Nobody, Nothing, and Me by Jack Ling (best e reader for manga txt) 📕

A grain of salt?

‘I don’t know, to be quite honest,’ I blushed a light bubble-gum pink as the words spewed.

“You had a reason. You had a goal. You had an incentive. Otherwise, you’d be dead.”

‘You just don’t understand what it’s like. What it’s like to feel like you are falling every day of your life, only to find yourself atop the safe goddamn cliff once you hit the bottom. It is worse than death.’

“The slave is most oppressed the moment before his emancipation.” His mouth formed a left-centered (which was right-centered from my perspective) smirk as he quickly pulled his leather sleeve up to his shoulder, revealing deep, bulging, and red, yet old and healed scars covering his left wrist and forearm. There must have been no fewer than three hundred individual marks. “In a world worse than death and oblivion, we make our own reasons, pleasures, and values. That’s why the ‘schemers’ will always collapse under their own weight. That is what makes freedom taste so much sweeter than iron chains.”

‘T-Thanks.’ My mouth had hung open during Neal’s speech to the point that saliva had dripped down my chin. ‘That really brings things into perspective, Neal.’

“That’s the point,” Neal proposed a crooked grin with his face muscles. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a schemer to scheme.”

It was at this moment that I first realized just how free Neal Lence truly was. He was unemployed, yet had not a speck of care in his life.

Was that the goal?

Was that the purpose?

But if it was, what was the incentive?

We were all in rusted chains, and Neal Lence sought to make us pay for it.   

“We are a symbol of unity in a globally commercial community of utter and complete chaos.” K appeared to be in a rather forthcoming mood this morning, standing with almost perfect posture and speaking without slurs.

His tie was completely black over his suddenly nice and neat suit and dress shirt, obviously appealing to the six corporate ‘analyzers’, at least as K referred to them as, plumped down in the unusually nice leather chairs. But we, and by ‘we’, I mean I, knew what their job actually was: kill off the dead weight.

About every other month or so Upper Corp sends down a few officers to bless us with their mere presence and to assist with ‘productivity.

There was just one minor problem.

It was bullshit.

All of it.

The analyzers were just here to figure out who’s paycheck they could absorb without experiencing an overweighing cost on their own as a result.

As Neal would eventually put it: “As soon as those in charge of the means of production see that there is a demand to provide labor to them, they discover the greatest resource of all: unlimited stock value. The corporate officer does not see human beings; the corporate officer sees potential market fluctuations, some positive and some negative. Thus, the officer, and the corporation in general, grow an incentive to exploit those positive fluctuations for profit and minimize those negative fluctuations. You are not a human worker, you are an investment.”

He always seemed to be able to point out the fucked up part of any given situation in society, right?

“As a result, we are being forced to expand AynCorp into many different markets. In the past week, we have entered five-hundred and twenty-three local markets each with surplus profit potential.” He looked straight at the officers.

I slowly began to realize the face that, aside from five of the six officers and me, not a single person in the room was paying attention to the bullshit-spewing machine that was fat, bulbous, balding K.

“As unfortunate or fortunate as you all may view this as,” he shifted his view to the thirty-or-so section heads from all over the building present for the meeting, “our hand is being forced. We need to specialize this branch to compensate for market expansion. So we are going to have a few analyzers from relatively high up help us with this adaptation.”

How could they be so ignorant?

Was Neal right? Was I just a number to them?

Impossible.

Why would they pay my salary if that was the case?

Why would I have such a free contract with them?

I was confused.

No.

I was angry.

With who?

Myself?

Neal?

The Corp?

The officers?

K?

I had no idea, and that, indeed, was the truly horrifying part.

“Thank you all for your time, and let’s get through this as smoothly possible.” K, using his wrist, smeared the puddle of saliva that had formed around the corners of his lips across his face. As he did so, the officers, each with a clipboard, took steps towards K at the front of the room.

I smiled widely. Images of K’s name being checked off all of their little corporate rosters filled my head. It was beautiful.

 Now aware that I was the only non-managerial individual in the room, I laughed and entered the crowded, golden elevator.

A peace of sorts had overcome my mind. This peace so radical, I failed to hear K calling my name.

But I didn’t care.

No, not at all.

The corporate atmosphere of that meeting was new to me. Brand new. I was lost, scared, confused, but I was happy. 

Explaining the occurrences of the Corp meeting to Neal Lence after running into him in the mail room once again felt like talking to a mirror. With a few ‘uh-huh’s and ‘yeah’s thrown in, Neal just sat there, absorbing every sentence, word, and character.

“Is that surprising to you?” His face faintly reminded me of officers from several hours earlier.

‘What do you mean?” I raised my right eyebrow. Even now, Neal always seemed to make simple questions complex. The questions themselves were very simple and easy to answer, but there was something about his tone; his uncaring smile or the nonchalant cracking of his knuckles perhaps. Whether or not he did this purposefully was not clear to me then, but now I understand.

“Was it surprising? You saw these things happen at a meeting, but are you shocked? Disappointed?” He cleared his throat prior to gulping ale from a glass cup.

I thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know.’

“You are a slave to the market, my friend.”

‘I am no slave,’ I stated, quite foolishly in hindsight.

“Why do you work for this company of yours?” Both of his eyebrows jolted upward in exact unison with his leftward smirk.

‘Because they pay me, I guess.’ I felt a sudden dissatisfaction with my answer.

“Tell the slave that they chose their chains and you increase productivity while minimizing resistance. You are a slave to the system that you serve.” Neal slowly leaned back into his cushioned booth seat with a wide grin upon his face.

‘Managers don’t have that type of power, Neal. They are fucking assholes, but they aren’t the fucking illuminati,’ I replied with an ignorant and laughing tone in my voice.

I’ll never forget what Neal Lence said next in that small, shitty bar. “No your managers don’t. Their managers don’t either. Not even the managers of the managers of the managers of your managers have that power on their own. You are not fighting and individual. You are not fighting a group of people. You are fighting a system. But what is this system? You face the system which created all that you believe in. You face your god. You face your best friend. You face your mommy, daddy, and brothers and sisters. You face the police. You face the courts. You face the military. You face the voting population. But more so than any of the others, you face yourself. You work for AynCorp. You are part of the system, and that is why you must separate yourself from that system. I have no job because I hated myself when I had a job. Serving my masters with absolute obedience.”

I had bullets in my chest. Neal caught me on one foot, and brought me to the ground. He had the ability to take a regular conversation and shift it into the most intense and status-destroying battle you will ever see. ‘Damn.’ I stuttered about, attempting to phrase my words properly. ‘I never thought-‘

“Of course you didn’t,” Neal interrupted quickly. “There are some things that few of us can learn on our own. Those things must be taught or shown.” He placed his left pinky into his mouth, chewing on it before he spoke again. “I know these things, and I have a proposition that may help you out if you are interested.”

‘And what would that be?’ I suddenly began to stare intently at the pinky of my right hand. I had no idea why. I didn’t think. I just stared.

“I’m going on a ‘retreat’ down in New Hampshire for the weekend. I’m staying with some old friends of mine. I think it would really give you some time to clear your head and get shit straightened around.”

‘I really appreciate the offer, Neal.’ I extended my hand in front of his left shoulder. ‘But I just don’t know about that. I have so much going on right now.’

I’d soon find that Neal was well known for making those he knew regret their own tendencies such as saying ‘thank you’, smiling, or the more relevant shaking of hands. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning at seven o’clock sharp.” He took my hand, placing his silver watch into it, just before standing up. “Sometimes,” Neal started as he placed his arm onto my shoulder with a solid grip to it, “we just need to let go, and fall to the bottom.”    

Publication Date: 09-24-2013

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