Other Voices, Other Tombs

by Joe Sullivan

  “Ah. It's nothing,” Brad stops and scratches his chin through his scraggly goatee, which he never trims, though he shaves the rest of his face to a smooth bareness. “Personnel wants to see me.”

  “Oh.” Something cold tingles at the base of your spine, but you're not sure why. “Manager say why?”

  “Naw, just called me in, gave me his blank stare and told me 'Personnel needs to see you.'” He shakes his head as he turns. “Anyway. See ya.”

  He disappears around the corner in the direction of the Personnel office, which you realize, oddly enough, you've never seen or even thought of since starting at The Can Man. You don't think about it any longer, however, and walk numbly out to your car.

  It doesn't occur to you until you're halfway home, the oddness of it. Your last memory of...John, the name comes with some effort...is him complaining about having Personnel wanting to see him.

  Before he disappeared.

  #

  Next morning when you wake, nightmarish tendrils recede from your mind. Lying on your back, gazing at the darkened ceiling of your bedroom, you recall another dream of running through a maze made of white pulsating things which looked like plastic bags but weren't. Something at its center throbbed and screamed in an alien tongue, those screams drawing you inexorably closer. You figure the maze is probably a nightmare-version of The Sweat House. Which makes sense, because you hate working in there.

  The maze? Psych 101. You're lost. Trapped by the apathy you've been mired in since starting at The Can Man. The thought has occurred over the past three or four days...

  four or five weeks

  two months

  ...that you should quit immediately. Simply stop going. Find another job somewhere else. Except...there aren't any other jobs. Not that you've looked, lately. That's the problem. You're afraid to, because you don't want to face the truth: there aren't any jobs. Not for you. You fell too fast and too far. You're now at The Can Man...

  The last job you'll ever have.

  This morbid thought shoots nervous energy through you. You sit up and swing your feet to the floor. Run a trembling hand through damp and matted hair, and puzzle at your dream. Like the one you had...last week, the week before?...you were looking for someone. Not the man with the red hair and the limp, whose name you can't remember now, no matter how hard you try. Someone else. Leaner, wearing an unruly goatee...

  Brian.

  Bob.

  No, Brad. You dreamed of looking for Brad. Just like you dreamed of looking for...that other man, several weeks ago. Someone who used to work at The Can Man, whom you can't remember.

  This place has fuckin high turnover, man

  Why bother makin’ friends

  Sitting on the edge of your bed, kneading your forehead with your fingertips, you decide that's your problem. Trying to make friends in a place with such high turnover. You need to concentrate on the job. Pluck, sort, and throw. Every day. Keep your head down and work, because pretty soon, you'll move on to something better. This apathy is temporary. You'll get over it. Ride it out. Just need to kick yourself in the ass, send out more applications, and follow up on others. Get back in the saddle. When you find a new job, you'll go into The Can Man and quit, loud and proud.

  New life flushes through you, washing away the lingering unease over last night's dream, and the memory of that throbbing, screaming alien voice. You practically bounce upright with an energy you haven't felt in weeks...

  months?

  ...as you get ready for work early, so you can go buy a newspaper and surf the classified ads for that new job you're meant to have. You're so happy, you don't worry about the red-haired guy with the limp whom you can't remember (why bother remembering people in a place with such high turnover, right?), and you forget all about those Genesee cans Brad had you pile in the Budweiser section of The Sweat House...

  #

  ...until a week later, when the manager, instead of nodding dully when you walk by in the morning, scowls and gestures you into his cramped office.

  Which is the last thing you want to do. All the energy you felt last week has faded. You found two jobs in occupations similar to your former job, and they initially sounded upbeat about calling you back. Three days later, however, nothing. Your follow-up calls went unanswered.

  You tried a different tactic the next few days, calling employers instead of emailing resumes from the library computers. Three calls went straight to voicemail. Two initially sounded promising, until they heard you were working at The Can Man. Abruptly they turned cool and dismissive, uttering empty promises about “being in touch.”

  So standing in the doorway of the manager's featureless office—with a desk, a filing cabinet, and nothing else—is the last place you want to be. What makes it worse is you can't figure out why he's angry. No one's keeping track and no one cares, but you've never fallen behind at your sorting station, maintaining the same, steady pace every day. What could the manager possibly be upset about...

  It hits like a thunderbolt.

  The Genesee bags.

  In the Budweiser room.

  When was Genesee supposed to come? Did someone put those bags on the Genesee truck? Or did they get thrown on the Budweiser truck? When was the Budweiser truck coming? Had it already come?

  You stand in the manager's doorway, clenching your hands so tightly fingernails bite into your palms, suddenly realizing—with a spike of fear—you're not even sure what day it is.

  The manager flips through some papers, scowling, and without looking at you, says, “Someone screwed up in The Sweat House. Budweiser in Baldwinsville called. They got about ten bags of Genesee in their load. You worked in the House the day we stacked Genesee in there. You pack some Genesee bags in the Budweiser room and forget?”

  Indignant but futile anger fills you. “No. I mean, yeah...I worked in the House that day, but I...”

  The manager finally looks up, still scowling, but somewhat blankly, as if not at anything in particular. “Did you put those Genesee bags in there, or didn't you?”

  Unreasoning panic thrums along your nerves. “I...uh...yeah. I mean, I did, but only because...because...”

  The manager's unblinking gaze spikes panic in your guts while you frantically try to remember. “It was...Paul? No, Jimmy. Bob? Brad!” You snap your fingers. “Brad was in charge of the throwers that day. Told me the Genesee room was full, and he was going to throw a few bags of Genny in, and I should just stack them in the Budweiser room, and he'd remember to throw them onto the Genny truck, which was supposed to come before the Budweiser truck.”

  You spread your hands, absurdly feeling like you're imploring a merciless deity instead of the manager of a can redemption center. “Brad was supposed to put those on that truck. It's not my fault.”

  The manager stares at you for an eternity before saying in his rasping but bland voice, “Who the hell is Brad?”

  #

  After claiming no one named “Brad” has ever worked at The Can Man, the manager informs you in his empty voice that a fine for this mix-up is coming out of next week's paycheck. He says nothing more, dismissing you with a limp wave as he once again turns to the eternal paperwork littering his desk.

  You move on, dazed, mechanically carrying out tasks which have become hard-wired muscle-memory. Ripping open bags, pawing through cans, and sorting them into rubber garbage cans. Over and over. For the first time since coming to The Can Man, you don't slowly fade into your task, you flee desperately into it. You crave the facelessness. You hunger for non-being. Thoughts of applying for jobs elsewhere dissolve. You care nothing about making your mark, or becoming someone, or taking a stand. With each can you throw, another piece of the person you used to be vanishes for good.

  You began the day in a dull panic over the fine coming out of your paycheck. You end the day as you have since starting The Can Man: blank and thoughtless. A non-person, an extension of The Can Man itself.

  The clock turns to 5:00.

 
You shuffle away from your bin, thoughts only on home, where yet another night of blindly watching television and eating microwaved dinners awaits. Before you can clock out, however, as you pass the manager's office, he rasps your name.

  He doesn't look up from his paperwork. Merely says as he fiddles through the papers he's forever re-arranging, “Personnel needs to see you.”

  As you stare at the manager—whose thin, grizzled face and watery eyes never once acknowledges your presence—that cold feeling at the base of your spine returns. Names whisper in your ear—Jerry, John, Brad—but you're not exactly sure why. They used to work here, and you think maybe you might've been friendly with them, but that's all you can remember. The last name, Brad, sparks irritation in you, as if he caused you misfortune. It must've happened long ago...

  last week

  ...because you can't remember what he did, exactly. Nor do you really care, at the moment. All you are about is that cold feeling at the thought of going to Personnel.

  “Did they say why?”

  The manager's thin face remains blank as he shakes his head. He does nothing else, just continues to rifle through papers on his desk. You stand there a half-beat longer, waiting for him to look at you, to acknowledge you, to give you meaning.

  He never does.

  An interminable time later, you turn away down the hall, back the way you came. Right before the door leading to the work-floor, you turn right and proceed down the short hallway—which has gone unnoticed before now—toward the black door at the end with a small rectangular plaque, Personnel engraved on it in stark, white letters.

  #

  After walking through the door, confusion grips you. The Personnel office isn't small like the manager's. It's larger than the work-floor, which doesn't make sense. How could such a big space fit inside The Can Man? And where do the two doors on the farthest wall lead?

  Before you, a man sits at a tidy desk. He wears a black suit, and, very much like the manager, doesn't look up from the documents he's examining. He does, however, acknowledge your presence, saying something which sounds like poetry.

  “‘That motley drama, be sure it shall not be forgot,'” he turns a page, “‘with its Phantom chased for evermore by a crowd that seize it not, through a circle that ever returneth in to the self-same spot.'”

  The refrain stirs something unpleasant in your belly. An understanding which resonates on a primal level. “What does that mean?”

  “It's a poem,” the man says as he continues to flip through the documents. “Which poem, I can't remember. Regardless, the important part is the last. 'A circle that ever returneth in to the self-same spot.' Basically: it just keeps going around and around.”

  You frown. “What does?”

  “Everything.”

  You look around again. “What is this place?”

  The man shrugs. “It's Personnel. Everyone comes here eventually.”

  You gesture at the two doors. “Where does that go?”

  For the first time, the man looks up from his desk. He settles back and folds his hands into his lap. “Contrary to popular opinion, the universe's resources aren't infinite. That's why people die. Why they disappear. Because resources must be replenished.”

  “You mean...like reincarnation?”

  The man smirks. It's not a cruel expression; not exactly. More one of weary cynicism and sadness. “Not reincarnation. Waste recycling. Humanity is compost. Nothing more.”

  It dawns upon you, then. What you've become. What you are, and what you're destined for. And the irony of where you've spent your last, blurry days: a recycling center.

  “What happens...if I go through those doors?”

  “It depends. What do you want?”

  You frown, though that primal knowing in your belly seethes even more, while the back of your neck tingles coldly. “What do you mean?”

  The man leans forward, elbows on his desk. “One door leads to another life. Another existence. You'll be reused. Recycled, if you will. The other door leads to a complete dissolution of everything you ever have been, and everything you could be. Through that door, you'll return to the seething chaos which exists at the center of the cosmos. Be absorbed back into the nothingness which first spat you out eons ago. Broken down, filtered, and used in new product. Where and when, I don't know. No one does. Whatever set It in motion has long since fallen asleep.”

  A muted terror mounts in you, as you recall the dreams of that great, throbbing, screaming thing at the center of the pulsating maze of white sacs with things inside them, reaching and screaming silently. “Will...will I remember...”

  The man shakes his head. “There won't be anything left of you to remember, in either case.”

  Realization dawns, heightening your fear. “Jerry. John. Brad. That's what happened to them.” He nods, and you rush on. “Why them? Why me? If I'd gotten my act together, got a new job, would...”

  He holds up his hands. “Waste must be recycled, and waste is whatever no longer serves a function. That's all.”

  “Which door leads where?”

  The man shrugs. “I don't know.”

  Your eyes narrow. “What?”

  “It all depends on what your heart really desires. It doesn't matter which door you choose, really. Do you wish to cling to a semblance of life? To try it all over again? Or are you ready to become part of the seething chaos which bubbles madly at the center of creation, from which all life comes? Ready for It to reabsorb you into Itself.”

  The conflict rages in you, and anger, which you decide to unleash on the man behind the desk, if only to lash out at something, anything. “So, what are you? Some kind of fucking garbageman?” How do you know who...”

  “I'm drawn to that which no longer matters.”

  Bone-numbing despair grips you. “But I... I was going to change it. Make myself better, I still could've....”

  The man shakes his head and says in a firm voice firm, “No. You wouldn't have. Or else you wouldn't be standing before me now.”

  The man sits up straighter. “It's time. To make your last choice. You may proceed on to your rest. It is, at the very least, that. A nonexistence, void of endless striving and pain.” He aimlessly nudges around the documents on his desk. “Or, you can continue on. You won't know who you are or remember this life. You'll start over, with no knowledge or guarantees, and you will stumble through a life of striving and pain, until you once more return to this office, to face the same decision, as you already have countless times before.”

  He smiles thinly. “As you can see. 'A circle that ever returneth in to the self-same spot.'”

  “You must choose.”

  #

  You never thought it would come to this. You had ambitions. Dreams. You had plans.

  Then everything fell apart. In the end, it didn't matter. Suddenly, those dreams vanished, dissolving like mist in the morning sun. As you stand before the doors and reach for a doorknob—which, you're not sure—you don't know what you're afraid of more. Doing it all over again and again? Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum, until you go mad?

  Or becoming nothing?

  Would you even know the difference?

  Your hand closes on a doorknob. Which, it doesn't matter. You turn it, open the door, and step through into the yawning blackness beyond, confronted by a final truth which is worse than everything you've learned.

  There is no choice.

  It's all the same.

  A circle that ever returneth.

  Kevin Lucia is the Reviews Editor for Cemetery Dance Magazine His column Revelations is featured on Cemetery Dance Online. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies, most recently with Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Bentley Little, Peter Straub and Robert McCammon. His most recent short story collection, Things You Need, released in September 2018. His novella Mystery Road is forthcoming from Cemetery Dance Publications.

  Bury Me in the Garden

  Mike Duran

  If roots and branch
es could be indwelt by the otherworldly, then those of the east grove were of such an enchantment.

  “Owen!” Pa called from the porch. “Get over here!”

  His words jolted me from my thoughts. I turned around to see him at the house. He stomped his boot on the wooden porch to emphasize his anger. But he’d told me enough times to stay away from the grove to know that he was not pleased.

  “Comin’, Pa!”

  Before I left, I stole one last glance at the east orchard. Its long dark rows disappeared into a glorious expanse of foliage. Those trees should have gone bare by now. How they remained hearty even through the autumn chill was a mystery.

  I snatched my slingshot off the old rock sundial. On either side of this squat structure spread the garden. It always smelled of freshly tilled earth, with plots of soil regularly turned for planting. Between the sage and butterfly weed, trellises lined the broad path that led into the orchard. I’d never traversed this avenue. The closest I’d come was when Jefferson passed. In my mind’s eye I could still see him lying there, the crows stabbing at his lifeless body.

  “Now!” Pa bellowed.

  I turned and hustled past the barn and the corn crib, back to the house.

  Pa slapped the back of my head as I ran up the steps and passed him.

  “There somethin’ you ain’t gettin’?” he said, following me into the house and letting the screen door slam behind him.

  “No, sir.” I set my slingshot on the kitchen counter and rolled up the sleeves of my flannel.

  “Good,” Pa said, returning to his seat next to Ivy. He straightened her bib and began spooning soup into her mouth. “The last thing we need is another person gettin’ chewed up by them damn dogs.”

  I went to the sink and washed my hands.

  Indeed, feral dogs were a problem in our county. I’d seen them in Rickett’s Fields and out past the silos. They traveled together and were something to be feared. Mongrel packs, rabid and unpredictable. That’s why Pa would never enter the orchards without a shotgun. Of course, Jefferson had sworn there was something else in there, besides the dogs; something old and earthy, summoned from the loam by magic. He’d warned me repeatedly, demanding I never venture there, especially after dark.