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

“Who?” Roger asked.

“Gillian,” Arlo said. “Tall. Leggy. Not really one for chitchat or social situations. Really good at spilling coffee all over herself though. You know, my training supervisor. The one taking a me day.”

“Oh,” Roger said noncommittally.

None of that really rang a bell, although to be fair, Roger had never taken the time to get to know any of the workers at the firm except for his receptionist Bertha. At 400 lbs., with cat’s eye glasses and a massive beehive hairdo, Bertha was kind of hard to miss. Roger secretly had fantasies where he would curl up in her large lap and she would sing to him about expense reports and employee handbook updates.  He didn’t care that anyone else might find that vision equal parts disturbing and fascinating. It was his fantasy. He’d do what he liked.

“Seventy Saguaro south,” Arlo said. “With any luck she’ll have at least brushed her teeth by now.”

Roger shook his head slowly. This morning just kept getting curiouser and curiouser.

As Roger and Arlo stepped past frozen figures perched precariously on sidewalks and street, Roger felt an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu. He couldn’t remember ever having experienced that particular sensation before, but when he tried to stop his feet from moving forward, it felt like an oppressive cloud of time was shoving against the back of his head, forcing him toward the apartment complex on the corner. Toward the destination that Arlo assured him held all of the answers.

Apartment 42 sat just off center on the ground floor. A tiny square of swept concrete held a small table and a wobbly folding chair. Through the sliding glass doors, Roger could see into Gale’s living room. She was sitting on the sofa in her pajamas, holding an enormous bowl of buttered popcorn which she shoveled into her face as the flickering lights of the TV screen reflected blurry images against her face and the blank wall behind her.

Arlo pushed past to open the slider and beckoned Roger inside. As they stepped into the tiny living room/dining room/kitchen area of Grace’s apartment, the woman never once glanced up from the screen where a Japanese game show host jumped up and down excitedly and the words SUPER MEGA AWESOME GOOD TIME scrolled across in giant red letters. Hypnotized, she stared at the bright, pulsating colors. Her hair was loose and fell in dark waves around her face. She wore no makeup, and her cream-colored pajamas were wrinkled. Wholly unlike her usual perfectly put-together self.

As Roger watched, a piece of popcorn fell from her hand and landed on her lap to join the tiny pile of greasy kernels already staining her silk pjs.

“Glenda?” Roger asked.

“Ack!” Arlo barked and slapped a hand over Roger’s mouth before he could say one more word. “We’re finally making real progress here. Don’t go resetting it all now.”

“What?”

“Look,” Arlo said. “This place is…” He glanced around. “I don’t know, some kind of alternate reality or something. And there’s something wrong with it. Haven’t you noticed the people that don’t move? Or how you never seem to be able to remember what happened before?”

“Down the rabbit hole,” Roger said sedately.

“Exactly!” Arlo yelled, suddenly excited. “And Gillian and I discovered it, but every day you reset things and it starts all over again.”

“What? How could I do that? I don’t have the authority to do anything but file paperwork, send emails, and meet new hires.”

“I don’t know.” Arlo shrugged and a nervous chuckle escaped his lips before he could bite it back. “But it has to be you. You’re the one constant here, Roger.”

The sudden shift of color on the TV drew both Arlo and Roger’s eyes to the screen. The bright colors of the game show were gone. The screen was all white with blocky bright red letters across it that read: 404 ERROR. FILE NOT FOUND.

Form 37B

Roger blinked and glanced slowly around his office. What happened? The last thing he remembered was standing in Gloria’s living room with Arlo Black.

As the lights subtly brightened, Roger glanced at the bright red numbers reflected on the glass wall. 7:29 AM. The unnerving sound of running footsteps on carpeted flooring in the hallway caught his attention. Roger glanced at the door to his office in mild surprise as the new hire ripped open the glass door and bounded into the room. Arlo panted slightly as he bent over at the waist, hands on his knees before Roger’s desk, catching his breath.

“It’s later,” Arlo wheezed. “Let’s try again.”

“So,” Roger said. “The agency sent you?”

Arlo paused from his panting to stare incredulously at the spiritless supervisor. “Seriously?”

“Call me Roger.”

Arlo hung his head in defeat. A low groan of frustration rumbled out to fill the sterile silence of the workspace.

“You will be…” Roger said.

Arlo stood up abruptly and marched out of the office, swinging the door closed so forcefully behind him that the glass rattled in the frame.

“…shadowing a senior staffer,” Roger finished.

The harsh buzz of the intercom sounded loud in Roger’s tiny glass box of an office.

“Yes,” Roger said into the speaker.

“Roger, you have a call on Line 1,” Bertha said over the speaker. “It’s someone from accounting.”

Roger sighed. “Okay.”

He tediously tapped the tiny button next to the blinking red light and Phil’s angry voice immediately carried over the speaker. The pedantic pencil pusher was positively livid.

“You do realize that the inmates have taken over the asylum, yes?” Phil barked.

“I don’t…” Roger started.

“Your drones keep missing their shifts. How are we supposed to keep the hive running smoothly without worker bees?”

“Well…”

“I realize that you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, seeing as you are barely competent enough to answer the phone, let alone fix this mess. But I’m getting yelled at by the higher ups.”

“I’ll handle it,” Roger said.

“You couldn’t handle your hose with both hands,” Phil snapped. “I’ve been crunching the numbers. Your charges have been late and/or missing from their desks seventeen times now. Often