Prospero's Half-Life

by Trevor Zaple

  Prospero's Half-Life

  Smashwords Edition

  Trevor James Zaple

  Copyright 2014 Trevor James Zaple

  Smashwords Edition License Notes:

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  CONTENTS:

  PART ONE: THE CLOCKWORK GOD DRIFTS OFF TO SLEEP

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  PART TWO: THE FAITHLESS ELECTOR

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  PART THREE: THE OPEN BOOK OF SECRETS

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  EPILOGUE

  About The Author

  Other Books By The Author

  How To Get In Touch With The Author

  PART ONE:

  THE CLOCKWORK GOD DRIFTS OFF TO SLEEP

  “Who wields a poem huger than the grave?

  From only Whom shall time no refuge keep

  Though all the weird worlds must be opened”

  -e.e. cummings

  ONE

  When Richard pulled up to the darkened store front and saw that his was the only car in the parking lot, he knew that for all intents and purposes it was over. He was twenty minutes late.

  Out of habit, he got out of the car and walked up to the front doors. He glanced back and noticed that his parking job was decidedly crooked. He shrugged. He’d stopped caring about those sorts of things days ago. The first layer of doors came apart fairly easily when he pried them open, but the second were locked fast. So. He paused for a moment. Someone had come in, obviously, but then had locked themselves in. He knew that it wasn’t simply a case of whomever last closed the store having not bothered to close the outer doors; Mohammed was a tight captain and would brook no loosening of the rules, even this late in the game. He tried an experimental knock on the glass of the inner door. When no one answered he did it again, rooted out of a morbid curiosity.

  He waited for as long as any sane human being would have waited, and then three minutes longer. He was about to turn to leave, had in fact turned his shoulder slightly to the left, when he caught movement from within the dim confines of the store. A slim blonde figure in a green uniform shirt darted around the customer service desk and ran furtively towards the doors. Samantha had shown up for work, then. Richard smiled at that. What else had she to do, after all? He knew that feeling rather well.

  Samantha, her pretty Dutch face streaked and leaden, fiddled with the lock and quickly pulled the doors open. She hesitated a moment and then stepped aside. Richard moved past her, a purpose to his stride, and divested his heavy leather coat onto the service desk. Samantha moved to close the doors.

  “Keep ‘em open,” Richard told her without turning around. His voice was casual, light even, but it was a command nonetheless. He looked around the wide expanse of the sales floor. The lights were dimmed, and the laptop and LCD screen displays were powerless and silent. The digital picture frames were one, looping through the overly bright set of sample pictures. Richard suspected that this was merely because whomever had last left the sales department had forgotten (or not bothered) to shut them off. He pursed his lips. He had a momentary urge to look up who it was, so that he could reprimand them, but then checked himself. What was the point? Whomever it was, they were likely long gone by now.

  He drummed his fingers on the service counter, and the sound echoed cavernously around him. He knocked his knuckles on the counter, relishing the way it ripped through the silence. When the music was off, the store sounded exactly like what it was built to resemble: a sprawling, mostly empty warehouse. He considered turning the music on and decided against it. If this was, as he suspected, his last day, he could do it without having to hear the most ubiquitous Billboard hits of the last three decades. If there was one good thing about the whole situation, it was that he might never have to listen to Mariah Carey again. Silver linings and small miracles.

  He turned around. Samantha was still there. He paused, took a closer look at her. There were dark, deep circles under her eyes, and mascara streaks framing them. Her shoulders were slumped, and her head bowed slightly. Her hair, normally either delicately curled or immaculately straightened, was tangled and formless. She’d been doing a lot of crying, and likely not enough sleeping.

  “Who else came in today?” he asked quietly. Samantha blinked and stared through him for a moment, not comprehending the question. Then she shook her head and a spark slowly came back into her eyes.

  “Mark came. Said he had some stuff to finish up. And…” she bit her full lower lip, cutting herself off. Richard looked at her sharply.

  “And?”

  “And Mohammed is here. In his office. I…I can’t go back there.”

  “Why not?” Richard asked, a little more harshly than he’d meant. Samantha recoiled ever so slightly.

  “He’s really, really sick,” she replied, her voice near a whisper.

  Richard swore under his breath. Why had the Old Man come to the store to die, he wondered. Probably wanted to go down with the ship, or something equally useless. Well. He’d have to tackle that problem later.

  There was a store to run.

  Richard picked up the phone, pressed the PA button.

  “Mark, can I have you to service for the morning meeting?”

  His voice boomed overhead, echoed solidly off of everything. He replaced the phone in it’s cradle, remembering at the last minute to thumb the release button first. There were few things he hated more than listening to a phone being hung up live on the PA system.

  Mark appeared presently, walking up from somewhere deep within the store. He was a walking ghost of a man, pale to the point of translucence, dressed in a wrinkled green uniform that seemed to hang off of him. As he approached the service counter, Richard saw that there were sparse patches of stubble all over the southern half of his face. There was also a far-gone stare to the man’s eyes that Richard didn’t like much. He wondered what Mark had been doing and seeing these past few weeks, then decided that he didn’t much care. What he himself had been doing and seeing was more than enough for him to be concerned with.

  “There’s no response from the servers in Boston,” Mark said flatly as he settled in to lean against the counter. Richard shrugged.

  “Do we have an internet connection at all?”

  “Yeah, miracle of miracles. Some sites won’t respond but a lot are still up. They may not have been updated in a few days but you can still access them”.

  “Hmm,” Richard replied, only semi-interested.

  “My cell phone still works,” Samantha reported.

  “Yeah, just nobody answers,” Mark jeered. Richard shot him a deadly glance, to which Mark just shrugged in reply.

  “I still get Twitter updates,�
� she said, stung and defensive.

  “Oh yeah, what do they say?” Mark continued needling. “11:45 – Still dying?”

  “Go fuck yourself Mark,” she spat, her previously dulled eyes flaring into dangerous life. Richard stepped in to head this off.

  “Enough, both of you. We’re getting off-topic. Now, you said that there was no response from the servers in Boston?”

  “Yeah, big fuckin’ deal,” Mark replied sullenly. “I mean, it’s not like we’ve sold anything the past coupla’ days. Even the looters are leaving us alone. Who the fuck wants a computer when they’re gonna be totally useless soon?”

  “Much of our inventory is not geared towards the current situation, true,” Richard admitted, “but there may still be a customer base out there. We need to be here for those people.”

  “Did you go nuts or are you just being a dick?” Mark snapped. “There ARE no customers. No one is gonna come waltzing in here looking to buy the latest technology for their cutesy little fucking business. People are either dying or looting or both. So stick your morning meeting up your stupid, deluded ass”. Mark started walking away, towards the doors.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going, Mark?” Richard yelled, his sudden anger palpitating his heart.

  “I’m leaving,” he shot back, “I’m done. Getting the fuck outta here before I end up as batshit as you!” With that, he walked out of the doors without looking back.

  “You’re fired, you insolent little FUCK!” he called out to Mark’s vanishing back, screaming the sentence-ending obscenity at the top of his lungs. He stared at the doors for a minute, trembling from the sudden upswing in anger. He knew he looked ridiculous, felt ridiculous. All of a sudden he felt awkward, and dreaded turning back to look at Samantha.

  He was in charge, though, so he had to carry on. Samantha’s eyes were wide, but she seemed to recover quickly.

  “So do you think anyone will be here in today?” he asked slowly. Richard blew his breath out in an explosive sigh.

  “Who knows. I suppose stranger things have happened” he replied.

  TWO

  As it turned out, they did have one customer on that final day.

  Richard spent his first three hours there tidying up loose paperwork and assorted debris; this after trying the door to Mohammed’s office and finding it locked and silent. Samantha spent the time situated firmly behind the service counter, staring out at nothing in particular. In the background, a retrospective of the Top 40 banged away. Richard had tried to avoid it but Samantha had in the end insisted, claiming it to be “too creepy” without it.

  Richard also tried phoning other stores in the chain; the closest regional ones first and then radiating outward. Most gave no answer, either an endless ring or an incessant busy signal. When he called the store on Hamilton Mountain, he got the following exchange:

  *ring*

  (On the other end) “Who’re you?”

  Richard paused. The voice was loud and belligerent. “The better question”, he replied slowly, “is who you are”.

  “I’m King Dick, motherfucker!” the voice on the other end screamed. “I got balls the size of grapefruits!”

  “This is Richard Adams, from Store 47. Do you work there?”

  “Nobody works here no more, dickhead!” the voice proclaimed, sounding somehow even more unhinged than he had in the beginning. “We tied the managers up in the warehouse and the associates are running freeeee!”

  That was a bit much for Richard.

  “You…I’m sorry?”

  “Tied ‘em up”, the voice confirmed gleefully. “Knocked ‘em out and now we’re torturing the dicknose motherfuckers ‘til they’re dead. The rest of us are paaartying ‘til we drop!”

  “How many of you are still alive?” Richard asked, mystified. The voice did not appear to be listening.

  “It’s one long orgy from dawn to dusk asshole!” Got one of the sales girls on my dick right now! Listen!”

  There was some fumbling of the phone, and then some wet slurping and smacking noises. This was followed shortly by a profuse amount of vomiting. Richard pulled the phone away from his ear in disgust. The last thing he heard as he hurriedly hung up was the voice screaming “aw, you got blood on me!”

  He looked over at Samantha, feeling shaken.

  “Ah”, he hesitated. “Looks like we’re the only ones open for business”. Samantha gave him a wan smile.

  The morning passed slowly. Richard kept Samantha busy with cleaning the service area, and let her smoke inside. This was highly irregular procedure but after the phone call to the other store he didn’t want to take any chances. The company stressed employee safety over everything else.

  At approximately half-past twelve a man in a greenish-brown Australian overcoat came through the front doors. Richard, who was dusting the laptops on the side wall of the store, turned quickly upon catching the movement from the corner of his eye. He watched the man walk into the store, stop in front of the hot-item sales displays, and look around as if unsure of where he was. He looked over the newcomer intently, scanning for a sign of a gun or some other weapon. His call to Hamilton Mountain had him on edge. He concluded that the man could have literally anything under his heavy coat and strode over quickly before any sort of trouble could ensue.

  “Can I help you?” Richard asked the man, politely but firmly. He glanced over at Samantha; she was staring at the newcomer with interest. The stranger peered around mutely for a moment, his gaze lingering on the laptop wall that Richard had just come from.

  “Maybe you can”, he said, his voice deep and raspy, as though he’d been inhaling gritty smoke for several days. He ran a thick, dirty forefinger over a stubbled chin.

  “First of all”, he intoned, “does your internet connection work?”

  “It does” Richard confirmed quickly.

  “Alright, I’ll need a laptop, every external hard drive you have, and any cords that I may need”. He flashed a sudden wild grin.

  “Money is no object” he chortled.

  “How will you be paying, sir?” Richard asked him with automatic, bred-in suspicion. The stranger in the outback coat laughed loudly.

  “What the hell does it matter how I’m paying?” he bellowed, seemingly amused. Richard started feeling very small.

  “If this emergency passes”, he explained stiffly, “I don’t want to get screwed by someone with fake credit cards taking advantage of scared people”.

  The big man laughed again. “Are you for real, buddy?” he asked incredulously. “This is a permanent condition we’re in here. Do you live in this store or something?”

  Richard reddened. “I don’t appreciate the attitude, sir” he said between clenched teeth. His heart was racing, his mind wondering with grim curiosity whether there was a weapon of some kind stashed beneath that heavy overcoat. His mouth was all of a sudden very dry.

  He reached into the low-slung pocket of his coat and Richard froze. A small jet of urine squirted out, seemingly the only moisture in his body. His mouth gaped open, empty of sentiment. He closed it swiftly when the stranger pulled a random wad of paper money out. He walked right by the petrified Richard and dropped the mess of currency in front of Samantha.

  “Daarlin’”, he said to her in a folksy, country-boy affecation, “why don’t you count that while we figure stuff out?” Samantha giggled and began sorting through the sheaf.

  “Let’s go, buddy”, he called out to Richard as he strode towards the laptop wall. “I haven’t got forever. Power’s gotta go out sometime”. Startled, Richard followed the stranger.

  They stopped in front of the display of small netbooks. Richard waited for a moment to see if the man would say anything.

  “What are you looking for in a computer?” he asked when the man stayed silent.

  “Not important”, he replied gravely, still staring at the netbooks. “It’s just a conduit. You got a conduit for sale?” he asked loudly, and laughed as if that were the
funniest thing in the world. Richard blinked, wondering if he’d inadvertently let a madman into the store.

  “Conduit, sir?” he asked, feeling dull.

  “For the hard drives. Gonna download the internet”. He was casual about it. Richard sputtered, and a nervous laugh escaped.

  “OK, sure”, he replied, sure now that the man was insane. “I have a few mid-range models that should service you quite well. I recommend that you start looking with the Toshibas…”

  Richard humoured him for quite some time. He seemed quite serious about it and asked probing questions about various components and options. He finally settled on a rugged, lightweight 14” model, ruminating loudly on durability and portability. To go along with it he selected a large hikers knapsack. As far as Richard could remember, it was the only one that they had ever sold. Into this knapsack he put the laptop and, as insisted upon, every external hard drive in the store.

  “Now”, he said, after all of this had been brought up to the service desk, “can I use your internet connection?”

  “No”, Richard replied firmly. The stranger looked shocked.

  “We have blocks on anything that’s not business-related”, he continued apologetically. The stranger nodded, a sour look creeping over his face.

  “Maybe that Starbucks down the street”, he mused aloud. Richard nodded quickly, trying transparently to prod him down this new path.

  “I’m sure their connection is still active”, he assured the man brightly. “You may even be able to make coffee while you’re at it”. The stranger laughed at this.

  “Now, let’s discuss extending the warranties on your equipment” Richard continued smoothly. An ounce of amusement flickered across the man’s rough, stubbly face.

  “Yeah, sure”, he rumbled amiably, “why not? Give me the longest service contracts you’ve got on the laptop and whatever you normally recommend for the hard drives”.