My internet is back, so I'm back. I'm going to do 1,000 words of what I have been writing lately until I run out of that, and then we're back to a new fresh 1,000 a day. Either way, back in the business.
Don’t let your increased practicality make you completely boring. Don’t think of being an adult as some sort of mold you are supposed to fit yourself into.
When are your interests important? How do you know if your interests are important?
The guys had spent the last two hours talking to the computer, its voice recognition software responding to their inquiries with suitable responses.
“The computer can’t be programmed to know what you are talking about.” Jerry said, staring across the room at the blue coated authorities with an expression that screamed “what?!”. The lapel buttons and ribbons on the heralded Sargeant Marx looked like little trees as he turned and twisted the little machine around in his hands, like a bear trying to extract a kitten from a dresser drawer.
His protectors, two men adorned in robes and masks, persistently tried to wrestle the box away from him. Their hard plastic masks clicked against Sargeat Marx’s ridiculous shoulderpads. He looked at them over his crossed arms and pulled the box even closer to his body. They stared on, letting him fiddle with it for another five minutes before restarting the wrestling process.
One of the electrodes in the ceiling burst and sprayed a red phosphorous onto Sargeant Marx, which immediately dissipated. Sargeant Marx thrashed at his robe like he was covered in bees, and when he finally opened his eyes was satisfied that he wasn’t covered with anything at all. Meanwhile, the box had ended up hurled across the room and was currently leaking some sort of black fluid. Sargeant Marx’s robe settled around him like curtains in the eye of a storm.
The masked men looked at Sargeant Marx, who had a sizeable lump of red on the end of his nose. They exchanged half crescent smiles, a tacit agreement.
“What was that?!” The desk clerk asked, looking up from his half folded Cosmology magazine. Sargeant Marx flashed him a look that said “get back to work”, and he shrugged and resumed reading his magazine. Half a picture of the hubble telescope was on the cover with the caption in big yellow letters, “Is there life on Mars?”
Jerry rose for the dustpan and broom, shaking his head. A brightly dressed concierge poured through the heavy chamber door in a huff, and it slammed behind him with such violence that the iron frame shook.
Jerry dug through the cabinets, removing cobwebs with the back of his hand. He reached inside the dark cabinet, his entire right arm disappearing up to the shoulder. He pulled his arm back out with nothing in its grasp.
“Do you know where we keep the cleanup stuff? No of course you don’t.” Jerry asked the entirety of this under his breath. He took off his apron, which he used to wipe up the blood red dust from the floor. The box continued to ooze on the opposite side of the room.
Five minutes later, the station returned to business as usual. Three men in red hazmat suits picked up the box and inserted it in a plastic bag, a black stain remaining on the ground where it had been.
“…And we will continue our tour on the probiotics warehouse level...” Said the concierge, gesturing ostentatiously in front of him at an invisible red carpet. He bowed to the men in front of him, and as he did so the walkie-talkie on his hip buzzed and coughed. Flushing noticeably, he turned it off with a string of apologies.
Sargeant Marx looked at him with a tilted head and no emotion on his face. He picked up his cape as he began walking, purposely avoiding the invisible red carpet the concierge attempted to guide him on. Masked men flanked him on both sides, both large men in their own right but nowhere near as giant as Sargeant Marx. He walked like an ape, hunched over, but somehow with a straight back. The concierge looked like a child walking three giant dogs.
“He is almost certainly dead!” Jerry slammed his hand into the table. The desk clerk looked up at Jerry, back down at his magazine, over toward the swinging door that opened and reclosed behind the four men. He then looked back down at the magazine.
“You just sit there all day, you don’t care about anything but your goddamn magazine!”
“…But there might be life on Mars, you see.” The man shrugged and made fleeting eye contact.
Jerry shook his head and rose, gathering his things in his arms. He had a group of folders, his coat, his hat, and . The doors to his quarters opened automatically and the overhead light dimmed, cables from the compartmental ceiling dropped holding his goggles and nose plugs. The room began a reverse flushing process and filled with water, drains at each corner shooting jet streams horizontally.
A carbonated soda from the vending machine rolled down its tracks and tumbled sideways into the retrieval slot. Mr. Dundley picked it up it, wiping the top with his sleeve and popping it open. It hissed a little bit and he calmed it with a circular gesture, his secretary pushing her rolly chair away from the table with fear.
“If you ruin another one of my blouses with your soda addiction I am going to go to Mr. Palfrey about you, he’s my uncle you know.”
“Isn’t she a beaut?” Mr. Dundley said, shaking his head and whistling. The machine sat between the door and the coat closet, making it utterly impossible to get into or out of the room without being bombarded by its presence.
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