by Sirloin Furr
Troy Slushy released the warehouse from his comforting hug, with the tips of his fingers grazing romantically over the rugged surface of the brick exterior. His left cheek was potted with indents from the warehouse’s structure. Troy caringly touched the indents in his skin, like they were soft kisses, bidding farewell from a forlorn admirer. He brushed the brick fragments from his face and clothing, as he and Lou Stooles continued their walk from the parking lot into the warehouse.
The inside of the warehouse was large and open. There were no walls dividing the interior, making each section perfectly visible from the eagle’s nest. The walls and floor were coated in a light gray color, contrasting perfectly from the bluish hue that would radiate perfect efficiency. The night crew could be seen, finishing up their shift, cleaning up their work stations. They walked towards the locker room, facing downwards, so not to look up at the eagle’s nest, where their humiliation waited, as the next shift entered into the warehouse, fearful to view their reflection from the eagle’s nest, as they too headed towards the locker room. The separate masses intertwined, chaotic and mosaic, mixing together, all heading towards the locker room. The locker room was one of the most efficiently advanced areas in all of Awful, Ohio.
There were no lockers, showers, or towels in the locker room, and it lacked any resemblance to a modern locker room. There were toilet bowls openly displayed, undivided by private walls, where workers would embrace the bowls like a park bench, sitting beside one another, engaging in conversation. The walls were coated in long cylinders, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Each cylinder was large enough to fit a person inside, but the outside of the cylinder was smooth, with a fine outline of what was an entrance. These long cylinders replicated honey combs from a one-level bee hive, summoning the drones of the workforce, to tend to the purpose of their queen, Mad Ted. But they were not honey combs, they were changing chutes.
These changing chutes were prominent, intrepid and bold, completely unnoticeable, yet so indubitable, that they would mask the existence of everything else in the locker room. They were colored in stoic, coal gray, standing discernibly against the walls of the locker room. Each changing chute’s outlined opening was large enough for a worker to enter. A worker would stand before the changing chute, activating the entrance to deconstruct. Piece by piece, the outlined entrance would deconstruct, revealing the inside, as it would then swallow the worker, then spit that worker out in exactly four seconds. The worker would be redressed in his work uniform, or the causal wear that he wore to work, depending if the worker was leaving or starting his shift. There was an undisclosed amount of changing chutes lining the locker room walls, but regardless of the amount of workers, there was always a changing chute available.
The experience of the changing chute was sublime. It was incomparable to anything else that the world had to offer, as the hot sauce union regulated the device as a benefit for working for Mad Ted. After the worker would enter into the changing chute, the deconstructed pieces would reemerge from inside of the walls of the changing chute. Each piece was the size of a stick of gum, as millions of these gum-sized building blocks would rapidly stack on top of one another, until the entrance was completely air-tight, sealing the worker in complete darkness. The process took longer than the experience inside the changing chute. However, without complaint, workers would enjoy viewing life outside the changing chute disappear behind the building wall, anticipating the griefless pleasure that their bodies craved.
After the door was constructed and sealed, the stick of gum sized building blocks would continue to build around the individual. The pieces would solidify into a gummy mold, encapsulating the individual with a perfect mold of the individual’s figure. The individual’s clothes would dematerialize into the gummy mold, leaving the individual’s body void of clothes, until the work uniform would materialize over the individual’s naked body through the gummy mold. The worker would be unable to see any of this happening in the lightless chamber, nor was the worker able to feel the clothes being removed and replaced with other clothes. The gummy mold would excrete high doses of opioids over the skin of the worker, pleasing the worker instantly, assuaging the worker from the banality of a workday.
After the mandatory uniform was affiliated to the naked body, the gummy mold would then remove itself from the figure of the person, relocating back into the walls of the chamber chute, leaving the uniform on the individual. The sealed entrance of the changing chute would then follow suit, deconstructing itself from the top to the bottom of the entrance, until there was nothing more blocking the incumbent from the outside world. The incumbent would then emerge from the changing chute, no longer clothed in the materials that he wore to work that day, but instead dressed in goggles, a hair net, a jump suit, galoshes, and a snorkel. The inside of the changing chute was void of time, gravity, and temperature, increasing the affect of the opioids. The entire experience was four seconds long.
The first experience of the changing chute would always be an individual’s most bizarre life experience. The process was unpredictable, as it was described differently by every member who had previously experienced the changing chute. Often, new members would have to be forced into the changing chute, as the changing chute virgin’s better judgment would interfere. This hesitancy would cause the sweat glands to expand, excreting a preventive layer of sweat over the skin that would always hinder the first experience, preventing the pleasing affects of the opioids inside the gummy mold. The first experience would never maximize a worker’s pleasure because of conflicting emotions.
But like an addictive drug, the second experience of the changing chute was always the most enjoyable. The new individual would enter again, void of hesitation, as his brain was washed from all better judgment, entering into the drugging chamber, only to exit four seconds later in his work uniform. It was inspiring and life-changing, cleansing the individual’s mind from everything that used to be gratifying, as it replaced previous thoughts of satisfaction with the four second experience in the changing chute. The pleasure would overpower reason, as each individual willingly removed oneself from the comfort and security of his home, all to fulfill the desire to enter into the warehouse just for the changing chute experience.
But each successive experience slowly decayed the enjoyment. The body would build tolerance, as daily doses reduced the excitement, transforming the world’s most exciting experience into a mundane and tasteless repetition. The initial enjoyment of the experience would become more and more familiar to the workers, as it was no longer providing that same enjoyment that the second experience provided. But, the workers still needed it. Workers would volunteer for weekend shifts, just to get a fix of the changing chute. They would also deny vacation days, personal days, and sick days, as the experience of the changing chute was more gratifying than utilizing any of these benefits.
This was all part of Mad Ted’s theory; to familiarize his workers to bizarre, perplexing and aberrant experiences. They were to become prone to excitement, and build a barrier of immunity to inspiration. The best worker was a mindless worker. And no matter how familiar the process became to the workers, no matter how mundane and repetitive and banal the experience had become, the workers would always desire the changing chute experience every morning. It would always remain the most pleasant moment of the individual’s material existence, as the employee yearned for more gratification, always coming back to the warehouse.
“Goddamn, I’ve been waiting for this all day,” grumbled Lou Stooles. Troy Slushy and Lou Stooles had entered into the locker room, where they were surrounded by the rest of the employees, who were all either entering into the changing chute, or sitting on the toilet. A large red sign was posted on the wall, saying,
USE THE TOILET BEFORE
USING THE CHANGING CHUTE,
SO NOT TO USE THE
CHANGING CHUTE AS A TOILET.
Troy was standing beside Lou, pondering his situation, wondering why he willingly left his wife that morn
ing to be in a locker room filled with men.
Lou had stepped into the changing chute, as Troy watched the entrance seal up with the self-constructing material. Four seconds later, Lou reemerged, dressed to code. His eyes were blooming like flowers on a sunny day through the goggles strapped to his head. His grin was so large that he would’ve needed two snorkels in the event of another hot sauce emergency.
“Your turn, buddy” exhaled Lou with complete fulfillment. Gusto excreted from the end of the snorkel, and floated to the ceiling of the locker room, collecting with the rest of the exhaust from the other workers. Troy apathetically entered into the changing chute. The self-constructing material had begun to build over the entrance, sealing Troy into the chamber. He was normally like everyone else, yearning for the changing chute every morning, as his body grew more dependent on the experience. But this morning lacked the desire, as it was already fulfilled by his wife, Lacy, as they both had commenced in primitive love.
Each notch in Lacy’s spine rippled through Troy’s memory, as they sensually pulsated through the epidermis of her back as they both rocked together in perfect harmony. He remembered the sticky dew from their warm breath, coating their bodies into a perfect shell of unity, attempting to permanently bond them together. But like a malpracticing surgeon, his indoctrinated discipline to enter work every morning separated the loving bond. Troy left Lacy that morning for nothing better. That morning had exposed Troy to a forgotten pleasure, and his body was beginning to demand more of Lacy.
Four seconds later, Troy emerged from the changing chute, dressed in his hair net, goggles, jump suit, galoshes, and snorkel. He could feel the cold air in the locker room, as he was surrounded by other workers entering and exiting the available changing chutes. All of the drone workers were leaving their chutes with a smile. The hazy mist floating at the top of the locker room, created by the exhaling sighs of fulfillment, was thick and black. Lou Stooles watched Troy gaze through the room and everything that was inside. Troy examined his uniform as if it was the first time he had ever seen it. Lou Stooles asked Troy, with a glowing smile, “you ready, Troy?” referring to the beginning of another beautiful work day.
Troy’s lips had remained parallel. He had not allowed his morning with Lacy to leave his mind. His mind wasn’t filled with labor regulations or hot sauce packaging code, but instead with Lacy, and her molten hot red hair flowing over her shoulders, dripping over the naked flesh that she had exposed for him that morning for ethereal and physical concatenation. Troy wanted that again, he wanted her, and he wanted it now. It was pleasing, powerful enough to evacuate all preexisting memories of pleasure that commenced from the changing chute. It was a moment of excitement that Troy Slushy had remembered from that morning. But his leak-proof galoshes tightly wrapped around his waist like prison shackles. It was permanently fixated until he would re-enter back into the changing chute, eight hours later, ending his work shift. And as Troy Slushy stood there dissatisfied from the changing chute experience, he altered the course of time and the future of mankind by becoming the first being to leave a changing chute unfulfilled.
Lou threw his arm around Troy’s shoulder and helped guide him from the locker room. They walked out, with Lou still foaming at the mouth with conversation soaked in catechized hot sauce topics. But Troy’s mind quickly repelled any ideas attempting to overpower his love for Lacy. Troy managed to mutter an excuse to Lou, fleeing from the confinements of Lou’s engaging arm and verbal poison.
Troy scurried away from Lou, facing the floor, attempting to avoid all visuals of everything that surrounded him, so not to lose insight of Lacy. But the light inside of the warehouse was too powerful to fend off. The sun orbited the warehouse, exposing the banality that surrounded him, as it filtered through his eyes, and into his brain, attempting to knock the excitement of Lacy out of his mind. He desperately attempted to think of anything he could to destroy the damning sun, hoping to cease the exposed world that regularly induced misery upon him. Destruction, kidnapping, extinguishing, melting, and freezing were all ideas that collided in Troy’s mind. But he wasn’t able to reason out any of these ideas. Troy continued his pace, hoping the rhythmic steps would regurgitate some answer for his problem. But his steps were halted, when he collided into a congregation of workers covered in galoshes and snorkels.
Troy looked around, viewing all of the workers. They were silent and stiff. There was a mandatory meeting, issued by Mad Ted, requiring that all the employees gather around his office that specific morning. Their collected mass formulated into the shape of a doughnut, as they all collected directly beneath the eagle’s nest as dictated. Their heads pointed upwards, to face the eagle’s nest, as its 2-sided, glass fun mirrors were dimmed from reflecting harmful images upon the surrounding masses. Troy looked up with the crowd, watching the eagle’s nest, resting solely in the sky, attracting the masses to surround and worship its presence. Troy stared at the object, as it juxtaposed into an image of the sun, mocking every one that was unable to look away, gathering towards the center, like a group of lost mosquitoes drifting closer towards the light.
Everyone’s eyeballs gazed religiously towards the entity, handing over their times and lives to the glob of yellow muck that formulated an empty perception of value and importance. Everyone beneath, collected together, worshiping the undeserving entity, with their faces smiling erratically, eyes pulsating from their sockets, trying to levitate closer to their preacher, anticipating Mad Ted to emerge. Lou had caught up with Troy and continued speaking about work related thoughts. As long as Troy had work, Troy had Lou.
“Hey Troy, this is pretty exciting, isn’t it?” It was a rhetorical question. Lou had no mind to actually analyze the situation. Nor could he determine that there was actually something within this situation to offer a feeling of excitement. Troy looked over at Lou. His mouth was muttering noises in the shape of words, as the contours of his lips swung freely like jump ropes.
“We are in here,
because we live in fear,
and being in here
brings us
peace and cheer.”
Troy gazed around, and watched everyone in full smile, engaging in the same hymn.
“We are in here,
because we live in fear,
and being in here
brings us
peace and cheer.”
Troy stared at the floor. He didn’t want to reduce his existence to wasteful moments of worshiping everything that floated above him. He kept Lacy in mind and began to think of more ways to destroy the sun. But there was too much light flooding his thoughts. He couldn’t think clearly, as the staccato rhythm of the hymn was too strong, derailing his concentration. Troy looked back up and glared at the different colors of the uniforms. His mind began to swell with intoxication, and the room began to spin. The strong rhythm pushed Troy’s mind back and forth, rubbing his brain against his skull, creating hot friction that began to boil his brain. It was overwhelming. Troy Slushy felt the brink of death descend upon his person, ready to absorb his life and being, which he eagerly welcomed, hoping for the dark escort, to release him from the exposed world, and into a place where he could permanently hide. But the rhythm stopped.
Mad Ted had emerged from the floating office. “Aloha.” Mad Ted was not Hawaiian. The hymn had ceased, and Troy was able to momentarily regain composure. Mad Ted’s greeting was heard like an omniscient voice serving as the collective conscious for the mass. The warehouse became rich in silence, waiting for Mad Ted to continue speaking. And he spoke:
“This meeting is meant to inform us that we, the collective unity that creates and distributes the world’s finest, condimental product, will be undergoing drastic changes to our appearance. We are not becoming victims of any psychological persuasion of vanity, nor are we adapting to prodigal trends that other workforces have succumbed to. These changes that will be happening to us are going to result in more efficiency, and more production, earning more success
and leading to more security. We have established a solid rhythm, day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year, continually ejaculating the most lucrative industrial accomplishments. This has all resulted in mass profits for our greater well being. The archetype of a work day was developed by us, and is continually being improved and modified by our perseverance, being measured by our accomplishments. We have achieved success, and earned security. We will sustain dominance in the workforce, and we will prevent any possibility of collapse in our economic empire. So regardless of any ideas that may question or criticize the structural makeover that will be conducted onto this warehouse that exists in a world that does not guarantee existence, we are still the strongest force in Awful, Ohio. We are an entity attempting to survive, and this structural remodeling will ensure that our existence does not finish, and that we will exceed the limits of time and the boundaries of god, and last forever into the realm of eternity.”
Mad Ted had finished speaking, which concluded the meeting. Every employee placed their mouths over the end of the snorkel, and puffed out a thick, bellowing hum that vibrated like creamy drums marching into war. A hollow hum ballooned from the floor into a symphonic monsoon, deafening the thoughts of anyone refusing to act accordingly. The right fist attached to each worker bounced off of their chests, with erect index fingers pointing upwards to the eagle’s nest that harbored Mad Ted, repeating in perfect sync, saluting their leader.
Mad Ted looked down to the floor, admiring the devotion of his following. He was watching his subordinates acknowledge the purpose of his message, represented by the tip of every erect index finger pointing towards his being in the eagle’s nest. His hubris was fulfilled.
But as Mad Ted gazed from the eagle’s nest, over the masses to observe their devotion, he noticed one inconsistency with the image on the floor. In the very back, was an individual, not dressed in the proper work attire. Instead, the individual was dressed as a disgruntled employee. This image was very odd, as none of Mad Ted’s employees were disgruntled. Mad Ted continued observing the discretely disgruntled individual. The individual had in its hand a scratch pad, and in another hand, a pencil that appeared to dance wildly over the scratch pad, scribbling down notes like a drunken scribe. Mad Ted wasn’t sure who the individual was, but he had no concern, as he continued gazing over his congregation that worshiped him.
The individual that Mad Ted had spotted was Wilsie McHickoryboob. She was eagerly collecting more information. She had masqueraded into the warehouse that morning, so that she could gather some information to create another article on the mysteries of the hot sauce warehouse and Mad Ted. To her advantage, she unknowingly masqueraded on the day that Mad Ted was going to reveal his future intentions for his hot sauce empire. She hysterically took note of everything that Mad Ted had said during the meeting, writing it all down as quickly as she could, thinking that it was a huge lead towards her next great article in the Awful Gazette.
As Mad Ted continued gazing through his congregation, admiring his worshipers, there was one more inconsistency. It was a human sized gap within the mass that was not humming through the snorkel, nor pointing an erect index finger of his right hand towards eagle’s nest. That human sized gap was filled with Troy Slushy. Troy was not wearing his snorkel, and he was not wearing his hairnet, and he was not pounding his right fist off of his chest, then redirecting the tip of his erect index finger towards the eagle’s nest to solute Mad Ted. Mad Ted felt slandered.
But for Troy, listening to Lou Stoole’s was a terrible experience that induced misanthropic feelings. Watching the building erect towards what appeared to be a glistening hole secreting phony euphoria was depressing. Then, having to endure the changing chute was a displeasing experience, replacing the clothes that he wanted to wear with an unpresentable attire. And now having to listen to Mad Ted bellow his rhetoric was unbearable. Troy Slushy was becoming desperate. He was facing the floor, busy concocting another effort to destroy the sun, so that there would be no more days to fill with a life-decimating job.
His mind pieced together a large spear whittled from all the giant red woods in northern California. Troy would gather all the strongest Olympic athletes, and have them launch the spear into space like a javelin. The earth’s rotation would help the spear gain enough momentum to launch through space and time, at a rate so fast that it would spear the sun. The spear’s momentum would pierce the sun, dragging it off into the deepest depths of space, where Troy then blissfully imagined the sun extinguishing in the cold pool of infinite space. All of these thoughts wiggled in Troy’s head, seeking a solution for his problem, dancing with the vibrating hum of the coworkers, as Mad Ted continued his gaze over his congregation to absorb the surrounding devotion.
Chapter 5
Deliver hearts to those who are lacking,
until they begin to ripen with hearts of their own.
