can vary but overall it goes quickly and you'll be back at my desk before you know it."

"But why?"

"Gene, we don't ask why. That's just how it is."

"Have you ever done it?"

"Done what?"

"—been a person? Gone into the world and worked?"

"No, I work here. This is my job. I’m an Employed Soul. Being a Deployed Soul is your job."

"But haven't you ever wanted to try it? Haven't you ever wondered what it was like?"

Monty had never been asked this before. He had never even thought this before. Monty had sat in this cubicle for generations, since he was first created and on top of that, had always worked in Redeployment. Come to think of it he had never left the cubicle. While he pondered upon this, he could hear the hustle of the office and the ambient phone ringing and distorted jazz again. This time he could also hear the stamping of yellow REASSIGNMENT papers and clacking of computer keyboards. He noticed the sterile white walls and the navy paisley carpet beneath his feet. Monty had always been so busy that he had never noticed these things. A clock ticked over his head--just how long had that clock been going? What a question to ask! It was clearly derailing him from his work. Work. Appointments. Stamps. Papers. The little hand on the clock continued to roll over the numbers. The phones rang. 

"Haven't you ever wanted to?" Gene asked again.

"I suppose I have been doing this a long time," said Monty, "But I had never thought about changing careers before. I've always been a part of the S.D.A."

"Do you like it?"

"What does that matter?"

"You said that most R.R.S.'s don't want to come back here, but you work here. If being in the world is such good work, why are you still here?"

Monty's head spun from the noise all around the office, and suddenly felt stagnant and bored. He was restless and confused. He knew of the world and the things inside it, and what was required to be a person and earn E.L.O.A. papers. He had never wondered before what it was like to be born, to become some one: to experience happiness, sadness, love, crack cocaine, or a career as an attorney. He had heard of all these things from the R.R.S.'s he had represented, but never had he thought about becoming one. How many years had he been in this noisy office? How long had that clock been going? What was it like to earn a Master's degree? What was did it feel like to wear a white bathrobe? They looked so comfortable. He placed a hand onto his neglected mid-section and fingered the buttons on his ironed shirt.

Monty shook his head and turned to his computer to complete the rest of Gene's paperwork. A yellow paper came shooting out of his printer, and a red APPROVED stamp was marked onto the upper right corner. Refusing to continue the conversation, Monty handed the file to Gene and said, "Thank you for choosing the Soul Deployment Agency for your existential needs. We hope to have your business again."

Gene said a mild "thank you," accepted the file, and left the cubicle in slow shuffled steps. Monty could hardly hear himself over the deafening noise in the Redeployment office. The ringing of phones hissed in his ear, the pounding of the keyboards made the hairs on his neck stand up, and he could hardly stand the distorted music one more second. All at once, Monty stood up and looked over the acres of grey cubicles in the endless S.D.A. building. It went on forever. And there were hundreds of other representatives, enormous piles of files, and many, many white-robed clients with little green identity cards. How long had these clocks all been going? He had never heard them ticking until today. Monty had never stood up from his desk until today. And it had been so many years since he was confused.

Suddenly the phone at his desk rang, and he promptly answered it: "Soul Deployment Agency--Redeployments--Monty speaking, how may I help you?"

But no one was on the other line; perhaps an accidental call. He placed the handset back on the receiver and crossed off his last appointment: Gene 142955999743. He turned around and looked for his next client in the very disorganized stack of manila folder files. 

And the office was silent.