Hell Is Other People

by Danielle Bellwood

  “Why is that funny?” she said.

  “It’s just that I can picture you in your cubicle, crouched down in front of your desk, moving office supplies one millimeter to the left. Every angle has to be exactly right.” He held a hand to his chest as his head tilted back to belt out another bark of laughter.

  Gillian’s face was red. “Right angles are mathematically perfect. You say you like art? Well, then you should appreciate that if it’s not a right angle, it’s a wrong angle.”

  He roared even louder at that.

  “I’m done.” Gillian stomped off, her high heels squeaking slightly on the smooth concrete surface as she marched through the maze of miscellaneous junk.

  “Gillian, wait!” Arlo yelled, running after her through the exhibit. “You’re missing out on the whole experience.” He caught up to her and grabbed her arm without thinking.

  She yanked out of his grip so fast she almost fell into the wall of pizza boxes and coffee cups piled precariously beside her.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “You’re right,” Arlo said as he held up his hands in defense. “You’re right. Totally my bad. I’m sorry.”

  Arlo waited patiently for Gillian to calm down. The angry red splotches high on her cheeks faded and her breathing slowly returned to normal.

  “I don’t like to be touched,” she said unnecessarily.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She stared wide-eyed at their surroundings. She’d blown right past the ‘Relationships’ section and now stood in the middle of ‘Romantic Love.’ On all sides, magazines, toys and clothing, movie posters and torn book covers portrayed men and women in intimate embraces and passionate kisses. In attempting to escape Arlo’s grip, Gillian had inadvertently pressed right up against a collection of life-sized cut-outs of burly, bare-chested men in kilts.

  “Can I ask you something?” Arlo said. “You can just tell me to shut up, if you want. That’s fine.” He laughed nervously. “But, why don’t you like to be touched? Is it just the germ thing? Or…?”

  Gillian didn’t respond. She was staring wide-eyed at the half-naked models printed on the standees. They were only cardboard, but the high-gloss photos were hyper-realistic. It was like a horde of highlanders had suddenly appeared out of the pages of a historical romance and were currently crowded around her, heavy paper elbows bumping against her back and chest. She shrank back, clutching her arms tightly around her, eyes squeezed shut to block out the smothering squad of skirt-clad sex symbols.

  “Gillian.” Arlo’s voice echoed strangely off the junk piles. “Are you okay?”

  “I have to get out of here.”

  “Well, I can see the end of the exhibit ahead. It’s not that far.”

  Arlo watched as she steadily became more hysterical, not less, at his helpful observations.

  “Remember what you said about we changed?” he said. “Well, maybe you need to drop all of that fear baggage and just chill, you know?”

  “I don’t even know what you’re saying right now.”

  “I’m saying that you need to stop being so uptight, G.”

  “What did you just call me?”

  “Like, forget about the germs and stuff,” he continued. “They can’t hurt you anymore, right?” He laughed.

  She watched in abject horror as Arlo grabbed a random paperback novel from the rubbish wall beside him and held it out to her.

  “Get that book away from me.”

  “It’s not a book. It’s a baby step.”

  She looked at it suspiciously.

  An aspiring young man had written the paperback in question with the unquenchable dream of one day becoming a famous author. For months, he sat hunched over his vintage seafoam green Olivetti typewriter and willed the world inside his head to flow out through his fingers onto the sheets of off-white copy paper. After months of nothing, he felt a sudden epiphany of inspiration one night, and began to type without rest or food for six days straight. On the seventh day, the author sat back and breathed a sigh of contentment. His great magnum opus was complete. He immediately ran to the local copy and print shop and ran off a dozen copies to send out to agents, sure that soon he’d be fighting them off for the chance to submit it to a publishing house.

  He waited for exactly one year before self-publishing it online. The futuristic sci-fi/fantasy alien-abduction cross species reverse harem existentialist romance novel was the only one in its genre on Amazon. That made it the number one bestseller. It featured a hand-drawn cover with half-a-dozen brightly colored vaguely humanoid forms doing what could only be described as the horizontal watusi. The ‘bestseller’ sold exactly five copies, four of which the author bought for himself. The author, one Phillip A. Nubis, or ‘Phil’ to his friends if he’d had any, was a huge fan of futuristic sci-fi/fantasy alien-abduction cross species reverse harem existentialist romance novels and had been literally waiting his entire lifetime for someone to put one in print before just doing the deed himself. He did not know who bought the fifth copy, but he could only imagine that the reader must have treasured it as the perfect piece of art that it was.

  Gillian’s hand shook as she reached for the potentially viral novel. She choked back a dry heave as her fingertips brushed a faint sticky spot on the cover. The dogeared pages were yellowed and even standing two feet away from the pulp fiction, she could smell the musty scent that only came from dropping a book in the bath while reading and then drying it out on the counter hoping against all odds that it would still be ‘good as new.’

  “Baby step,” she mumbled under her breath.

  In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to drop the dangerous object to the floor and back away. The well-loved paperback felt heavy on her palm, as though the curling, discolored pages held more than just words- they held the entire existence of one otherwise unknown author.

  “You’re doing great,” Arlo said helpfully.

  She fought against her basic instincts and opened the book. The broken spine allowed the book to flop open to an apparently favorite passage. Some poor, sick, potentially mentally ill reader had actually highlighted the paragraph. Gillian read it aloud:

  ‘Roxie Rona-Roach arched her armored back, her rows of pert nipples jerking in spasms of tingles. The handsome male arachnoid in black spun his curling mustache around his long, nubile digit and said, “Argak. Morbok miu malakak.” She drooled silver strands of slime that glistened in the moonlight…”

  “What the shit?” Gillian couldn’t take it anymore. “This is trash.”

  “No way,” Arlo said, grabbing the book from her before she could hurl it back into the maze of carefully piled garbage. “That’s hot.”

  “Arlo,” Gillian said. “I really worry about you.”

  He laughed. The chuckle echoing off the high walls of trash surrounding them sounded to Gillian like nails on a chalkboard. Frightening and horrible.

  In an effort to exit the exhibit as quickly as possible, she pushed her way through the maze of lost and found “treasures” to the end, Arlo following along behind her.

  In near pitch-black, they stood in front of a raised dais. The area around it was completely clear of debris, emphasizing the importance of what was displayed on the stage. Smack in the middle of the dais stood an American Standard off-white commode with a hand crocheted toilet paper cozy on the tank and a plunger lying on its side. A large easel on the floor to the left displayed a beautifully printed sign with cursive gold lettering that spelled out the words ‘The Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.’

  “Woah,” Arlo whispered.

  Gillian began to panic. Her reaction no doubt seemed absurd to an outside observer, but the imposing porcelain potty on the dais filled her with a deep sense of dread. As she took in every eerily familiar detail, her eyes fell on a lit, faintly smoking cigarette beside the base of the throne.

  “Oh no…” she squeaked, the words catching in her throat. “No, no, no.”

  Arlo ste
pped forward, past the frozen Gillian, and picked up the cigarette. The glowing ember was just a shade lighter than the bright red lipstick ring around the filter. He looked from it to Gillian. Her eyes were wide and all of the color had drained from her face, making the bright red of her lipstick stand out all the more.

  “Huh,” he said. “I should probably put this out. It could burn down this whole place. Why would someone leave this just lying around?”

  “A lot of famous people have died on the toilet…” Gillian whispered.

  “I think it’s symbolic of the meaninglessness of existence or perhaps the inherent beauty of the mundane,” Arlo said. “Simple everyday objects can be elevated to encompass a whole microcosm of ideas and concepts.”

  Those were some very big words to be coming out of Arlo’s mouth. Big and useful. They managed to magically snap Gillian out of her trance.

  “We need to go.” She walked to the barely visible recessed door behind the stage, turning to see Arlo still rooted in place before the porcelain goddess. “Now.”

  “Where?”

  “The office.”

  “Really?” Arlo said. “Why do you suddenly want to go there?”

  “Something just occurred to me. There must be personnel files on both of us with all of our history, background... Maybe we can finally find some answers.”

  Arlo’s mouth stretched in a wide O of surprise.

  The Handbook

  Forever Pharmaceuticals possessed the dubious distinction of being the least profitable subsidiary of HADES Corp International. The corporation’s headquarters were housed in a monolithic structure comprised of black marble and darkly tinted windows that stood at over forty stories tall and took up one whole city block on the southernmost corner of Downtown. With a wide portfolio of ventures ranging from cuttlefish canning to urgent care to entertainment venues, HADES Corp had their proverbial hands in everyone’s cookie jar.

  Right now, the rather large accounting department located in the basement of the HADES Corp head office was in a tizzy. The shrieking of simians jumping up and down at their office desks was ridiculously loud, the sound echoing off every available surface.

  Roger waited despondently in the center of the room and waited for the veritable shit to hit the fan. The cringe-inducing thump of oxfords on tile, just audible over the clamor, made Roger’s heart rate elevate.

  He remembered telling Bertha that he quit. He remembered telling Joe Jr that he didn’t care anymore, about anything. And he remembered walking out of a coffee shop with two cups of burnt coffee that he’d planned on delivering to Arlo and Gillian.

  That was where things got a bit fuzzy. When he’d stepped out of Java Joe’s smoked glass storefront door, instead of the familiar sounds of pedestrians and bicyclists, his senses were assaulted by the chatter of chimps. The cracked sidewalks of Downtown were replaced by a dim underground office space complete with flickering overhead lights and rows of dented and peeling office desks, each with an inconsolable primate.

  When he’d passed from one plane to the next, the pressed paper cup tray of coffees in his hands instantaneously rearranged its individual atoms into a hickory stick and a bunch of bananas which Roger promptly dropped onto the floor. His oversized office duds were replaced with a too-tight taupe jumpsuit, complete with name tag, and his glorious kitty kat neck tie dissipated into the ether, gone but not forgotten. The only thing that stayed with Roger through the change was a little brown pamphlet in his breast pocket.

  Phil’s 5’ 3” frame facing off across the room seemed far more imposing than his slight stature would suggest. Chest puffed out, shoulders thrown back, chin high, he glared down his nose at Roger. Quite a feat since the other man had a good eight inches on him.

  “I suppose you think this is funny?” Phil said.

  “Funny? I don’t-”

  “You are the one who didn’t even try to keep your herd wrangled but I’m the one who gets blamed. Every damn time. Well, I’ve had it. I warned you, Roger. Things are about to get very unpleasant for you.”

  “Ummm…” Roger glanced around at the dozens of apes in bowties and suspenders throwing calculators and scraps of office paper into the air all around him. It was a little hard to imagine a more unpleasant scenario.

  “You are obviously not suited for management, Roger. I have determined that your talents are best served sweeping stalls and scrubbing urinals. Not engaging with employees. Congratulations, you’ve been given a demotion.”

  To be fair, that came as no big surprise to Roger. He’d been a terrible supervisor, after all. And actually, the idea of cleaning up someone else’s crap for once sounded preferable to managing minimum wage data entry engineers. At least janitors could set their own pace and there was some comfort in actually knowing that you’d be facing a shitty day at work.

  “It’s only what you deserve, you know,” Phil continued as though Roger had tried to argue. “Nobody really likes their job but that doesn’t mean they don’t have to do it. I’d rather be working on my novel, but you don’t hear me complaining. Do you?”

  Phil didn’t wait for him to respond. Before he could so much as open his mouth, Roger found himself gripping a mop handle in the middle of a musty, monochromatic restroom. He glanced down at his nametag and was happy to see that all it said was ‘Roger’. No ridiculous title to remember. No more unrealistic obligations or responsibilities to worry about. No more Arlo or Gillian. Roger sighed happily to himself as he moved the mop methodically across the floor, finally free of the miasma of middle management.

  The free feeling only lasted a moment though. The door to the bathroom swung open, and poor Roger the janitor sighed in resignation at the sudden reappearance of Arlo Black and Gillian Frost.

  “Supervisor Goodspeed?” Arlo said, “What are you… why are you dressed like that?”

  “Call me Roger.” He glanced down at the jumpsuit with his name tag slightly askew. “I got transferred.”

  “It’s you,” Gillian said softly. “You’re doing this somehow.”

  “What?” Roger said.

  “How are you doing it?”

  Roger looked back and forth between the two of them. “Doing what?”

  Gillian snorted. “There’s something wrong with us; with this whole place. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

  “I noticed,” Roger said. “But it’s not me, Gillian-ˮ

  “What?! What did you say?”

  “I noticed?”

  “You called me Gillian.”

  “Yeah…”

  “What’s that?” Arlo cut off Roger’s confused response.

  The sometime supervisor/current custodian glanced down at the front of his coveralls. From the breast pocket peeked a little brown booklet.

  “Oh,” Roger said. “It’s a handbook. For…” He trailed off as Arlo pulled it from his pocket, flipping it open to scan the pages.

  On the inside cover, someone had penciled a short paragraph in cursive followed by a little sad face. “Welcome to Forever Pharma. Right about now, you may be asking yourself, ‘Why am I here?’ Well, you must have made some poor life choices to end up in this place, pal.” He stopped to glance up at Roger and Gillian. The sudden silence in the room was deafening. “As far as dead-end jobs go, this is the last one you’ll ever do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Gillian said.

  Arlo thumbed through the printed pages, eyes scanning random text, his mouth moving wordlessly.

  “Arlo!” Gillian shouted. “What does it say?!”

  “It says we’re stuck here…”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Gillian said. “Give it to me.” She snatched the pamphlet from his fingers, and scanned the first page, her eyebrows drawing together. “Incoming worker cells of Forever Pharmaceuticals, division of HADES Corp International, trademark applied for, are automatically assigned a permanent position upon arrival. In the event that they are unable to adequately fulfill the job duties of that position, ma
nagement reserves the right to reassign any cell to a new job of management’s choosing. Under no circumstances will the cells, henceforth referred to as drones, be allowed to ‘opt out’ of the program. Every drone has their role to fulfill. There are no exceptions.”

  She glanced up at the others. “What…”

  Her wide eyes settled on the row of toilet stalls across the room.

  “Gillian?” Arlo said.

  She was frozen completely still, like those automatons on the sidewalk outside. Arlo exchanged a worried look with Roger.

  “I don’t think we need to panic. I mean, Roger wished he had a different job and they gave him one. So, that whole no opting out thing is probably rubbish. And we know that we can change stuff. Little things. Like when I wished you had a lucky rabbit foot, and now you do. Maybe if we work at it, we can change more stuff. Maybe other things have changed that we just haven’t noticed yet.”

  She wasn’t even listening to a word he said. Her eyes were fixed on the deeply scratched letters on the closest stall door. The graffiti carved into the beige paint spelled out:

  ‘Death is what you make of it.’

  “I can’t even remember the last time I had a cigarette…” she said slowly.

  “This morning?” Arlo asked helpfully.

  The two men stared in shock as an insane sounding cackle burst forth from her lips. She laughed so hard, she started wheezing. Arlo felt a nervous giggle rise to his own lips in response as the one person he felt a connection to in this place fell completely off her rocker.

  Gillian stopped laughing just as suddenly as she’d started. After her outburst, it was so eerily quiet that you could have heard a shoe squeak in the next room.

  “Uhhh, Gillian?” Arlo said.

  Gillian let the booklet drop from her fingers and land on the damp linoleum with a thump. Spinning on her heels, she abruptly marched from the room, the door slamming shut behind her.

  Arlo sighed and turned the knob of the metal door. Holding the bathroom door wide open, he turned to Roger. “After you.”

  Roger propped his mop up in a corner and stooped down to retrieve the fallen handbook.