The first part of this story was in the Writers Workshop for a little bit, but I want to post the whole thing if I can (a little bit at a time). So this is where it starts.
“It’s not supposed to do that," said Serge.
“Yeah, I know it’s not supposed to do that," said Hank. "If it was supposed to do that do you think I would have called you over here?”
“Well you must have done something wrong then," said Serge.
“Done something wrong? When the light comes on I push the button. I push a god-damned button all day long Serge! What the hell could possibly go wrong?” said Hank.
“Hey, I’m not the one that broke the stupid thing," said Serge. "Why did you call me over here if you were just going to bite my head off?”
“You know what?" said Hank. "I don’t even care! All the time I’ve spent staring at this ridiculous piece of junk, and for what? What’s the damn point? Who knows, but does that stop me? No! I just keep right on doing it!”
Emile could vaguely hear the rattling of the button in the background, but he was caught up in his numbers. He had gotten pretty good at blocking out the sound of Serge’s thick Spanish accent and Hanks whining, although the whining had taken him awhile. Emile was so high up in his count that he was hardly aware of much else. Had he ever made it this far before? It was tough to tell. The feeling was vaguely familiar, but time barely seemed to exist down here. It could have been twenty years ago or last week, not that weeks or years meant anything.
“Hey Emile, I think Hank really broke it. Why don’t you come and check it out?” said Serge.
“It’s a button Serge. I think you two can manage,” said Emile, putting his finger on the monitor so he wouldn’t lose his place. As long as he had been counting down here, you’d think he could have held a conversation without losing his place, but he never seemed to get any better at multi-tasking. Anyway, he wasn’t good with numbers.
“Oh for Christ’s sake Emile, your precious numbers aren’t going anywhere,” said Hank.
Emile sighed and started his ritual for memorizing his place in the count. 4 8 1 4 3 0 8 9 6 2 3 2 0. He repeated the sequence ten times in his mind, visualizing the numbers as best he could before he got up. When he walked over to help, Serge was tapping at the light on the console and Hank was bent double, angrily pressing the button. It was funny to see the two of them fiddling with such a simple machine, and Emile tried not to roll his eyes. All it consisted of was a button and a light on a plain metal console. There was no possible way to fix it if something had gone wrong but Emile figured that he would humor them for a minute.
“So what happened right before it stopped?” said Emile.
“What do you think happened? The light went on and I pushed the button.”
Emile wasn’t about to start taking Hanks abuse, so he stood their quietly waiting for Hank to give him a serious answer. After all, it wasn’t Emile’s fault that Hank had the most mind numbing and pointless job of the three of them. Emile sometimes wondered if Hank acted the way he did because of the button, or if he was assigned the button job precisely because of the way he acted. It probably didn’t matter either way and after a few minutes of silent button pressing Hank spoke up.
“There was a quick succession of four flashes from the light right before it broke. I’ve never seen it do that before,” said Hank. “You guys know how it works. One flash at a time. The timing changes but the number of flashes never does.”
“How many times did you hit the button after that sequence?” said Emile.
“What?”
“Did you hit the button four times after it flashed four times?”
Hank stopped pressing the button and looked at the floor, his face flushing with embarrassment.
“One flash at a time…It never changes,” he muttered.
Emile could hear Hanks voice start to break with emotion, and felt ashamed of himself. Could it really matter this much to Hank that he had messed up? Emile tried to remember the last highest count he had done. He couldn’t remember the number but he remembered how it felt when he lost his place. He tried to act like it wasn’t a big deal but he really did feel horrible. He tried to imagine what he would feel like if his monitor went dead, and quickly shook the thought from his mind. Emile’s pulse quickened and he clenched his fists in anger. It made him furious suddenly realizing how dependent they were to these pointless machines. How something as simple as a light not blinking could nearly bring a man like Hank to tears.
Emile looked at Serge and could tell he was feeling just as awkward about the situation. He had been intensely studying that stupid light for the last five minutes, and Emile could see the relief on his face when the phone on his console rang. Serge half jogged back to his seat and picked up the phone. He carefully wrote down the message from the anonymous caller and slipped the piece of paper into the corresponding feeder slot. He’s just as helpless as Hank and I, thought Emile as he watched Serge’s routine.
Emile was watching Serge finish up when he was suddenly blinded by an intense light from Hank’s console. He yelped in surprise and covered his face to protect his eyes. When the bright spots cleared from his vision, Emile looked around. Almost half the room was bathed in a new and beautiful glow. It was so brilliant that even his plain white, collared shirt seemed to have been dyed by its radiance.
“Jesus Christ,” was all he managed to say.
He heard Hank lift his head and gasp.
“What the hell is it doing?” said Hank. He slowly got to his feet and stood next to Emile, squinting at the light.
“My god…. is that blue?” said Serge as he headed back to Hank’s machine.
Emile had a strange sense of déjà vu when he saw the light first come on. The new color seemed so familiar but he just couldn’t put a name to it. When Serge said blue, though, Emile knew that’s what it was called. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he was certain that blue was its name.
“What’s blue?” said Hank.
“I don’t quite know, but I’m pretty sure you’re looking at it,” said Serge.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Hank. His condescending tone was almost eclipsed by the awe in his voice.
“No, I’m pretty sure he’s right,” said Emile.
“Well, should I push the button?” said Hank.
Emile was about to tell him to hold on, but Hank had already pressed it by the time he finished asking. As soon as Hank released the button the light went out, and all three of them staggered backwards from the shock of losing the brilliant blue glow. But before their eyes could even begin to adjust to the drab white light of the room, a rapid burst of vivid colors flashed from the light. Emile didn’t even have time to shield his eyes. He wouldn’t have tried even if he did have time. Every new color felt like it was touching a forgotten memory in his mind. But not even a memory. The feeling was too fragile to be called a memory. More like the vague reflection of a memory.
The flashes only lasted a few seconds, but to Emile it felt like time had stood still. When the light did stop they stood silent and motionless, their backs pressed against the far wall. The flashes were so bright that when they reflected off of the plain white surfaces of everything in the room it seemed to paint them with color. Now that everything was back to its drab, colorless self, the room seemed paper thin, as if a stiff breeze could blow it all away.
“Okay…. something is obviously very wrong here,” said Serge, breaking the silence. He carefully pushed himself from the wall and walked over to the notepad next to the door. “I think we better fill out an incident report and get someone up here to fix this.”
“NO!”
Emile and Hank both shouted at Serge then turned to each other, as shocked at each others response as Serge had been at theirs.
“What do you mean ‘No’? This is definitely not supposed to be happening. Management gave us the forms precisely for this type of incident.”
“Management? Don’t feed us that crap Serge. Don’t pretend like you know the first thing about what Management wants.” Hank swept his arm around the room. “What’s the plan here Serge?”
“I don’t know what the plan is Hank, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with that,” said Serge, pointing at the light on Hank’s console.
“Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t,” said Hank. “We don’t know what these machines do or what they’re for. This could absolutely be part of their plan, but I hope to god that it’s not. In all the time we’ve been down here, what have we ever gotten from their plan? And now that something interesting is actually happening you want to throw it away?”
“You don’t actually plan to go along with this do you Emile?” said Serge.
Emile hadn’t left the wall opposite Hank’s console. He was trying to pay attention to them but found himself occasionally sneaking glances at the light. The colors were still fresh in his mind.
“Look Serge, it was probably just a glitch. There’s a good chance it’ll work itself out if we just leave it. I don’t think there’s any need to get Management involved. Besides, Hanks right. I really can’t remember the last time anything different happened down here.”
Serge looked like he was going to protest, but instead he threw up his arms in exasperation and shook his head.
“Fine. You guys can play your little mind game with Management. But if heads roll over this I’m letting them know that I had nothing to do with it, and I’m expecting you to back me up on that.”
Hank grunted, waved him off dismissively, and walked back to his console. Seeing Hank eager about anything was almost as strange and out of place as the lights had been. Serge’s phone had been ringing for a few minutes and he finally picked it up, still muttering under his breath about how ridiculous the whole situation was. When Emile went back to his numbers he tried to concentrate as hard as he could, but he couldn’t stop his mind from wandering. It was all he could do not to lose his place, and all the while the colors danced around in his head.
The shifts seemed to be taking longer lately. Was management increasing their hours? Emile tried to convince himself that was the reason, but deep down he knew it wasn’t. Before the colors showed up, Emile seemed to skim effortlessly across time. His shifts seemed to pass by almost unnoticed. In fact he never really thought of them as shifts until now. A shift was something to be endured, something to struggle through. He never thought counting his numbers was a struggle, and sometimes he almost enjoyed it. But any shred of enjoyment or pleasure that had once existed was gone now, and the flow of time was becoming painfully obvious.* * * *
Hank wasn’t making things any easier. Day after day he would sit silently at his console, completely obsessed with whatever game the light was playing with him. For so long Hanks whining complaints had created the ambient background noise for the room that Emile had learned to tune them out. Now that they were gone, Hanks silence was louder than his whining had ever been.
And what really frustrated Emile was that Serge hardly seemed to notice any change at all. Sure, the light on Hank’s console was back to its normal intensity, and was no longer illuminating half the room, but the strange colors were still there. Didn’t that or Hanks newfound silence bother Serge at all? If it did he didn’t show it. He just went on answering his phone and slipping pointless notes like nothing had happened.
Then Emile lost his place. Things were going fine, so to speak. He was struggling to concentrate on the count and block out all of the new distractions when his mind made an unintentional connection. Sky is blue. He had probably said the word sky a million times down here, and he thought he knew what it meant. Nonetheless, a couple neurons must have crossed in his brain and the new color seemed to fit perfectly with the word. He remembered looking up at the ceiling of their room when the whole place was glowing blue. Then he imagined a massive expanse of brilliant blue, zillions of times larger and higher than the ceiling had been. The idea seemed too ridiculous to even contemplate, but it also felt like it had some fundamental truth behind it. By the time the daydream finished and Emile looked back at the blinking insertion point on his monitor, his mind went blank. He couldn’t even remember the amount of digits there had been in the count.
Emile jumped up from his seat, knocking his chair over, and screamed obscenities at the monitor. He punched the side of his console as hard as he could, denting it slightly, and the pain of it shot up his arm. He turned around panting and saw that Serge had gotten up from his chair and had backed away slightly. Even Hank had pulled his eyes from his light to stare at Emile like he was some kind of madman.
“What’s wrong with you, Emile?” said Serge.
Emile looked at him, but didn’t reply. His mouth was full of bitter disgust and if he had said something he would have only regretted it later. Instead he stormed out of the room and into his bunk down the hall.
After that, Emile could hardly focus on the count at all. Anytime he would start, he would notice the dent in the side of the console and be reminded of how pointless it really was. He found himself wandering over to Hank’s console more and more frequently. Earlier he thought that Hank was obsessed with the light, but watching him now, Emile realized it was deeper than that. Hank was utterly absorbed by it. He would sit motionless for hours studying the flashes of color intensely, only moving to tap the button, or leave with them to go to the cafeteria. It almost seemed like Hank was having a conversation with it. At first Emile tried to talk to Hank about it, but after getting only grunts and murmurs in return he gave up. Sometimes Emile felt himself getting mesmerized by the lights. He was sure it was nothing like what Hank felt, but it made Emile feel strangely excited to think about the hints of memories that the colors conjured for him.
At one point Hank threw up his arms and laughed hysterically, scaring Emile half to death, who was standing right behind him. It was so shockingly out of place that even Serge stopped what he was doing and came over to see what the commotion was.
“I knew you would slip up sooner or later you son of a bitch!” said Hank, pointing at the light triumphantly.
Emile and Serge both threw each other bewildered glances. Hank looked up at them, grinning wildly, as if they knew exactly what he had discovered. When he realized that they had no clue, he waved at them dismissively and returned to his usual motionless position and deadpan expression.
“Well, aren’t you going to tell us what that little performance was about?” said Serge. He waited but Hank showed no sign of acknowledgment.
“Hank…?” Nothing.
“What the hell happened Emile, or are you going to give me the silent treatment as well?”
“I have no idea. He was just sitting there, like he is now. I was watching the lights and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, just the same random flashes of color.”
“Well I guess we can safely assume that Hank has lost it. Case closed.” Serge walked back to his console shaking his head and muttering under his breath.
more coming folks
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