by Spike Black
Pippa saw that the workers were stitching together bright blue work tunics.
She glanced over at the break room and saw more workers through the glass, smoking and drinking coffee. She crossed the floor to another set of doors. Moved through to yet another factory floor. A more open-plan space this time, with fewer work benches. The workers on this floor, she noticed, were assembling vending machines.
At that moment the bell rang to signify the end of her tea break. Instantly, she lost control of her body. Her legs spun around, marching her through the doors and across the factory until she was back on her own floor, at her workbench.
Click. Turn. Snap. Push… Click. Turn. Snap. Push…
She waited.
Click. Turn. Snap. Push… Click. Turn. Snap. Push…
And waited.
When finally the bell rang for her next break, she turned and ran in the opposite direction, to the double doors behind her. Threw them open and crossed the floor to the next set of doors. Another floor. Another break room.
She pressed on. More doors, more factory floors. So long as she continued in the same direction, she would eventually come to the outer perimeter of the building, surely? How large could one factory be? She picked up her pace, passing workers making wooden stools, plastic chairs, tables, hinges, noticeboards, vents - even workbenches. Every time she thought that maybe she’d found the doors that led to the outer perimeter, another factory floor stretched before her.
She turned and started walking back even before the bell rang.
***
She watched Cindy enjoying a cigarette. “I can’t do this,” Pippa said. “I can’t be stuck here in this goddamn factory all my life.”
Cindy stubbed her cigarette into an ashtray and immediately lit another.
“How do you do it?” Pippa asked. “When your brain is mush and your fingers are stiff and your bum’s sore? How do you keep going?”
Cindy took a gulp of coffee. “Well, this ain’t the Ritz, but it has its pleasures. And around here, you soon learn to savor them.” She puffed out a ring of cigarette smoke.
Pippa sat in silence for the rest of the break, waiting for her body to betray her once more. When the time was up and she was returned to her workbench, she watched for a while as her hands did their thing, and then she switched off her brain. There was no point in fighting it - she was trapped.
Her boxes filled with handles. The young man delivered more empty boxes. As the bell rang for break time and her colleagues jumped up, she remained in her seat, watching as the young man pushed his trolley full of handles across the factory floor, disappearing through the double doors.
She had to find out where he was taking them.
She burst across the factory and through the doors. Tagging behind him as he pushed through several floors, she watched as he took a detour behind racks filled from floor to ceiling with coffee machines. She followed, navigating the maze of racks, until she found him wheeling his trolley onto an elevator. As she approached, the doors began to close. She leapt forward, poking a hand through the gap in the doors, and they reopened. She stepped onto the elevator car. As she suspected, the young man paid her no attention.
She rode the rocking, squealing elevator up several levels until it came to a jerking stop. As the doors opened, her heart thumped in her chest at the thought of what she might see. She stepped off the car.
Her face fell. Another factory floor. Another break room. She crossed the floor, pushing through more doors, past hundreds of silent workers, until she came to another set of double doors, and stopped. Hammering and drilling noises emanated from the other side. She pushed through and, at long last, saw something different.
This floor was still under construction.
Men in hard hats were fitting windows into the break room walls. Securing workbenches in place. Building racks. Hanging doors. The most remarkable thing about this space, however, was that beyond what had already been built, there was nothing. No walls, no doors leading to other floors. Just a void, blacker than the darkest night. A hole in the fabric of existence.
Pippa moved forward, approaching the void. Her feet stopped at the edge of the floor. She stared out into the silent, dreadful black.
Suddenly, she knew everything. She was Philippa Ann Bowers, thirty-three years old, and she remembered it all - the depression, the drugs, the struggle to make it through each day, the crushing monotony of a life - the insurance company hours, the loveless marriage - that had led her to end it all with a cocktail of pills and booze.
At long last, Pippa realized where she was.
***
Pippa sipped from a paper cup. For machine-made coffee, she had to admit it tasted pretty good. She watched as Cindy lit a cigarette. “Do you mind if I…”
Cindy smirked, offering the carton. Pippa took a cigarette. Cindy lit it for her.
Pippa sat back and took a long drag. She exhaled the smoke into the air. She drank more coffee. Damn, this stuff was good. She drained the cup.
Two thousand years later she tried the tea.
The Small Print
Tim Argyle pulled open the doors on the back of his van, checked the invoice pinned to his clipboard and found the corresponding order: two boxes of continuous form printer paper, the perforated, green-lined kind that he’d seen spooling out of those noisy dot matrix printers back in the eighties and early nineties. Quite why anyone still needed this stuff he didn’t know, and he didn’t much care. Only two more deliveries and he was done for the day. He might even get back for the second half of the Italy match if he hurried.
Grabbing a box under each arm, he lifted the paper off the back of the van. The combined weight was considerably more than he had anticipated, however, and one of the boxes slipped from his grasp, crashing onto the road.
“You absolute bugger.”
Argyle retrieved the slightly crumpled box, closing the van doors with his shoulder. He glanced over at the run-down tower block, a concrete monstrosity that stretched so far skyward he couldn’t be bothered to lift his head that high. He checked the address on the clipboard balanced precariously on top of the boxes.
“Son of a bitch.”
Sixteen flights of stairs later he arrived, breathless and trembling with exhaustion, at his destination. “Would it kill you to get a working elevator in this place?” he asked the overweight, balding chap who eventually opened the apartment door.
“Devil’s contraptions,” the man said, relieving him of the boxes as swiftly as if they had been filled with air. “I’d sooner trust a snake with fangs at both ends.” He placed the boxes on top of a teetering tower of identical packs of printer paper just inside the door. “Zach Griffin,” the man said, holding out his hand.
“Tim Argyle.” He clocked Griffin’s tweed suit and mismatched tie. His greasy comb-over and lime green socks. The overall effect was of an eccentric uncle attempting a vague approximation of a businessman. Argyle looked past Griffin to the apartment beyond. Dozens of sheets of continuous form printer paper, punched with regularly-spaced holes along both edges, hung down from the swirl-textured ceiling. Countless more sheets were folded at the perforations and arranged into stacks around the room, which had been stripped of all furnishings and home comforts. “What’s all this?” he asked. “You a novelist?”
“More of a publisher, actually.”
“Yeah? I’m a bit of a writer myself in my spare time. What do you publish?”
“People’s lives, mostly.”
“Oh? Biographies?”
Griffin smirked. “Not exactly. Do you believe in fate, Mr Argyle?”
Argyle pulled a face.
“No,” Griffin said, moving back far enough that he disappeared behind a wall of paper. “Neither did I.”
Argyle peeled away the top sheet of the invoice. “Uh, your copy. Mr Griffin?” He peered around the reams of printer paper. “Mr Griffin?”
Gingerly, he stepped into the apartment, navigating around the sheets
of paper that hung like jungle vines around the room. He noticed for the first time that paragraphs of text filled every sheet, but the type was too small to be legible.
He heard the unmistakable high-pitched whine of a dot matrix printer and, following the noise, came to a clearing in the middle of the room. Griffin was there, leaning over a battered old printer that was steadily eating a a stack of continuous paper.
“I was surfing the Internet one night,” Griffin said. “About a year ago. Looking for the things that lonely people look for.”
Argyle grunted with amusement. “What, porn?”
“Naked ladies. Scantily clad, none of that gynecological stuff. Anyway, I never did satisfy my urges, because I came across something else instead.” He motioned to the printer. “It lodged itself onto my hard drive, like a virus. I couldn’t get it off. So I started printing it out.”
Argyle leaned closer, watching the print head as it moved rapidly back and forth, spewing tiny text onto the page. It was quite hypnotic. “All this was on your hard drive? What is it?”
Griffin’s face lit up. “Have you ever been to a clairvoyant, and wished that when she looked into her crystal ball, everything she saw would come true?”
Argyle shot Griffin a look, then realized that he was completely serious. He had the sudden and uneasy feeling that he had wandered into some kind of trap. “Uh, look, I’ve got my deliveries to make…”
“Mr Argyle. Tim. I offer the future. Your future - all of it. The genuine article. One hundred percent fact.”
Argyle turned back, rolling his eyes. “Isn’t this the part when I cross your palm with silver?”
“Gypsies sell predictions. Guesstimates. I’m offering the truth.”
“Right, right. And all you need is my credit card number?”
Griffin fixed him with a stare. “A thousand pounds is very reasonable.”
A sharp laugh burst from Argyle’s lips. He shook his head and walked away.
“Greatest investment of your life.”
“No thanks, Nostradamus.”
Griffin caught up with him at the front door. “You’re afraid. I can understand that.”
Argyle handed him the invoice. “Your copy.”
In return, Griffin pulled something from his pocket: a small, plastic magnifying glass. “Complimentary gift.”
Argyle took it. The words CHECK THE SMALL PRINT were engraved onto the transparent handle. He frowned. “O-kay, thanks.”
He turned and walked away, relieved to have escaped from the badly-dressed weirdo and his mumbo-jumbo sales pitch. As he reached the end of the corridor, Argyle realized that he hadn’t heard the door close, and he had the niggling feeling that Griffin was still there, watching at the doorway. But he refused to look back and acknowledge him. He pushed through the door into the stairwell and descended the staircase two steps at a time. When he was almost halfway down, a voice echoed through the stairwell.
“Running out of time. The clearance could let in Sergio for a second chance.”
Argyle stopped and looked up.
Griffin was leaning over the banister several floors up, staring down at him. “Italy with more men forward than at any stage, breaking well. We’ve now had the extra two minutes…”
With that, Griffin pulled back, disappearing from view.
Argyle was bewildered. He dismissed the nutcase with a shake of his head and continued on his way.
Exiting onto the street, he checked his watch. There was still time. If his final delivery was straightforward, then he’d make it home for the second half. As he unlocked the van he noticed a piece of folded paper beneath the windshield wiper, flapping in the breeze.
There was something scribbled on it in bold handwriting: MR ARGYLE.
Argyle unfolded the note. It was a single sheet of green-lined printer paper, torn at the perforations. Every inch was crammed full of tiny text. Argyle rolled his eyes and climbed into the van. Screwing the paper into a ball, he hurled it into the passenger footwell.
He inserted the key into the ignition and turned it. The radio burst to life.
A radio reporter was feverishly commentating on a soccer match. “…running out of time. The clearance could let in Sergio for a second chance. Italy with more men forward than at any stage, breaking well. We’ve now had the extra two minutes of the first—”
The radio died as Argyle shut off the engine. Stunned, he reached into the footwell and retrieved the ball of paper, unfolding it. The text was too small for him to make out. He remembered something and pulled the plastic magnifying glass from his pocket. Holding it up to the top line of text, he read the first passage:
ARGYLE OPENS THE VAN DOORS. HE LOADS TWO PACKS OF PRINTER PAPER INTO HIS ARMS, BEFORE DROPPING ONE OF THE BOXES INTO THE ROAD. DIALOGUE: “YOU ABSOLUTE BUGGER.” HE RETRIEVES THE BOX.
***
“What the hell is this?” Argyle yelled, waving the crumpled sheet of printer paper. “What’s going on?”
Griffin stood at the door to his apartment, his doughy features kneaded into an expression of perfect calm. “Mr Argyle…”
“If you’re trying to blackmail me into buying whatever it is you’re peddling…”
“Mr Argyle…”
“Because I’m not interested, okay? You can shove all your fortune telling bollocks.”
“Mr Argyle…” Griffin waited until he had Argyle’s full attention. “I printed that out over an hour ago.”
Argyle was lost for words. The events described on the first line of the note had occurred less than twenty minutes earlier. “That’s stupid.”
“I know.” Griffin waved him inside.
Argyle reluctantly followed him through the jungle of paper and into an adjoining room. Several people of varying ages - an old Chinese woman, a teenaged boy, a middle-aged businessman - sat on chairs around the perimeter of the room, magnifying glasses in hand, reading from their own personal stacks of continuous printer paper that was folded at the perforations.
“Every customer gets their own manuscript,” Griffin whispered. “It’s how they come out - one person at a time. I have no control over whom.”
“So there’s one on me?”
The businessman looked up, annoyed, and, putting a finger to his mouth, ssh-ed him.
Griffin spoke low. “Oh yes.”
“So - what are they?”
“Personalized blueprints. Everything that happens from the moment they are printed, until the moment you die.”
Argyle exploded with laughter. Every person in the room looked up from their papers and gave him a stern look.
“I didn’t believe it, either,” Griffin whispered. “Until the printer churned out my manuscript. It’s like a good book - I couldn’t put it down. I even skipped to the last page to see how it would end.”
Argyle rubbed his temples, struggling to comprehend what he was being told. “Why… why would anyone want to know these things?”
“Human curiosity. Once we know such a document exists, we can’t help ourselves. We have to read it.”
Intrigued, Argyle leaned over the teenaged boy’s shoulder and tried to read his manuscript through the magnifying glass. The boy shielded the words from his view.
Griffin passed through a velvet curtain, and Argyle followed. As he adjusted to the relative darkness of the new room, Argyle’s eyes widened in disbelief.
The room was decorated with candles, beads and small wooden statues that looked suspiciously like they were molded in the image of Griffin. Two monk-like figures in hooded robes stood, heads bowed, in the corner. As Griffin entered, they approached and knelt before him. He blessed them with the gentle touch of his palm on their heads.
“Just imagine,” Griffin whispered. “If I keep printing this stuff out, we will discover not only the expiry date of humanity, but the secrets of the universe. The meaning of life.”
Argyle shuddered at the horror of what he was witnessing, his face contorted into a mask of disgust. He spun on his hee
ls and marched through the curtain.
Griffin turned back. “Mr Argyle?”
Argyle barreled through to the printing room, pulling down strips of continuous paper that hung in his way. He searched through piles of folded manuscripts. Checked the feed that was pouring from the printer.
As Griffin entered, Argyle charged up to him, fuming. “Where’s mine, huh? Where is it? I want it now.” He grabbed Griffin by the collar of his jacket and threw him up against the wall. “Whatever you’ve got on me, you freak, I want it. You’ve picked on the wrong person this time.” He waved the note that Griffin had left on his van. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“My manuscript.”
“You’re… you’re holding it.”
Argyle looked at the sheet of crumpled paper in his hand. “This is it?” Bewildered, he released his hold on Griffin, who collapsed to the floor, choking. “You were gonna charge me a grand for this?”
He advanced on Griffin, who flinched. Argyle backed away; the guy wasn’t worth it. Crying out in frustration, Argyle charged out of the apartment, flying down the staircase in a haze of fury. He burst out onto the street, unfolding the sheet of paper in his hand. He retrieved the magnifying glass from his pocket and held it up to the final line of text on the page.
STEPPING INTO THE ROAD, ARGYLE PULLS OUT THE MAGNIFYING GLASS AND READS THE LAST LINE ON THIS PAGE. HE STUDIES THE WORDS SO INTENTLY THAT HE FAILS TO NOTICE THE SPEEDING TRUCK UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE. THE VEHICLE KNOCKS HIM DOWN, KILLING HIM INSTANTLY.
Argyle gasped and looked up.
Floored
