“I hate this part of the job.” he remarked.
“We all do.” The voices replied in unison. “It’s a hard job, Dave.” one of them added reassuringly.
“I don’t think this is what I signed-up for.” he persisted.
There was a long pause and he could sense distaste and disapproval in their silence. “Just give it a shot, kid. Try it on for size to see if it fits.” a voice finally answered.
He wanted to vomit but breathed deeply instead. “Okay. I guess what we probably need to do is to waste the parents but leave the girl.” he squinted uncertainly into the shadows.
There was the hum of ventilation as he resumed his awkward breathing. “Or maybe we just waste them all?” he added nervously.
“Focus on the problem, not the people, Dave.” one of the voices whispered.
“Okay.” he sighed and tried to calm himself. He could be as cold and as clinical as they needed him to be.
“Our problem is with the knowledge of the kid.” he resumed more sternly. “That kid is going to solve the point-rules for the universe all on her own, and her parents have enough cash to support her crazy dreams, but, but, now that’s why wasting her parents makes sense! We could remove the cash without punishing the child!” he gushed on at them.
“Killing the parents DOES punish the child, Dave.” one of the voices replied softly.
“But if we waste the kid we would be punishing her genius while hurting the parents too!” he blurted.
“True enough.” the voice replied simply.
“But THAT’S what I’m talking about!” he blinked nervously into the shadows, “They’re all bad options, but if we waste everyone then at least we’ve removed the grief part from the equation!” he stammered over his tortured explanation.
The silence which followed was interminable. His breathing was jerky and his ears rang in the heavy air.
“Dave, are you predatory by nature, or only when pressured?” a voice whispered.
“What are you talkin’ about? I don’t understand how you mean that!” he cried.
“Why would you butcher innocent people; a family that has done such wonderful things whom you now want to rub-out like bugs between your fingers?” the voice asked blandly.
He was stunned that they were somehow making this out to be HIS problem. “Hey pal, this is your job, your test and your asinine rules of engagement, not mine!” he snapped back harshly, his teeth grating as he squinted into the black void.
“I’m sorry to hear you say that, Dave.” the disembodied voice replied. “Would you like to hear the correct answer before you go?” the voice added.
“Fine!” he removed his headset with complete disgust. It was a rigged test all along, he thought bitterly.
“Fair enough.” the voice resumed, “In the actual scenario we removed the girl’s family pets. Callie became very sad and introverted after that, and we also kept her parents pre-occupied during her time of grief. Callie lost interest in her experiments after that. She’s a smart kid, Dave, and we’re not in the business of snuffing-out bright children, or their parents, for that matter. What Callie needed was a pivotal moment of crisis and diversion, to redirect her away from the course she was pursuing.”
“Isn’t that exactly what I just proposed doing?” Dave snapped at the dark shadows.
“Excuse me?” the voices hissed in unison.
“Her life.” Dave replied, “The one she had earned and deserved to live; you’ve snuffed it out of her completely. At least I was honest enough to kill Callie outright.” he added.
“Dave, Dave, Dave….” a lone voice scolded as everything in the room ebbed slowly towards blackness.
*****
“Order up!” he cried, his own voice startling and jarring amid the smoky scents of a kitchen.
Dave whirled 360 degrees then, staring at his own grasping hands as a clattering of plates and dishes filled the air around him.
“Frickin’ A’s blew it again!” a dishwasher bellowed from the corner of the room “Hey dickwad, don’t ya’ EVER hear me talkin’ to ya’?” as Dave felt a sudden splash of water against his cheeks and a nearby door slammed open wide before a waitress bearing wobbly trays.
“I need cheese-steak, onion, pickle and curly fries!” she cried, dropping her tilting cargo near the sink with a loud clatter as she grabbed a handful of hot utensils from the drying racks.
“Callie?” Dave scrunched his forehead and asked.
“Yes?” the pregnant waitress paused to look at him oddly.
“Your name is Callie.” he continued blinking with confusion.
“And your name is retard, but we just call you dickwad!” she snapped back with annoyance.
Dave was very confused then. Life was confusing and complicated enough, that much he already knew. Whatever else he knew about life seemed to be eluding his grasp at the moment.
The smoke from his grill was visceral and real, and was the only true sensation left to him, filling the air with acrid scents as his eyes watered painfully. He rotated his orders then, realizing that most of what he’d been cooking had become burnt beyond all recognition.
“I think I may have wasted your dogs, Callie. I’m very sorry.” he replied, turning charred frankfurters with an apologetic glance as she continued staring wide-eyed, blinking back tears for a long moment before suddenly cursing and hurling a fistful of hot forks and knives towards his head…
…for no apparent reason at all.
*****
There’s a Farm Up North, Where Dreams Go To Die…
Karamelkandi
on Mar 31st, 2009
@ 12:47 pm:
huh…wah..and wow. lol. this is an amazing beatifully constructed. wow is the first thought that came to mind followed by a million to one questions. i am only reading this on my lunch break so i will definately have to read it again. n post a better comment. but this story definstely erupt alot of different emotions from me. which i will comment on after readin this poem again. i m in a hurry. so later. great poem
sugar
on Apr 1st, 2009
@ 5:39 pm:
Nicely done! I am not quite sure what is it but there’s something missing in this piece. Overall I loved it. Okay let’s see if I understand the story…. Callie is pregnant and Dave wants to get rid of the baby? Let me know if not then I have to read it again.
jpd
on Apr 1st, 2009
@ 6:22 pm:
What’s missing is the story, or the “why” of the story. It happens off-the-page. (Like the voices in the shadows at the beginning) I show WHAT happens to Dave but I don’t explain how he got to where he is today, or why. In the REAL (on the page) story Callie throws a handful of knives at his head– for no apparent reason at all. The reason she did this is off the page, or between the lines, although I tried to allude to her story along the way.
I’ll probably explain myself in a couple days, but for now I’m curious to see what other people may think it meant.
If NOBODY gets this piece then it’s still a good lesson/example- As a writer WE already know where our stories are going, and the challenge is to drop enough hints so that the reader can follow us without giving up or getting lost along the way.
jpd
jpd
on Apr 4th, 2009
@ 9:27 pm:
Okay, here goes. Dave’s “job test:” He seems to work at a place where they have the power to make life or death decisions over ordinary peoples. Callie has become a threat- her knowledge of the “point rules of the universe” was meant to imply that she is on the verge of discovering something that Dave’s employers do not want known. Dave struggles with the moral dilemmas and fails their test. Sorry Dave.
This was just a test of Dave by the employer and in the real scenario they had redirected Callie away from her experiments by killing her pets and distracting her parents and (what I was trying to express) made her life miserable and joyless. She lost all interest in her experiments after that.
The kitchen scene: Dave fails his test and is transported to a new life where he apparently works in kitchen, and is mentally ruined. He meets Callie face-to-face– she is no longer the bright child-genius, she is a teenage waitress (I threw in the pregnant part just for effect) Neither of them really understand how they got there. Dave apologizes for “wasting her dogs” and she throws a handful of knives at his head for no apparent reason at all…
Anyways, that was the scene I was trying to paint….
sugar
on Apr 5th, 2009
@ 8:19 pm:
Okay, so I read the story again and I do see what you mean now. Somehow I think the ‘job test’ and the kitchen scene do not connect. I read it twice and I still cannot make the connection, maybe it’s just me, but I think something is missing in their dialogue or the description about what happened. It could have been a look or feeling that Dave or Callie expresses that somehow connects the two, but I don’t see it. The last part with no apparent reason could been left out, and maybe that would have been the connections where Dave did really kill her pet and she was mad about it, but the ‘for no apparent reason at all’ leaves you even more confusion.
If you haven’t told me the story I wouldn’t have gotten it. See how far off I was, because that’s what I got from reading it, especially with the title and all. LOL. This is what happens when you write and read poetry, you read meaning into everything.
The style was beautiful but in the end the message just wasn’t clear to me. I think this where we can help each other out, am good at making points and message clear but sucks in grammar or as my husband likes to say “thinking clearly”. Apparently, I have a tendency to think everywhere, my thoughts and storytelling is never consistent, I interrupt myself too much and get distracted easily, which is why when I write a story I have to force myself to think in one tense instead of three. In the end my message or the theme and thesis of my story is clear.