He returned to his cubicle now, sipping his coffee. He glanced over at his in-box, which was filled to the hilt with new orders. On days like these his cubicle reminded him of the inside of a filing cabinet, with its flat gray, foam-covered walls, and gray metal trim. Over half of his desk loomed two long, rectangular gray storage compartments that looked a bit like overhead carry-on compartments in an airplane cabin. Against the drab he fought back with charts and phone lists, a few family photos, and a tiny orange basketball hoop that came with a foam basketball the size of a grapefruit.
As he pulled the top order out of the ivory-colored in-box, he glanced at the name on the top of the sheet. For a moment, the name sounded familiar, like that of his obsessed gardening neighbor, Jack Olson. In the spring, Jack’s lawn never had a dandelion on it, even if the rest of the neighborhood was overrun with them. Old Jack kept his lawn so manicured that you could take a ruler to it, and if it grew a hair above three inches tall, you could bet that within the hour the mower would be running.
As David read further on, though, he realized the customer was even more obsessed with gardening, or at least ordering one very long list of flowers for one very big garden.
“Forty bulbs of red, orange and fiery yellow crocus,” the order read.
“Fifty packages of your hardiest zinnias.”
“Forty packets of frosty marigolds—thrives in blizzards!”
…and on and on he read. Goodness, this guy could decorate a parade float—well, maybe he was not ordering that much, but it was the largest order he had ever seen. Then, David got a strange idea.
He already heard of “secret projects” being worked on in the other development area—specifically, flowers with elaborate, customer-inspired designs. There had been no success as of yet, but everybody was excited nonetheless. Although he felt he had the skills to ascend to the position, nobody ever seemed to notice. Months ago, however, he augmented and expanded his workstation software to import and incorporate far more elaborate designs that the Everbloom catalog offered.
He looked up at a letter that was posted on his cubicle wall from a lady in Philadelphia. She ordered a dozen forget-me-nots for some flower boxes around her house, and it was the first order David experimented and embellished on. The response? The lady was “thoroughly pleased and definitely going to recommend the product to her friends.” Although David never had the chance to see the blooming end result, it theoretically should have looked like a faint image of exploding fireworks spread across the petals.
Leaning forward in his chair, he began to manipulate the first design on his screen—a three dimensional model of a crocus. This part was child’s play of course—and one could cut and paste in any colors that were in stock. Then, he launched his “secret weapon” software.
A new set of tools sprang onto his screen, and as they loaded, he turned around to make sure no one was looming over his shoulder. He then he began to imagine with the images on his screen, dabble with the DNA, and in essence fiddle with the flowers. Every time someone would walk by, however, he would flip the screen to something equally important.
* * *
A few weeks later, David spent the afternoon out in his yard, pushing a lime-green mower in the blazing July heat. He came upon a patch of strange plants growing alongside the chain-link fence in the backyard.
From a distance, they appeared to be narcissus blooms, and as he walked closer, he let go of the metal safety bar on the lawnmower. The engine promptly putt-putted to a stop. He knelt down in the long grass and reached out to turn a bloom toward him.
There, on one of the petals, was the letter “D”.
“Is everything okay, David?” Called his wife from the front of the yard.
“Everything is fine, dear.”
He turned one of the other blooms over. On the edges of its petals was the black letter “A”.
“What are you looking at?”
He turned another petal. “V”!
He turned back to see his wife strolling toward him. Springing up, he lunged for the lawnmower.
“What’s wrong?” She said.
“Just some kind of weed. I’ll get it.”
Before she could respond, David fired up the putt-putt-putting mower and plowed into the flowers with a bzzzzzzt! Powder blue blooms spewed everywhere.
“What kind of weed?” His wife shouted, over the drone of the mower.
“Some kind of flower. You better stay back. You might start sneezing with your allergies.”
“Allergies is right,” she agreed, plodding back toward the house.
At that, he turned the corner at the edge of the yard and gave a triumphant grin. Was this knowledge worth sharing with anybody at work? What doors this could open! Would his company’s slogan be the next thing to appear on the petals? The thought made him shudder and he nearly buzzed over a frog with extra limbs because of it.
* * *
“David? Could I see you in my cubicle, please?” It was the voice of David’s supervisor.
David peered up to see his supervisor smiling and jingling the keys in his pants pocket. For a moment, he wanted to decline the request. It was review time, and like any meeting as of late, the only predictable element was unpredictability. He headed over to his supervisor’s cube, which, of course, his supervisor said was “always open”. In David’s mind, it was permanently open because there was no door.
David sat down in a hard-backed chair along the side wall of the cube, while his boss sat in his swivel chair leaning against his desk. He felt a bit like a scolded student in the principal’s office, waiting for another kid to sit next to him on the other hard-backed chair before they began.
“How are things going for you?” His supervisor began.
“Good.”
His boss leaned forward, cradling two stapled sets of papers. “I thought we could spend some time going over your review.”
He handed David one of the sets and started going through the performance categories one by one. “Let’s see…quantity has been above standard—second highest in the department in fact…for quality you’ve maintained a 99.5% accuracy rating…”
David listened as the list flowed into attendance, teamwork, overall performance and then…
“Areas of improvement. Since I had to list something here…”
He had to list something here?
“I put down initiative…I do see quite a few positive signs, however. Which brings me to the question…are there other areas you would like to get into?”
Oh, the jokes he could rattle off here: well, there was the subject of the cafeteria, and he was a good cook, but the cafeteria cook seemed deft at burning and undercooking the hash browns at the same time…
“Like what?” David said.
“I’m talking about other areas like management, quality control…”
David stewed for a moment. Then: “How about software development?”
His supervisor’s features froze long enough to be duplicated by an ice sculptor. This answer was obviously not what his boss hoped for. By letting him go downstairs to another department, his boss risked losing the future ability to say, “I made David who he was.”
“Well…we hate to lose you. I guess I can set you up with Jackie downstairs. She’s the supervisor of that unit,” his supervisor said.
Finally! Years of toil turned into something that he hoped in time would be more fulfilling. David signed off on his review papers and marched back to his cubicle beaming. This advancement was worthy of a seafood dinner with his wife. As he sat back down in his chair, he glanced at a reminder note to himself that was stuck to his monitor. Muttering to himself, he got back up and turned toward the hallway that led to the warehouse. Then, he ran.
One of his coworkers leaned out from her cubicle. “You okay?”
“The clowns!” David said.
“Clowns? Hmmm. Well, the circus is in town.”
* * *
“Don’t close the truck!�
�� David said.
“Why?” The warehouse worker said.
“There’s been a mistake in one of the orders.”
David ran up the steel loading ramp and into the semi truck. A thousand Everbloom crates crowded his way. “Where’s the box for order 17-E?”
“17-E…should be…” The warehouse worker eyed his clipboard, “…against the back wall most likely.”
“Can you pull it out?”
The warehouse worker stood like a denim-covered statue. “Tell me why again?”
“Because there has been a mistake. The box was supposed to be for me.”
The warehouse worker rolled his eyes, probably cussed under his breath, too, and climbed into the truck to rescue good old 17-E. “Well, does quality control know about this? This is the third screw-up today on this truck. I’m running behind now.”
“They will.”
David took the box and brought it out to his car and set it on the passenger seat. He then ran back to the warehouse with another box of daffodil bulbs before returning to his desk.
* * *
That Saturday, the first week of October, David and his wife had a yard sale. Their two cars were parked out along the street curb, to free up garage space, but also to make the sale look like a popular place from a distance. David staked four sale signs into the ground around the neighborhood and they appeared to be working fabulously.
The sale went well this morning, with numerous neighbors and deal hounds rummaging through the tables and a couple of racks of clothing. Items also available for purchase or bargaining included a Smith Corona electric typewriter, a wall mirror, a trolling motor, an unopened package of vertical blinds, and a variety of videotape movies in open shoe boxes. David stepped out of the front door with a can of soda in one hand and a newspaper in the other. He walked down the length of the driveway to his car before his wife called out to him.
“You’re not leaving are you?” His wife pleaded.
“No…” David got no further than the passenger door of his car. He looked in and noticed the box of daffodil bulbs missing. He turned back toward his wife, who was sitting on a green aluminum lawn chair, reaching over to drop change into a brass box that served as a makeshift cash register.
“Did you grab something out of my car this morning?” He called back.
“Maybe. Why?”
David walked back toward his wife. “Like a box from work?”
“Maybe.”
He glanced around at the tables. “You didn’t by chance sell it, did you?”
“Maybe.”
“To who?”
She pointed to the extremely well manicured yard across the street. “I sold it to Jack. I broke out in such a fit of sneezes with those things. You know I’m allergic to flowers.”
“You’re allergic to bulbs, too? They were supposed to be for your brother.”
She put a hand to her mouth. David grimaced.
“Sorry. I’m sure he’ll give them back,” his wife said.
He stuffed the newspaper under his arm, strutted back down the driveway, and ran across the street. His wife often showed great bursts of initiative, especially when it came to cleaning up unused items around the house. At times, however, his inner packrat just wanted to throw an all out tantrum.
After a few sharp raps on Jack’s front screen door, David’s neighbor appeared.
“Need my mower?” Jack asked, looking over David’s shoulder toward the lawn. It was getting a bit tall after all.
“No.” David really tried to get along with his neighbor, or at least tried to stay a permanent comfortable distance out of his field of vision. It did not help that David’s two attempts at a backyard garden turned into a sorry harvest of weeds by the end of summer. “Say, did you happen to buy a box of bulbs from us this morning?”
“Sure did. Why?”
The stench of cigar smoke poured outside now, but the wind was not strong enough to carry it away. “Could I get them back?”
“Not unless you want to dig them up.”
“You planted them already?”
“What else are you supposed to do with them?” Jack took a huge drag off his cigar and blew smoke toward the ceiling.
David slowly turned and walked away back toward his house. There was no way Jack would ever put up with somebody tearing up his garden with a spade. That is why it was fortified with a wire fence and motion detector lights every spring.
“What?” Jack said.
“Oh, nothing. Thanks anyway.”
* * *
One January evening, as David was shoveling snow out of his driveway, he heard a holler coming from across the street. It did not take much thought to realize it was coming from Jack’s yard and surely it was about the two dozen flowers that were sprouting their faces up through his snow covered garden.
Judging from the tonal quality of the scream and the color of the language, David knew he succeeded a little too well in putting an image of a clown face on the individual petals. His brother-in-law was a part-time clown, after all, and this particular box was the last time he dabbled with the design of the flower petals. He decided after meeting his new supervisor in early November that it was best to bury the innovation forever since one of the stated goals of his new department was to develop flowers with logos. Obviously, knowledge in the wrong hands was going to be dangerous.
David quietly turned toward his own house. He looked over at the living room window and noticed his wife had the television on. She looked so peaceful there, flipping through a fashion magazine. He turned back to see the front light go on across the street at Jack’s house. David then slid the shovel blade-first into a snow bank alongside the driveway, and took a deep breath. Then, he ran.
Tangled Angles
Mitch Tavis powered his cherry-red Volkswagen Beetle through the snowy streets of northeast Minneapolis with a sense of hope and dread. He hoped the upcoming interview would restore his faith in the field of quantum mechanics research but he also dreaded being roped into another veiled funding pitch for a smoke-and-mirrors device that fooled no on in the end.
As his Beetle crawled into the parking lot he counted off the addresses on the elongated warehouse building. From the outside, the building was a century-old freight warehouse converted into multiple small businesses. Most of the businesses looked like they could fold up and move in a night which only deepened his doubts. Once he located Atlas-Q, he parked his car and stepped out. He brought along his aluminum coffee cup and removed its black plastic lid. He swirled the contents around and took a sip. There were only a few gulps left and he had to find a way to make it last throughout the interview or get a refill.
Inside the building, he searched the twisting hallways for an entrance to Atlas-Q. Upon finding it, he slipped inside and stood at the front desk, expecting someone to greet him. When no one met him, he peered around. Two rows of wooden tables stood before him, covered with several desktop computers, breadboards, an oscilloscope, and a pencil soldering iron. To the left an empty ping-pong table waited for its players to arrive. To the right a set of glass-and-wood double doors beckoned to be opened and explored.
“Hello? Is anybody around?” He called out.
An argument erupted from behind the closed doors. Soon, a man arrived dressed in a crisp white shirt with its sleeves rolled up, a crimson tie, and black dress pants. His wavy gray hair was neatly swept back but contrasted his thick, dark, unkempt eyebrows. His gaunt face and sunken brown eyes told a tale of long hours in the lab.
The man approached Mitch. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m Mitch Tavis from RecTech Magazine. I was invited here by Mr. McQuackshire. Is he around?” Mitch extended his hand to shake and was greeted with an iron grip.
“Ah, yes. One moment. I’ll go get Devon. I’m Winslow, by the way. Winslow Steuben. Here, have a seat in our lounge.” Winslow directed Mitch to sit on a black leather couch in the room just beyond the double doors.
Mitch surve
yed the chaos of the room and it reminded him of the apartment he lived in during his college years. In one corner a rack full of clean dishes waited to be put away. On the other side of the counter sat piles of wire, a dusty computer monitor, and two microwave ovens. The disorganization of it all led him to question the seriousness of these researchers. To the right another set of double doors invited curiosity but beyond that a whiteboard covered in red, green, and black equations gave him a headache. Back near the sink he spotted a coffee maker brewing a fresh pot of coffee.
Mitch withdrew a black pen and a yellow legal pad from his coat pocket. Another man entered the room and together they sat across from Mitch in two padded black swivel chairs.
The man extended a hand to Mitch to shake. “I’m Devon McQuackshire. The one you spoke with on the phone.” He motioned toward Mitch’s open coffee cup. “Could I offer you a refill?”
“That’d be great. I’ll get it.” Mitch walked over to the sink, downed the rest of his coffee, and refilled his cup. He then searched around for creamer and sugar. Although he did not find the creamer he did find a beaker full of white crystals next to the coffee maker. Figuring it was probably a joke only a scientist could appreciate, he scooped up the crystals with a black plastic spoon. After he swirled the crystals into his coffee, he clicked the lid back on and returned to the couch. He set the cup onto an oblong tan coffee table before him.
“So, why don’t we begin with some history of your work here,” Mitch said as he scribbled out a note on his legal pad. He leaned forward to listen and studied both of their facial expressions. Winslow appeared to be the serious one of the duo, while Devon looked like he was dreaming of lying around on a beach somewhere. Devon had dark, thick, unkempt eyebrows, too, with messy brown hair and a high forehead. He wore a slate-blue long-sleeve shirt with blue jeans and bright-white sneakers.
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