Dispatches From Microhell
Stand alone stories from the bad place.
Dispatch:
In Arears
Shelley lifted the heavy guillotine of the ream cutter and paused there to crack her neck from side to side. She readdressed her surroundings.
Bullshit. She thought at the desks surrounding the one she stood at, all with their own unwielded paper cutters. She was alone in this large carpeted office room. A single grey felt cubicle stood as awkwardly singular as she but stuffed into a corner.
Nonsense. She thought at the miserably beige walls. They were mostly barren minus two simple decorations. The wall to her had a small framed picture of a kitten clinging onto a laundry line. In perfect step with this hellish dimension she noticed it did not say “Hang in there”.
The other decor holding the line between sad and barren on the walls was a corporate style visual of standard operating procedures. It was framed in thick beige faux wood and encased in plastic. Inside was a large infographic with a dozen numbered steps and several cartoon paper cutters. Each cartoon device was accompanied by cartoon people in varying stages of confusion, injury, or success.
Shelley stopped cursing the room for a second and let her gaze linger on the infographic. She eyed it viciously, working herself up into mild paranoia. There was nothing else to do, unless she wanted to go back to cutting the infinite genera of irrelevant paperwork.
Muted steps against stiff short carpet crossed the room as she approached the framed instructional. Immediately she was faced with her reflection in the plastic case. Shelley’s mind and body revolted in synchrony at the nightmare that waited there. She looked down at her physical hands with wide eyes filled with terror. They were normal, flesh-colored hands.
Shelley looked back up at the image being reflected (poorly) in the plastic casing. Red skin. Black eyes. Copper horns. And if being a stereotypical demonic imp wasn’t enough, a tail wagged nervously behind her in the image. She looked back down at her physical hands again. Still her. Back up at the reflection, it looked up from its own hands in a mimicry of her movements.
“I FUCKING HATE THIS PLACE!” She screamed at it.
It mimicked her again, but not perfectly. The rendition performed by the reflection was slightly less emotional, a chuckle glinted in its eyes. Shelley reared a fist back prepared to strike the case. Of course she wouldn’t. It didn’t rear back, it observed. The malignant hint of a smile expanded to its cheeks.
“You’re smiling like you're better than me, but look at what you’re doing.” Shelley started. When she started, what came out was always knife-sharp. “You have to sit here watching me. If I weren’t important, there would be no daily torture. You are insignificant, so you get to sit there as unpaid labor observing someone who matters.” Its even expression was as placid as a frozen lake. It did not increase its smile this time, but did not retreat from it. This encouraged Shelley further.
“Not going to crack a little bit more of a smile? You were doing so well staging your micro expressions when you thought I was suffering. Remember?” She spit the words at it like a snake. It did not respond, nor did its expression shift. The effect was eerie enough that she questioned if it wasn’t a static image, then it shifted its weight slightly. Shelley, like a hungry hawk, noticed and started to laugh in an over dramatic play of mocking. She even pointed a finger for effect.
“The fact that you just adjusted your weight to the other leg means you're tired of standing. You are a LABORER!” She took a break to laugh further. “And you smiled because the fake mirror trick surprised me for a second? Pathetic.” She scolded.
“I couldn’t imagine being trapped with others just to sell my efforts to the captor. You aren’t just shaped like a monster. Your melted brain looked at the lowest hanging fruit and thought, ‘good enough’. And much to your dismay, even the barest bones of living as a pernicious coward were too good for you.” She took a breath and let her mind build worse curses. She wanted it to hurt.
“Should I go back to the paper cutter?” She pointed a thumb behind her toward the device. “That’s the height of your worth, watching me cut paper. So…” She paused to observe any reaction. Its posture had grown slightly more stiff since her comment about it shifting its weight. It was attempting to hide any minutia of movement she might use as ammunition. Big mistake, Shelley thought to herself. The reaction proved the effect. Shelley was sure the demon was vulnerable at this point. Now, she searched her mind for the perfect weapon to rend unto it the most severe and efficient harm.
“Your. Worth. Is. Measured. By. What. You. Have. Consented. To.” She removed all signs of emotion and articulated like a murder bot. “It isn’t 0. It’s just so humiliatingly low that it can’t be hidden. It’s so loudly diminished by your own inequity that your every movement, even in silence, is an advertisement of your worthlessness.” Shelley’s brain was hot with racing thoughts. She hesitated between envenomations to observe it once again.
Narrowed eyebrows trembled almost imperceptibly. Almost. Its black sclera had some sort of defect that warped the light in them now as well. Shelley took a step back and put a hand to her chin. She made a show of beginning to read the infographic within the case, as if she had forgotten it entirely.
STEP 1: DO NOT ENGAGE
She read the first step in the image and the cold prick of irony nudged her out of synchrony. There were no images around Step 1, only a little cartoon paper cutter outside of its box, slightly tilted at an angle for frivolity.
STEP 2: WATCH YOUR HANDS
This one had an image of a hand being caught by the guillotine with a dotted line along the intersection.
STEP 3: WATCH YOUR WORK
An impish creature was imaged in this instructional graphic absconding with a stack of paper. Shelley looked behind her at the work station she had been occupying. The reams of paper she had there were all gone. She looked back at the infographic case, her own reflection looked back at her in perfect synchronization. She looked back at the now empty desk. Then, back at her own reflection again. With a deep sigh she continued to read the steps in the picture.
STEP 4: A SMALL SACRIFICE
The cartoon showed a hand running along the guillotine blade with a dotted line and a red drop. There were two images side by side. The first was the hand being run against the blade. The second image showed the sole door out of the room opened. Shelley looked back at her desk, the paper cutter returned her gaze with its own inanimate thoughtless intimidation. The buzzing of the overhead lights filled the space between them. Before returning to it for the blood letting, Shelley decided to finish reading the instructions this time. The infographic was now gone. The case stood empty while her reflection looked back at her in stupid hesitation.
A hard huff and Shelley was back on her way to her desk. She stood at it in a timbered quietude. With one sweaty hand she held the handle of the blade. With the other she pressed her palm gently into the edge. Internally, she prepared herself for the sensation of stolen flesh that always accompanied being wounded. The blank yet screaming report of nerves. The feeling of hosting a fire at the edges of torn flesh. She wished she had just read the instructions first. Or not at all.
One silent movement down against the blade and her prophesy fulfilled. The blade immediately began to diminish. Rust grew up its length like hyperactive mycelium. She jerked her hand away and let the blade fall loudly back into its sheath. The lights blinked. The door strained on the other side of the room but did not open.
Shelley marched over and kicked the door right under the door handle with her full body weight. It shifted a little bit but also revealed its sturdy constitution. A little voice inside of her chastised her for facing the demon. It blamed her for the defunct door.
Her sharp eyes and keen intellect locked in on the rusted blade and the notion of the vulnerable (though deceptively stout) door. Shelley approached the desk again, spared a middle finger for the infographic case, and started flailing at the now antiquated paper cutter. The blade detached after twenty minutes of struggling mechanically against the rusted bolt that held it.
Shelley returned to the door, wielding a sharp blade and stolid countenance. She began to hack at the space between the doorknob and the wall. It was just wood, it would reveal the mechanism eventually. It would take hours.
The metal doorknob jittered around violently by halfway through the endeavor It became loose but its housing still held the locked bolt in place. Intermittently, it would swing in front of the blade and the contact would cause sparks and an uncomfortable screech that assaulted Shelley’s ears. Each time she thought of the reflected demon. By the third time she realized she was torturing herself. By the fourth she realized that was the point.
“This door never would have fucking opened.” She cursed at it. “No matter what I did!” A violent swing into the wood of the door, splinters exploded out of its wound. The thinly veiled smirk of the red devil flashed in her mind. “This is BULLSHIT!” Swing! Crash! Red face, black eyes. “I don’t-!” Swing! Crash! “Feel bad-!” Swoop! KRSHTT! “For reacting poorly to active torture.” She said the last sentence low, exhausted. The door swung open with a woeful creak as if it hadn’t been latched.
“Guess I’m done for the day.” She snarled. Shelley adjusted her blouse and tucked it back in. She guided her hands along her wavy hair and laid down the strands that had revolted during her door war. She let out a sharp preparatory breath and walked out of the room.
Hah! Nice job, Shelley. Very creepy. This does feel hellish.