fuck this job.com

Simon wakes up and looks around at the interior of his apartment like he’s never seen it before. The sun is shining brightly—it must be nine or ten o’clock. He doesn’t even wonder about the alarm. He must have forgotten to set it.

He takes a leisurely shower, shaves carefully and puts on a completely fresh set of clothing with his best looking sweater to top it off. He thinks for a moment about his job but only for a moment. He was supposed to be there hours ago. He carefully makes his bed and takes the stairs down to the street. The air is a little warmer than he expected, but it’s not too warm. He walks deliberately to a bagel shop and stops in for breakfast.

Afterwards, he keeps on walking, very deliberately but with a kind of vacant smile on his face. He is almost in front of “Special Things” when he realizes where he is, stops, and goes inside with a tinkling of the bell.

Amanda appears looking warily at Simon.

“Your name’s Amanda, right?” She nods. “I saw it on the business card.” The women just stares at Simon. “I have a cousin named Amanda.” Simon smiles at her. He remembers the previous day and that she seemed rather agitated.

“Amanda…I’ve been thinking. If you really want this thing…” he removes the pentagram from his neck, “…then you should have it.” Simon holds it out to her. She frowns a little and takes a puff from a cigarette.

“Sorry. I’m sorry about that. No, I think you should keep it. It was a gift. I don’t need it. Unless you want to return it for a refund. But no, you should keep it.”

“No, really, you can have it.”

Amanda sits down on a frail looking rocking chair and looks sternly at Simon.

“Young man—you look worried.”

“Well, I am. I’m worried. I’m having nightmares. Strange things have happened. I don’t know how to describe any of it. I think I quit my job this morning—that is, I didn’t show up and I’m pretty sure they’ll fire me.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“Well, whatever happens, I guess I really need to talk to someone. A therapist or something. I’m not…” Simon sits down on an ornate bar-stool that’s next to the entrance, “…doing so well.”

Amanda gets up and leaves Simon sitting by the entrance. She returns with a cup of coffee.

“Here. It’s spiked.”

Simon nearly gags when he tastes the Irish whisky in the coffee, but he drinks it, slowly. Amanda looks at him, appraising him.

“You know, I don’t see it. I don’t see it at all. But somebody a lot smarter than me picked you, so it’s not up to me to decide, is it?”

Simon looks up in fear. “What do you mean by that? Picked me for what?”

“The talisman. It went to you. Now it is part of you. You are part of it.”

“Well, I don’t want it. I don’t want this.”

“You don’t really have a choice, eh?”

“It’s not…healthy. I’m not sleeping. I don’t think I am. Anyway, I’d like to return the thing. Please.”

“Okay. But before you do, I’d like you to watch something.”

So Simon sits there quietly and watches, without knowing why, as Amanda takes the laptop computer on the counter, turns it around and then brings up Google videos and starts one called “9-11 Mysteries” and Simon watches the whole thing as if in a trance, getting a refill on his Irish coffee in the mean time.

Then Amanda starts another video, called “Terrorstorm,” and he sits through that one as well.

When the video ends, Amanda turns to Simon and raises an eyebrow.

“So tell me, what do you think.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s all so crazy. Look—did you ever hear of a group that’s planning to exterminate 90% of the people on earth so the other 10% can live in luxury?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Ah—did you ever hear of some kind of plot to use computers to rig elections?”

“Oh sure.”

“Well…well…shit. What the hell are you doing about it?”

“Me? I’m sixty-four. Just like the Beatles. I’m not doing a damn thing about anything, except maybe giving you that pentagram—well, selling it to your girlfriend…”

“Oh, she’s not my girlfriend.”

“…who cares? You have a lot of power there. Use it wisely.”

“Power to do what?”

“Didn’t you just see those videos?”

“Well…that’s not true, is it? I mean, that’s all crazy nonsense made up by subversives or something, right?”

Amanda looks at Simon and just raises her eyebrow a little more.

“Want another drink?”

(TO BE CONTINUED)