The Borrowed Souls: A Novel

by Paul B. Kohler

  The Lincoln Town Car—a yacht on wheels—plowed into the side of a subcompact heading across her path. Three other cars collided in the intersection as well, bringing traffic to a sudden and unavoidable halt. Yep. I was going to be late for work.

  Surprisingly, the emergency vehicles arrived on the scene quickly and were able to restore the morning commute to its natural flow in short order. Short order meaning thirty minutes. Once beyond the bottleneck at the scene of the accident, traffic picked up pace. I was able to pull into my office’s parking garage only an hour later than normal.

  Chapter 3

  I lurched forward uncontrollably, gulping air in an effort to catch my breath. I looked at the stranger, and he only smiled at me knowingly.

  “It sounds like the makings for a bad day, Mr. Duffy,” he chuckled. “A very bad day. How were your emotions at that point?”

  “Honestly, I don’t really know. Just now, I started to feel my anxiety increase, but I’m not sure if that’s related to the events from earlier or to how I’m experiencing everything again.”

  “That’s understandable and quite expected. Are you ready to continue?”

  “Maybe, but—” I paused, thinking of the right way to say what I was thinking. “Why am I doing this? Can’t I just call my wife and have her come get me? To tell the truth, it’s a little bizarre sitting on a park bench in the early morning, talking to a stranger trying to figure out what happened to my last twenty hours. I still don’t know your name,” I prompted, hoping to glean more information from the old man.

  “Ah yes,” he replied, looking at me with a sideways glance. “My given name is Wilson, Wilson Oliver. But I haven’t been called that in quite some time. And while you certainly could try to call your wife, where would you have her pick you up from?” asked Wilson as he looked about the vacant park. “Furthermore, what would you tell her about your . . . condition? Honestly, Mr. Duffy, I think it best that we find out what happened to you and your day before going any further with contacting your wife.”

  Strangely enough, what the old man was telling me sounded logical. I simply nodded and then once again flipped the coin over between my fingers.

  Chapter 3.5

  After a short ride up the elevator, I was sitting behind my faux mahogany desk ready to dive into my day. There were a few voice messages, each one from my boss, Mr. Pearlman. Listening to each message in succession, Pearlman’s voice grew more irate, yet it was still not far from his normal communication level.

  After listening to his final message, all I wanted to do was lock my office door and hide until the end of the day. I knew that wasn’t going to be an option when Gwen, Pearlman’s personal assistant, walked in.

  “Good morning, Mr. Duffy. Mr. Pearlman needs to see you right away. Shall I tell him you’re on your way up?” she asked, sounding friendly despite working for the asshat of the department.

  Even though he was originally in a middle management position below my own, Julio Pearlman was promoted to department chief six months ago. Now he’s my freakin’ boss. Please, just kill me.

  “Uh, yeah. I’ll be up in a few minutes. Let me get settled in, it’s been a crazy morning.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Duffy. I’ll tell him you are on your way up,” Gwen said, changing my words.

  Not being too eager to meet with the man, I took my time sorting my desk to start the day. After several minutes of mindlessly pushing piles of paper from one side of the desk to the other, I took a deep breath and headed for the elevator. As the elevator was mindless of my impending agony, the ride up was mercilessly short and the doors opened directly into Pearlman’s lobby. I stepped out and headed toward his office. As I was about to knock, Gwen opened the door and glided out of the office, leaving the door open.

  Having known Pearlman since before his promotion, I’d never seen him smile. Not once. Even now he looked particularly unhappy. It was as if he was making a concerted effort to sneer at me. I knew this meeting wasn’t going to go well.

  “Mr. Duffy, how nice of you to make it in today. You know you’re more than an hour late this morning?” Pearlman started off. I stood in silence for a moment, contemplating the best reason to give for my late arrival.

  “Well? What do you have to say for yourself? Why were you late? Again, I might add.”

  “There was—”

  “I don’t want to hear your excuses!” Pearlman barked. “You’re a substandard employee doing a substandard job. If I had my way, you would have been let go a long time ago. And frankly, I’m trying to find a reason why my predecessor even hired you in the first place. This morning’s irresponsible action only illustrates my point. Do you think you belong up here with all the other hard-working people of the company?”

  Wishing for a rock to either crawl under or crack over Pearlman’s head, my tongue was frozen to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t speak to save my life. And honestly, I’m not sure words would have benefited me in any way. Thankfully, Pearlman paused his chastisement long enough to catch his breath.

  “I hope you realize, Mr. Duffy, that you are by no means irreplaceable. Your employment here at the company makes no difference to me or to anyone else for that matter. So I believe the choice is yours. You’re either here at your desk on time, or you can find another job. Do I make myself clear?”

  I decided to stay silent. I knew it would be pointless to argue. Since my morning was deteriorating rapidly, I took the high road. Besides, if I were to point out that the last time I was late was because the parking garage was locked, it would have only prolonged the lecture.

  Once Pearlman realized that I wasn’t going to give him the rope to hang me with, he barked loudly, “Get out!”

  I happily obliged and retreated past Gwen’s desk and back down the elevator to my office. I unceremoniously deleted Pearlman’s voice messages before digging into my work.

  While my PC booted up, I pulled the latest spreadsheet from the mergers and acquisitions project folder and laid it out next to the keyboard. Although an entire team was working on the merger, it was my responsibility to quantify this particular acquisition with hard numbers. Really, it was just busywork, as all the data had been assembled by others. I just needed to find the correct solution to a few key points and send it up the ladder for approval.

  The task at hand was to review sales numbers from the target company over the past decade and compare their reaction to world events, religious activities, and technological advancements in the stated period. Even though the work was tedious, I tried my best to stay on task. But I knew that even after spending days on end evaluating the data, it would all end up stuffed in some file folder, never to be seen again. Busywork or not, my professional pride prevented me from treating it as such. The entire report hinged on this one final solution, and despite the speed and accuracy of the modern-day computer, it could not calculate that outcome without the required data.

  The morning passed quietly as I stared at various flow charts and spreadsheets. As I switched back and forth between two key charts, I could sense a rhythm in the numbers that I had failed to notice before. As I homed in on a certain string, the answer would dance off the screen, causing me to flip to another document. The drifting of numbers was maddening, but I knew I was close. I stuck with it. I also knew that I couldn’t force it, because heading down that rabbit hole was a CLM that I couldn’t afford to take.

  Pushing the thought of Career Limiting Moves out of my mind, I caught sight of something on the third spreadsheet. Could it be? I quickly shot back to the original document and then back to the modified version. Yes! There it was. The solution was coming into focus. I initiated a few test computations, and although I was certain it would come back green, my pulse rose slightly. As I intently watched the screen for the solution to appear, I was startled by the sound of the phone. Jumping slightly, my hand twitched on the mouse just enough to click the cancel button on the screen.

  “God dammit!” I yelled. The computation was
gone. The elusive solution was now a whisper in the wind, and I knew I would have to try to retrace the path again.

  Chapter 4

  “How unfortunate, the timing of that phone call. And you lost all your work up to that point,” said Wilson.

  “Hmm. It looks like I did,” I replied, as I thought about what I had just recited to him. “It’s weird. I don’t remember any of this stuff happening to me, but as I go through the memories and tell them aloud, I know they are my memories. Why is that? I mean, why are they foreign to me until I tell them out loud?”

  Wilson nodded his head as he listened to my question. He sat silent for a few moments before replying. “I am certain the memories are all there inside your head, but there must have been a critical event that caused you to block them from your conscious mind.”

  “What kind of critical event are we talking about?” I asked.

  “Oh, it could be anything from a pet dying to witnessing something disturbing. It quite often varies from person to person, depending on how intense their personal life is. Let’s continue,” said Wilson as he glanced at his watch.

  Chapter 4.5

  The phone rang again and again. In my disgust, I snatched up the receiver and barked, “Duffy.”

  “Mr. Pearlman needs to see you right away,” Gwen said on the other end of the line.

  “Can it wait until after lunch? I’m at a critical—”

  “I’m sorry, Jack, but he said immediately,” Gwen said before disconnecting the line.

  “I’ll be right up!” I said sarcastically to the dial tone in my ear. I began to wonder what he needed me for. I looked at my watch. I had been staring at my computer screen, unmoving, for three straight hours. A distraction might have been welcome, but Pearlman was not what I had in mind.

  As I stepped off the elevator, Gwen nodded in the direction of Pearlman’s door as she buzzed me in. This was twice in the same morning that I’d had to stand in front of his unsmiling gaze.

  “I need you to run over to that Thai place I like. Get me an order of red curry chicken, an order of pad Thai shrimp, and four spring rolls,” Pearlman ordered.

  I was again speechless in front of this despicable man. I was about to protest, but he spoke before I could get a word out.

  “Listen, Duffy. I know you were probably just wasting your time in your office, and my secretary has more important things to do. Just don’t mess this up, and I might consider forgetting about your tardiness this morning. Well? Get moving.”

  I did the only thing I could do right then without getting fired: I nodded and turned on my heel. As I passed by Gwen’s desk, I could have sworn I saw a smirk on her face.

  I stopped in my office long enough to jot down Pearlman’s order and grab my car keys. Although I could have walked the dozen or so blocks to the Thai place, I felt driving would be quicker. Besides, it was hot out, and I didn’t feel like sweating through my last white shirt of the week.

  The elevator was quick, and although my car started up relatively easy, my breath quickened when the engine died a moment later. I turned the key again, and after a hint of protest, the engine fired again and away I went.

  The lunch hour traffic was expectedly slow, but to my delight, I was able to park right in front of the restaurant. I considered leaving the engine running while I ran into The Catcher in the Thai, but I removed the key out of habit. I double-checked my pocket for the lunch order. Two pats on my breast pocket and I headed into the crowded restaurant.

  The air inside reeked of rancid cooking oil laced with a hint of old seafood. The line at the to-go counter was eight souls deep. As it inched forward every five minutes or so, I shuffled my feet and contemplated my project. As much as I hated my job, I constantly dwelled on it. Maybe that was why I hated it so much: because of its silent demand on my attention. Having been passed over for promotion twice in three years, I sometimes wondered if it was worth staying with the company. I was obviously going nowhere, but at least I got a paycheck every other week.

  I was so deep in thought, the Hispanic woman behind the counter had to say it again: “Can I take your order?”

  I pulled the sheet of paper from my pocket and relayed the order. Her pleasant smile never wavering, she entered the lunch order into the decrepit system and repeated it back to me precisely. I swiped my company credit card and gave the nice woman a twenty-five percent tip. Compliments of Mr. Pearlman, I thought to myself. She handed me a ticket number, and I stepped aside for others to place their order.

  As I stood along the wall of the narrow restaurant, I contemplated the irony of a Hispanic woman working at a Thai restaurant in New York. “Only in America,” I mumbled. Nobody around me noticed. The patrons were all self-involved with their smart phones.

  It wasn’t long before they called my order, and as I stepped forward to check that the contents of the Styrofoam containers matched my receipt, the Hispanic woman watched attentively. I nodded at her when I found everything in order. She smiled and nodded her head low.

  Once back to the car, I was greeted by an offensive yellow parking ticket tucked haphazardly under the blade of my windshield wiper. By this point in my day, I concluded that the world was in fact out to get me. Thankfully, the car started on the first attempt, and the trip back to the office was unremarkable. Total round-trip for Pinhead Pearlman took just under an hour.

  Back up to the sixteenth floor, I stalked right by Gwen and into Pearlman’s office. He looked up as I unceremoniously dropped the food on his desk, pulled the receipt stapled to the bag, and read it aloud.

  “One order red curry chicken. One order pad Thai shrimp. Four spring rolls.” Pearlman looked up from the receipt and scowled profusely in my general direction. “I said curry beef, not chicken.” His scowl turned to disgust as he pulled the food containers from the paper bag. “I suppose I can choke it down. Now if you’re done bothering me, why don’t you get back to work. Isn’t your lunch hour just about over?”

  The aroma of the food reminded me I had not had lunch myself. I was famished. With my lunch hour wasted on a fool’s errand, I hoped I had a snack stashed away in my desk.

  “Yes, that sounds about right,” I replied. Before leaving Pearlman’s office, I pulled the charge receipt from my breast pocket and dropped it on his desk, directly next to the red curry chicken. Smiling, I turned and walked out of his office. Gwen stood poised outside his office, waiting for my exit. As soon as I passed her desk, she slipped in, closing the door behind her.

  Chapter 5

  “What an incredible douche bag!” I said aloud. “I can’t believe he made me his errand boy again.”

  “This Mr. Pearlman is not a candidate for boss of the year,” said Wilson.

  “Far from it. He is underqualified and overpaid. He is your run-of-the-mill brownnoser and only got the position because he knows the right people—”

  “A baboon could do his job better,” Wilson said.

  Shocked that Wilson said the exact words I was going to say next, I looked over at the old man. He was still sitting in a casual manner, but the lines between his eyes had deepened, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I noticed a bit of compassion in his eyes.

  “You are a peculiar man, Wilson. What gives?” I asked.

  Wilson whistled softly. “Oh, I’ve been doing this for more than sixty years.”

  “And what exactly is it that you’ve been doing for more than sixty years?”

  “I guess you could say I lend an ear to those in need,” Wilson said, deftly avoiding the question.

  “OK, but how have you been at this for sixty years? You don’t look a day over sixty-five. How does that work?”

  Wilson fidgeted with the shiny cuff links holding his sleeves tight to his wrists. “That’s a whole other matter. One which we have no time to discuss. Please, Mr. Duffy, continue.”

  Wishing for more information from the old man, but also wanting to get through the rest of the day, I quickly flipped the coin over
.

  Chapter 5.5

  “Pearlman did it again, didn’t he?” came a voice from behind me.

  Before turning to see who it belonged to, I slid the last of my dollar bills into the vending machine and punched E9, launching the spiral delivery system into motion. The kerplunk echoed throughout the tiny break room, and I pulled out the last candy bar in the machine.

  “Hey, Alan. Yeah, Pearlman got me again,” I replied before tearing open the plastic wrapper and biting off half the candy bar.

  “I’d tell you about lessons learned, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear it.”

  “Here’s the thing, Alan: I wrote down the order before I left. He’s just a crazy bastard,” I replied. “I got him in the end though. I charged it to the company and left the receipt, along with the handwritten food order, on his desk.”

  “Great! That’s one for the peasants. How’d he take it?” Alan asked.

  Swallowing the last of my candy bar, I shook my head. “Not sure. I left before he noticed. I thought it best to get out before he realized what had happened.”

  Alan fell in to stride with me as we walked back to our offices. Alan’s office was across the hall from mine.

  “Why didn’t he just send Gwen?” Alan wondered. “You can’t tell me she was too busy typing memos or something.”

  “No, she was swamped, according to Pearlman. Hell, he even had me get her lunch too.”

  “Seriously? What did you do to piss that man off? Ever since he got Nelson’s job, he’s made you his personal bitch. Why don’t you stand up for yourself?” Alan asked as we paused outside our office doors.