Hell Is Other People by Danielle Bellwood (books under 200 pages .txt) 📕

second before coming to rest next to the taller cup with “The other one” printed on the side in black sharpie.

Gillian squelched across the scratched surface of the faux wood flooring to grab a giant stack of napkins. Clutching the rough rectangles of recycled paper, she turned to give Arlo a bitter look.

“Are you coming? Or are you just going to stand there?”

Arlo glanced around the shop. Time had done that weird thing again where everyone around them appeared to be straight outta Madame Tussaud’s. The only movement that of the ice queen in the squishy heels clacking and squeaking across the floor.

As she marched out of the coffee haus, Arlo entered her gravitational field, dragged along behind her through the vacuum of frozen time.

Arlo could have kicked himself for giving away his phone to the man in the yellow hat. If he had it now, he would be snapping pics left and right. He skipped along behind Gillian to a part of Downtown he hadn’t explored before, aka: someplace other than Java Joe’s, Forever Pharma, or general sidewalk/street.

They passed a bunch of cacti in plots, a crowd of frozen people that Gillian happily dodged, humming to herself in a wholly unfamiliar fashion because she was in no danger of being bumped, and a slew of bicycles with passengers perched precariously in place. Perfectly still life in the greatest of all photo ops.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere else,” Gillian answered.

The apartment building sat on what was generally the busiest stretch of Main Street but the normally zooming messengers were all conspicuously missing at the moment. The crowd of still-life pedestrians had thinned as they walked. By the time they reached the sliding glass patio door to Gillian’s ground floor apartment, the two of them were the only souls in sight.

Arlo waited anxiously as Gillian dug in her shoulder bag for the ring of house keys. Arlo half-hoped that she’d have a rabbit foot keychain. They could use some good luck. But alas, no, Gillian’s keys were individually color coded and neatly bound on one small ring. No keychain. Turning the blue painted key in the lock, she slid the glass door open just wide enough to squeeze through and waited for Arlo to follow her before closing the door behind him.

“Now what?” Arlo asked.

“I don’t know,” Gillian said.

Arlo glanced around the small space. Very tidy.

“You live here?” he asked.

“Obviously,” she said.

Arlo nodded absently. He was pretty sure that he didn’t really live anywhere. Arlo couldn’t remember the last time he’d laid his head down on anything, well except for that one time he’d woken up on the street after being mowed down by a messenger. Did that count? He was pretty sure that his entire existence revolved around bumping into Gillian over and over again.

He walked across the demarcation of carpet to linoleum, signaling that he was now standing in the “kitchen” or dining room maybe. Kitchen/dining room. Grasping the handle of the vintage-looking refrigerator, he pulled the door open to take a quick peek inside. Empty.

“What are you doing?” Gillian asked.

“Research,” he said.

He opened the freezer. One lonely TV dinner sat on the center shelf. The text printed on the small cardboard box declared the ‘healthy alternatives’ meal to be: vegan, low calorie, low sodium, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, and sugar-free. They forgot to include taste-free. He left the sad single-serving entrée in its designated spot and closed the freezer.

“Anything exciting to report?” Gillian asked snidely.

Arlo chuckled nervously. He wasn’t very good with passive aggressive.

“Walk me through your day,” he said.

Gillian looked taken aback. Glancing around the room she said, “Well first, I wake up.”

She walked through the open doorway beside the television and into the next room. Arlo joined her next to the neatly-made bed with the crisp, white comforter. A dresser and a single nightstand with an alarm clock and a pack of cigarettes perched on top sat close by. Other than that, the room was devoid of objects. No pile of dirty laundry in the corner. No artwork. No loose change or random receipts. It was so sterile and cold that Arlo felt goosebumps rise on his flesh. The chill seeping from his skin down to his vital organs came from more than the simple fact that it was freezing in the small space. It came from the complete lack of life that the room reflected.

Gillian was pointing at the nightstand where glowing red numbers told the time. 7:15.

“My alarm goes off at 6:00. At 6:01, I wake up, smoke a cigarette…” she cut off, staring into space with a vacant look. “No. I don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Arlo asked.

She walked through the doorway to the living room/dining room/kitchen and looked at the sliding glass door to her patio.

“I don’t smoke the cigarette,” she said. “I’m interrupted.” She pointed at the tiny table and chair visible through the glass doors. “I toss it in the gutter.”

Arlo walked past her to the slider. Lifting the latch, he stepped out on the 4 x 4 bit of swept concrete and bent at the waist to get a good look at the gutter. No cigarette.

“What next?” he asked.

“I get dressed, do my makeup and hair, and walk to the coffee shop.”

Arlo nodded. “Okay, we both know what happens there.”

“I am at my desk by 7:29 AM. And then Roger tells me I have a trainee.” She looked thoughtful as she said, “So what happens if I’m not at my desk at 7:29?”

Arlo giggled. “Guess we’re going to find out.”

Part III: Roger Goodspeed

Act III, Scene 1

The name Goodspeed is Olde English for ‘Go with God’ or ‘Farewell,’ or sometimes ‘Success,’ presumably because any endeavor accompanied by God must be met with success. Roger, however, was not a success. More like a miserable failure in every way imaginable. Goodspeed, therefore might seem like a rather ironic surname for a man who could never catch a break, and that would be because it wasn’t really Roger’s name at