2.0

You're supposed to try not to listen to the calls going on around you, due to FCC mandated confidentiality regulations. I forgot my book at home and the reading materials they provide have all been donated by other employees. There are rows of fantasy and sci-fi that might have interested me during middle school, along with the occasional soccer-mom romance novel. There are also those celebrity magazines with snapshots of the latest fashion faux pas, blurbs about high-profile hookups and breakups, and notices about who's in or out of rehab.

In short, I have nothing to do, so I listen to the calls.

"... come over and watch the twins while I - Ma'am ... I'm sorry ma'am, but you will have to wait to respond until the person is finished. The caller has typed - I asked Jamie to come over and watch the twins ..."

"Angela, David and I are going to IHOP after church, we'd love for you and Brian to come ..."

"This is Internet Relay Operator 0409 with a call. Are you familiar with the relay service? Ok, let me explain. You are receiving a call from someone who may be deaf ..."

"... quietly excuse yourself, leave the building and watch as your co-workers die, or you can hope that I'm lying and ..."

This is coming from the cube next to me. I stand up and peer over the divider to read the words being typed on the computer screen. Please dial blah blah ... Ok, here it is.

I am a relay operator. I work in the same building that you are working in now. I have probably relayed calls sitting in the chair that you are currently sitting in. As a matter of fact, I am supposed to be sitting in one of those chairs at this very moment.

During my time there I have learned about all sorts of homemade explosives from a couple fellow employees. No doubt you can guess which ones. Paired with my technical aptitude, it wasn't difficult to come up with the simple addition of triggers and timers. There are explosives attached to the underside of the desks in seven of the fifty cubicles, each with a blast radius of approximately ten to fifteen feet. Said explosives will detonate at 4:15.

As you know, repeating any call information, regardless of content or personal involvement, is considered a breach of confidentiality and comes with a minimum penalty of $25,000 in fines and up to 17 years in prison. So, you have a few choices here. You can break the law, alert everyone on the floor and suffer the consequences. You can quietly excuse yourself, leave the building and watch as your co-workers die, or you can hope that I'm lying and die with your co-workers.

The caller ends with an equals sign and a closed bracket, a smiley face.

I hear footsteps approaching and notice the manager call button has been pressed. I also notice the clock reads 4:14:48. I close my eyes and count to twelve.

__________________
Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk
-Tom Waits

Markovich

__________________
Маркович

velo

Killer Weed

“This is some good shit,” Johnny snorted through a lung choked full of smoke, holding it in as long as he could to let the magic happen.

The construction gig had ended ahead of schedule and the bonus money was just enough to buy a couple dimes of Lopez's “extra fine, ultra refined” shit he was always trying to sell them but that they never had the money for.

Raz took the bong, spilling half of the water on Johnny's knee which started them both laughing uncontrollably.

“Oh, man, my stomach is killing me from all this laughing,” Raz giggled.

“Too many nachos,” Johnny quipped and the laughter started again.

It was a fast high, a powerful high. Not the slow, mellow burn of their usual $30 a dime bag stuff. This was intense, worth the price.

“Johnny, man, I...fuck...I think...oh man I'm fucked up, can barely talk...seriously, listen. I think there's something in this shit, man.”

“Wha?”

“Laced, man. Lopez must put something, like, in this stuff. I'm crazy fucked up, this isn't like the usual shit”

“Yeah, it rocks, don' it?”

This was the funniest thing they had ever heard. They drank, they smoked, they laughed hysterically at feminine hygiene product commercials on television.

“Raz, man...haha, 'Razman,' that's what I'll call you from now on. Hey Razman, this is weird, I feel like I wanna go...I dunno...like I wanna go do something. What the fuck should we do?”

“Fucked if I know, but I'm itching to get up, too..like, seriously itching. This sitting around shit sucks.”

The room was swirling down the drain again and Raz couldn't keep his bearings. He fell back into the chair for 10 minutes and when he stopped falling he looked over at Johnny. Both pairs of Johnny's eyes were focused on his lap where a huge insect was testing, feeling him, tasting him to see which part it wanted to eat first. It's antennae flicked over Johnny's face, teasing his eyes, tracing the outlines of his noses, sensing the salt on his skin.

Raz yelled in a stentorian voice that shook the pudding walls and made the air ripple with might. He flew over to Johnny whose head was lolling back to expose the white underbelly of his throat the insect was rearing up to strike. Wrapping his muscled arms around the horrific beast, Raz fought it all the way to the window, tossed the wretch through the opening and watched it hover in mid-air, writhing until it died, popping and crackling like bacon in a pan. The crowd applauded, and Raz lay down on the velvet cushions of the divan to sleep the sleep only a hero can.

-------------------------------

“Dude, what the fuck happened in here?”

“Fuck, man, I don't know, I can't remember anything, my head hurts”

“Raz, get off the floor man, can you see this? I think that's the fucking cat in the goddamn microwave.”

__________________
Are you kidding Velo? Even Malone won't touch this one-adrianhayter

Carpe diem, quam minimum credulo postero -Horace

Yeef

WOMAN LOSES HEAD IN HELICOPTER CRASH.

It was in all the papers. A traffic copter had gotten out of control the day before two towns over.

"I bet there was, like, tons of blood gushing out from her neck! Like a blood fountain!" Everyone in class let their imagination run wild. It was all like a joke to us. Maybe joke isn't the right word, but it certainly wasn't 'real.'

"God, damn it!" The air stood still and we all went mute as the words bellowed from Mr. Scott. "What is wrong with you? That poor lady loses her life and you're sitting here making jokes? I can't believe you kids!"

His tirade continued for several minutes. There was a silence that hung precariously in the air when he'd finished. No one dared disturb it except Mr. Scott himself. He sighed and went into the lesson he'd planned for the day.

That day was free of the usual interruptions. Once the bell had rung the entire class flooded into the hallways eagerly.

I stayed.

Mr. Scott sat reviewing his schedule for the day as though nothing had happened. It was a few moments before he noticed me standing in front of his desk.

"Yes?" He was clearly irritated.

"Did you know her?"

"Why should that matter?"

"I was just wondering."

He leaned back in his chair, studying me as though I had some hidden agenda. I did the same to him. While looking over the crevices and contours of his face I realized for the first time: this was a person. He had fears and doubts and regrets all his own. A life that continued on with or without me. It seems a little silly now, but back then it was such a revelation. The world did not stop and start at my convenience.

"No, I didn't know her, but she was a person all the same. She deserves respect," he finally responded.

I don't know if he knew it or not, but that day had changed my entire outlook on life. I can't even remember what class Mr. Scott taught, but he had a bigger impact on my view of the world than any other teacher.

It's been a little over a decade since I've learned that simple lesson, but still, I see my peers who are more worried about who'll get voted off the island than the failing economy. More involved in voting for the next 'Idol' than the next president.

That's why I decided to become a teacher myself. If I can do for just one kid what Mr. Scott did for me then I'll have made a difference.

eggo

My entry,

http://www.writingforums.com/writers...ml#post1159977

Thanks!

__________________
http://vagabondagepress.com/81101/V1I6SS1.html

Chris Miller

My New Cordless Grill

So I’m sitting in Hyuandi’s hospitality room while my Elantra gets serviced, trying to watch a documentary on skeet shooting. I can see people blasting away, but can’t hear shit because some suit’s yammering on a Blackberry. Loud, like he’s trying to impress me, or his battery’s low. He’s like—“Your satisfaction is very important to us, Bob… We’ll be addressing these issues right away, Bob… It’s critical that your needs are met here, Bob… We really appreciate your bringing this to our attention, Bob”—and I’m wishing Bob had one of those USB iVaginas to stick his dick in so the suit could just shut-the-fuck-up and blow him proper.

The suit’s laptop’s sitting open on the floor, which reminds me mine’s in a cardboard box in my trunk. I put it there because it needed to know my name—my car doesn’t even know my name. Because Norton Antivirus wanted me to know I was only a few clicks away from 90 days of free worry-free protection. Because Windows Defender wanted me to know it was already out of date along with the rest of Vista and would I like to download patches now or just have them bug me every time I powered up from then on. Because MS Office wanted to be my business partner for 60 trial days. Because websites I’d never visited squabbled over my homepage like bored siblings. Because everything from the keyboard to the camera to the touchpad wanted me to learn more, register somewhere, buy something. Because it wanted to remember everything I typed everywhere I went. Because it was always grilling me, second-guessing me and then asking if I was sure. Turning it on was like entering a roomful of starving salespeople with their idiot-savant children in tow, like window-shopping in the Dominican. Because according to the Important-Read-Me-First-Safety Manual, I mustn’t operate it on my lap or place it or any of its components on sensitive or combustible surfaces. Because it’s a thousand-dollar grill.

My car’s in being serviced because the ‘Check [new] Engine’ light’s on. It never went on last year when I hit a rock and kept driving after all the oil leaked out. But now it’s been on for a week with the car running perfectly. They figure maybe my gas cap’s loose. For 69$ their computer will say for sure.

The suit’s still bullshitting as loudly and ingratiatingly as before, but when the station switches to commercial—beer; then life insurance; then some matchmaking website where anyone can find their next perfect soulmate—I can hear everything perfectly. Still talking—“We’re assigning this the very highest priority, Bob”—the suit squats to enter something into his laptop on the floor. And I wonder if I should introduce myself, say my name before stepping on it, maybe bouncing up and down on it a little.

__________________
the fairwriting blogs

Barcelona Review story: http://www.barcelonareview.com/64/e_cm.html