Machines
1. PISS
2. WHITE CHOCOLATE MOCHA
3. YOU ARE ALL SLAVES TO THE CLOCK
Machines.
White sheets of paper exit topside slots.
Businessmen and women sip black coffee from blue paper cups in the shape of a cone.
I’m clean. I went into the bathroom, stripped off my suit tie shirt slacks shoes socks, and washed myself with sink water and paper towels. I took a piss naked. I returned to work in under seven minutes.
Sandra looked at me funny. I made a mental note of that before returning to my cubicle, opening the top right drawer, retrieving a nine-millimeter pistol. My nine-millimeter pistol. I placed it conspicuously on my desk and waited for someone to notice. No one did because there was no one there. It was eleven at night.
Was it morning? I got up and saw it was dark through the window.
Sandra: You should get some sleep. I’m going to finish this report and then I’m going to leave. You should do the same.
Haven’t slept in so long. The plate of donuts is vacant. No excess sugar this morning.
Gun. GET DOWN. Don’t move. Sandra, GET UP.
I feel like I live in this place, the hours I work. I work more than I sleep. That means I work all the time because I don’t sleep. It’d be funny if I sold my condo and moved in here. The hours I work, I feel like my eyes are going to bleed out of their sockets.
There are sixteen cubicles on this section of the floor. Together they form a square. Copier to the left, refreshments to the right. I have a date with Starbucks. White Chocolate Mocha, Grande.
They’re not open. They close at nine. It’s two in the evening. Manila folders smell like a mixture of cardboard and computer paper. Report’s done, time to go home.
Satellite radio is a gift to man, a godsend for insomniacs. I sit in my car and listen to the sound of people talking. It’s not so dark outside with the orange glow of streetlights and the LCD panel displaying channels, songs. Turn the dial, sip invisible Starbucks which will be open in three and one quarter hours… cigarette? I’ll take one.
Stick it in my mouth, but I don’t light it. I chew it. I’m curious how cigarettes taste. I think I’ll eat this one. Chew, chew, and chew.
Power windows. Vomit on the sidewalk. Shift to drive.
Did I fall asleep? The window is fogged up. I wipe my fingers across it and see the city in full glory. Daylight, and the sun’s out, and the traffic’s building. Yawn and sip my Grande White Chocolate Mocha four dollars and change plus tax.
The city is a reflection. I open the door and walk into the cool air-conditioned building. I haven’t slept in quite some time. Lenny the security guard grunts in my direction, half-awake or half-dead. He’s been here all night, but Ben will take over soon. Rest well, Len.
Bill is here early. He doesn’t utter Word, just nods and resumes clicking icons on computer screen, inputting numbers on spreadsheet, printing spreadsheet, taking tack from small clear plastic box, putting spreadsheet up on board, returning to computer, computing, computed, compute dead.
I accidentally drop my cup on the floor. Bill notices but doesn’t pay any attention. God bless him for that. I go into the bathroom and get some paper towel. When I come out, the mess is gone. I wipe at a clean spot. I take a sip.
There’s a gun on my desk. Nine-millimeter. I’ve never fired a gun in my life. I shoot the computer screen. You’re fired. Bill’s head explodes. No blood just sparks and glass. You’re all slaves to the clock. Fuck time. Fuck corporate America.
Sandra: Don’t come to work tomorrow.
Meanwhile, it’s yesterday. Corporate pig fucking assholes get on the fucking floor and don’t move. You’re all slaves to the clock. Fuck time. Fuck corporate America. I burn flags.
MacDonald. Your report. You want it? Bang. Peterson. Your report. You want it? Bang. Look over them before you send them, I think there are a few spelling mistakes. I didn’t use spell check.
1. VICTIM #4 - SAMANTHA
2. VICTIM #5 - ART
Meaningless combinations of 1s and 0s changing and interchanging on radiation-emitting monitors presenting the illusion of graphic programs graphic interfaces graphic spreadsheets sheets sheet shit. Phones ringing ringaling ling singing pick me up pick it up connect to Chinese businessman hiding out in a blood-sucking mosquito-ridden brothel feat. entire families brothers sisters mothers fathers for the equivalent of 16.9 fluid ounces bottled water here in the States, northern South Korea. Click a mouse, unclick it unstick it, dead brown gray skin (Yuck!) stuck to the right button from the exertion Intellimouse flashing red beam like a Target sign all-encompassing non-blinding light shining and noiseless. Diagonal triangular patterns on fuzz ball carpet don’t sneeze step don’t step sneeze let it all go just Air-Vacuum the mess and let it all go it all let go and fell into a daze that’s hard near but not quite impossible to wake up from hard to smell the roses/coffee/napalm and woke up put me on hold but never returned where’s the Goddamn representative Goddamn it’s been fifteen long minutes Goddamn of thumb twiddling wretched boredom permanent vacation listening to Smooth Jazz hits sipping bottle Corona Lights and pass the fifteenth cigarette of the hour blank canvas covered in Babe the Pig’s feces SMASH the motherfucking GLASS alcohol poisoning alcohol is poison pouring into rotted blood flow excess activity or lack of my brain aches with the connotations. I’d like to fuck Sandra after I kill her before I killer. First person POV grain scratched damaged flickering of black lubed pistol being raised (calloused middle-aged hand clutching hard) to -PRINT DAMAGE- forehead of well-tanned Spring Break -PRINT DAMAGE- slut number one uno numero the victim is shot or slut became victim upon being -PRINT DAMAGE- shot head caves in, implodes, explodes. Blood clots seeping blood through size zero cotton machined suit *fuck ORGANIZED CORPORATION RELIGION* Your suit is too tight, too small. You’re going to Hell if you don’t pull that skirt down I mean up I mean down I mean no that’s not what I mean You know what I’m talking about You know and if You don’t You’ll find out. White sheets of paper exit topside slots. Photocopier copied images – reproduced productions of feckless abandon and reckless amazement. Caffeine-induced hallucinogenic drug tripper fading in and out of realness, reality, real, and an itty bitty albeit thick-bodied… fucking Witch spider crawling up the left hand of my right eye’s corner. Words cannot hope to illuminate the million fold lies of un-existence lamp shattering, screaming “painless” tuneful harmonies reverberating boingbooingboooingbooooingboooooing through cotton-stuffed clouds melting rancid streams, streams, lots of them blue and gray and black the entire spectrum depending on time o’ day falling onto matted then gelled Los Angeles Looks extra super 10 hold then cut and matted haircuts and business-devoid of businessmen making end meets through more or less endless tunnels Reproductions screaming Uncle Ben (notice the shameless product placement) White-invented Nigger it don’t make sense-cents-scents of cherry-flavored medication slipping beyond the reach of cancerous throat infection flashback resembling triple fudge chocolate nutmeg extra multi-colored half tasteless sprinkles red white and blue Patriotic Freedom Special for an extra dime and a cent and a dime cent hooker age eleven smiling toothless provocations as her infant teeth fall out nuclear and bleed triumphant deaths “Spoon me up another mouthful Daddy” or just shoot it fucking shoot it all over my desecrated temple a melodious malady killing all killing me kill me dead cowardice kills. Subtle as a brick to the head I smash a Motorola cell phone mini-brick model just shit with circuits nothing more and nevermore. Pieces plastic shards SIM card snap crackle pop Hidden microphone? cue taken from Conspiracy Theory Ambiguous I decode Art’s facial expression contorted into aggravated meaninglessness: confirmation of placid existentialist thought: i.e. it feels Good to be Alive and Ambiguous: i.e. by Webster’s definition life exists in rudiments. Thought processes become pretentious before I think the process does its part first thing come to Mind just sunglasses expensive reflecting the heat it’s humid I didn’t forget $250 Aloe Vera protection for Realize death and it won’t hurt realize Death and it won’t hurt Realize Death and it won’t hurt let go of Self and Together and One and it won’t
1. VICTIM #6
He raised the gun up in the air like this and said this is the end, this is the end and fired into the ceiling and the tile done capsized and crushed his head! WHAM! Just like that! …It’s scary, real scary, knowing that the normal everyday people you work with could be full out oppressed er repressed psychos. …What he did to Sandra is sickening, just sickening. How a man, who God put with grace and care on this Earth, could do that – it’s beyond me, I tell ya. Sickening. I don’t remember the last time I saw her. Personally, I think it’s best to forget things like that or they’ll get you real down.
Gender:
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