To Work and Weep (468 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 0.1 on 7 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Hunter Payne (View user info) at 2007-01-20 22:39:08 EST
Just bear with me here for a moment or two. Can you do that for me?
Antanis Blake peered through the yellowed plastic window shields of his luxurious
morning motel out at the motionless fizzling sun - frying his retinas in the reflections
bouncing off the blacktop and all the while waiting for a change. Across the room
and somewhere in the shade, the black plastic phone that was balanced so carefully
on its two little brackets as if placed their in the night by the creeping kitten
fingers of the fog inevitably broke the blue and grey silence of his reflections
in a familiar bubbly warble.
As he stood up stiffly in his private nakedness, he padded to the phone and answered
slowly and majestically in his deepest tone, the hairs on his chest prickling eagerly
as they would have done in the ancient age of the hunt.
"Hello?"
"Sir, this is your 4:00 PM wakeup call requested last night at about 9:04 PM
from room 1082"
He returned the phone to its partner on the nightstand and spoke dryly as one does
in the first hours after awakening, "Of course it is."
He walked into the bathroom to relieve the pressures of bodily routine, and as
he lathered his hands in the poison fluoride rinse, he stared straight into
his own eyes in an attempt to intimidate. The man in the mirror would not avert
his hard gaze. The man in the bathroom wouldn't either, and this was how it
was for ten or fifteen minutes - a silently dramatic war of worlds.
He flipped through the available wall-mounted radiovision channels for a half
hour, though all he could find was infonews and infomercials - As always
some kid had drowned. Another third world country was in the midst of a civil
crisis and the country was still in debt. He was starting to think more and
more that the only purpose of the news was to inform people when things
weren't changing. It sure is a comforting thought.
Then the telephone rang again and he retreated from the commode, lifting the
receiver and stealing a moment to position himself directly in the sun's path,
letting the radiation lightly toast his back as he spoke,
"Yes?"
"Sir, your time has expired for the room 1082. Please come down to the
management centre to check out."
"You're gonna have to give me a second to-"
A click followed by the dial tone politely told him to hurry up.
He placed the phone back in its cradle and clothed himself in his Corporate
Standard black dress pants, the fibrous stiffness itching his thighs in
the usual way. He tightened his white tie like a noose and donned a white dress
shirt and his black silk vest, making sure the tie was perfectly centered on
his neck. As he stepped into the management office, he put on the simple black
bowler he'd been carrying. The lazy attendant was in the back room having visual
intercourse with his radiovision, so the money was carefully placed, exact
change and all, on the chipped and scored faux-marble counter with a thank
you note consisting of a vulgar phrase scribbled on one of the motel's customer
feedback cards.
As Antanis stepped out into the morning air, he took a moment to relish the
burnt-diesel and chrome-smell of the country. The world became something
blurry - something trivial, something other, as the life-giving oxygen
was momentarily choked from his lungs in that familiar way he so often relished
as a child. Though his small bubble of private asphyxiation comforted
him with its fuzzy edges and all, it was time to get a start on the day.
Time to head down to the employment offices in the slate-grey of Saturn City.
Time to earn one's keep. Time to find one's place. Too much time to punch
into the proverbial factory clock and too little time to do it.
He exhaled and started walking east.
User Reviews
Submitted by thorpe (user info) at 2007-01-21 20:35:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
WOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-01-21 00:29:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-01-21 00:10:16 (#)
Ranking: 2
It's my +2 and I'll do whatever the fuck I want with it.
Submitted by DCWoody (user info) at 2007-01-20 23:51:36 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
ugh, messed up formatting
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2007-01-20 23:27:46 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
fine, i'll be honest now
Submitted by Lisa (user info) at 2007-01-20 23:22:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
You were a poet and a painter, William Blake. But now, you're a killer of white men.
Submitted by LSD420 (user info) at 2007-01-20 23:08:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Oh I'm sorry I guess that does make it hard on the lungs when you have to read everything out loud, doesn't it?
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2007-01-20 23:03:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
your sentences seem to continually run much too long