Hell Is Other People, Danielle Bellwood [best novels to read .TXT] 📗

“Roger…” Arlo said slowly, “What are the drones?”

“Not what,” Roger said, shaking his head. “Who.”

Waking Up Is Hard to Do

Roger lazily scanned the email for Phil in accounting. He didn’t actually remember typing it but there it was on his computer screen. Just waiting for him to hit send. Easy enough to do, but the thing was, Roger couldn’t seem to bring himself to hit the button. Something had happened that forced him to ‘see behind the curtain,’ so to speak. A breakdown in the not so perfect machine that was the universe. A loose cog or a dead squirrel stuck in the engine, jamming up the works.

Until yesterday, every day of Roger’s life felt exactly the same as the one before. His job had become tedious to the point of martyrdom. Roger suffered from unrelenting bouts of depression, so every single second of every single day spent sitting at his desk was enough to make him want to hold a pillow over his own head until he passed out. But he didn’t because the idea of somehow botching the job and being left half-alive, a coma patient trapped forever in his own deranged mind, was even more depressing.

Roger had been assistant supervisor in charge pro tem for… a while now. Every day, he would wait for new temps to show up for their pointless appointments. Every day, he would guide said temps to meet their senior counterparts. And every day, he would sit back down at his desk and wait miserably for the work day to end. His job was not that difficult. In fact, it was so basic that it should have caused a chemical burn. But, meh. It was a living. Sort of.

At 7:29, the lights brightened slightly and the faint click of the door opening around the bend eased his troubled mind a tiny bit. Footsteps on the short beige Berber echoed through the empty halls. Same as every other day. As 29 rolled over to 30, Arlo Black opened the door to Roger’s glass box. Same as every other day.

“So,” Roger droned dejectedly, “The agency sent you?”

“No,” Arlo said. Not at all the same as every other day.

“Call me… what do you mean, No?”

“Oh, you know,” Arlo said. “I know you know what I mean by no.”

“Ummm,” Roger mumbled as his muddled mind tried to wrap around the convoluted sentence filled with NOs. “Call me Roger,” he finally said just to say something.

“No,” Arlo said again.

Roger stared at him. This didn’t feel quite right.

“You will be shadowing a senior staffer,” Roger said.

“Oh, you mean Gillian?” Arlo asked. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“What?”

“She’s not at her desk,” Arlo said. “In fact, she never even got dressed this morning. I swung by her apartment when I saw that she wasn’t at Java Joe’s. She said she’s taking a vacation day. Real progress, if you ask me.”

Roger thought of the angry-looking bald accountant in the navy-blue suit. Phil would shake his head and hold up a sheaf of copy paper. He would tell Roger to “fix it” even though Roger wasn’t really sure what was broken or why he was picturing this scenario so vividly.

“I think maybe we need to take a little walk and talk about what’s going on here, Supervisor Goodspeed Call Me Roger,” Arlo said with an anxious little chuckle.

Roger stood outside the door to the coffee haus with Arlo and stared at the nonsensical words scrawled on the white board. Java Joe liked to write amusing notes or puns about life, the universe, and everything. Things like ‘If life gives you melons, you’re dyslexic’ or ‘It’s a dog eat god world.’ Today, the words written in two-inch red letters spelled out: ‘404 ERROR. FILE NOT FOUND.’

“What does it mean?” Roger asked.

“Does it need to have a meaning?” Arlo laughed nervously. “Dude seems a little off his rocker, if you ask me.”

Roger pushed the door gently, careful to avoid hitting anyone who may be waiting just inside. The shop was empty but for Joe Jr, standing behind the counter with a bored expression on his face.

“So, what are we doing here?” Arlo asked Roger.

Roger blinked at him blankly. “You’re asking me?”

“Yeah,” Arlo said. “This is your shitshow, boss. I’m just along for the ride.”

Roger turned to look at Jr waiting patiently behind the order counter. Something about this whole situation felt wrong. Like he’d slipped on a bar of reality and conked his head on the floor of some other universe’s shower. Was he drowning right now in a sudsy spray of water? Was he, in fact, bleeding from a cracked skull and slowly slipping into unconsciousness as he waited for the pimply young man to give meaning to his trek into this coffee bar? He didn’t know and he really didn’t want to think about it. Block it out. Move forward one heavy step at a time. The end will come eventually. It always does.

“Were you going to order?” Jr asked suddenly, breaking the paralyzing silence.

“Where is Phil?” Roger asked, more to himself than the barista.

“Am I my accountant’s keeper?” Jr said.

“I’ll have a large…” Arlo began.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve got it right here,” Jr said and motioned to the 20 oz cup waiting on the long counter.

“Perfect. Thanks,” Arlo said.

He picked up the cup and took a swallow as Roger stared in disbelief. A tiny vein began to pulse in the middle of Roger’s forehead. His generally dispassionate persona was being overridden by the strangeness of the whole scene. Arlo seemed to be taking everything in stride. Odd, considering the fact that Roger would have pegged the guy as vapid and self-absorbed, not a champion of the weird.

Roger watched as Arlo spun the cup slightly to see the name that Jr had written on the side in black sharpie.

“Try Again Later”

Arlo laughed and took another gulp of coffee as Roger watched him with a growing sense of alarm.

“Ready to go talk with Gillian yet?” Arlo asked around sips of