Hole Punch by Simmons, Garth (the dot read aloud TXT) 📕

“Why are you doing this? Why do you keep being so nasty?”

I shrug and pull my pack of cigarettes from my pocket.

“Answer my question,” said Emmett (squeakily).

"This is harassment,” I light up my cigarette. “I worked hard on those minutes. I know that they're only first draft material but I'll tidy them up. I'll make them more streamlined so I can send them to publishers. I could be the next Chuck Palahniuk. I'm not a fan of his work, so I'm setting my target low."

"Please leave, I've given you enough chances.”

"I can be more ambitious Emmett, more counter-culture. Maybe I could send a copy to your wife? She'd be interested.”

“Please leave.”

“Can I at least upload them to my Dropbox so I can tidy them up at home?"

"Please, just go," he said.

I grab the minutes. At least I have a paper copy of my story.

"I think you need some time off Emmett. Get some perspective. No one here is cheating on his wife except you."

TROPHY

His fish eyed, spiritually comatose wife applied her make up.

"Be a good trophy and wear your new dress tonight," said Alpha Romero. "I don't want Aston Martin's prize to look better than you again."

CARETAKER

Leslie looked through the post every morning.

“Junk! Junk! Junk! Junk! Junk! Junk! Junk! Junk! Junk! Junk!” he used to say, every morning, as he threw the post into the bin.

Leslie had lived and worked in that hotel for forty-five years as the caretaker.

“Take care,” he said to the guests. “I am the caretaker and have been for forty-five years. If you ever have a problem with anything, or anyone, then come to me and I’ll sort it out.”

Leslie would stand at the front steps of the hotel and sweep away at nothing with his broom. On sunny days he wore no top, a pair of Bermuda shorts and aviator sunglasses. His aviator sunglasses meant business.

It was his job to be suspicious and he would treat every guest with suspicion.

“I’m onto you,” he said to them. “You'd better not be trying anything dodgy in this hotel.”

Leslie would pose in the mirror and tense the muscles on his bare chest.

One night, at six in the evening, he banged on one of the hotel room doors.

“KEEP IT QUIET IN THERE! KEEP IT QUIET IN THERE! KEEP IT QUIET IN THERE!”

He didn’t like any disturbances after dark. People had to sleep.

“I’ll throw you off that balcony if you don't shut up!"

He threw her off the balcony.

The police dragged him away,

“Nobody gets the better of Leslie! I've been caretaker of this hotel for forty-five years!”

* * *

At the psychiatric unit he was told that he hadn’t been working at a hotel. Leslie had been an outpatient living in a block of flats.

On day release from the unit, he walks around clothing shops and imagines he is a security guard. He wears his aviator sunglasses. His aviator sunglasses mean business.

GITT VS CLANK

There was nothing left of their civilisation after the Earth Empire invaded. Compression machines pulped their hyper-advanced brains into gooey pills. These were then shipped to the liberal, free-thinking communities on the outer colonies.

* * *

"The Earth Empire does nothing but exploit the needy and alienate the alien," said a free-thinker. "No one is considering mutant rights."

He put a gooey pill into his mouth.

"I can't believe they get away with ignoring the most vulnerable of us," said a mutant, with sticky pads all over his ascendancy savings.

"Have you plugged into Gitt's new audio-cube?" asked a girl with a hologram cardigan. "Gitt are my new favourite cultural alternative?"

"Gitt are such a dead zone," laughed the mutant. "These days it's all about Clank."

ORDERED

The thin couple watched me. I could feel their intentions in their glaring eyes. They lived in the room next to mine. The first time they saw me I knew what they wanted. They wanted to inject me into their mainstream.

I hid from them, like I hid from everyone, but it wasn't long before they pushed open my door and walked into my room. Uninvited, obviously. They looked at my walls, all covered with my notes, my diagrams and my thoughts.

They shook their heads and tutted.

“What is all of this?” asked the thin man.

Should I have told them?

The thin woman made a compassionate face.

“Tell us,” she said.

Should I have told them?

I don't know if I had any choice. Not really.

So I told them, I explained myself. Something about their eyes told me it was my only option.

“This circle here represents where I am now and this line is where I am going. These shapes are the illusions of free will. These pyramids are the fallacy of personality, the fallacy of everything.”

Their eyes widened, not with shock, but with sympathy.

They came closer to me as I continued to explain.

“These notes convey, through non-alphabetical symbols, the exit points in the walls of my prison. It shows what I need to do next in my war against The Way Things Are.”

The thin man leant forward and put his finger to my lips. The thin woman put her hand on my shoulder.

“You must come under the fold of Order,” he said.

The woman put her hand on my other shoulder and squeezed.

“Order permeates everything,” she said.

They pressed against me.

“You cannot rebel against Order,” he said.

They unbuttoned my shirt.

“Order folds inwards,” she said.

Their fingers stroked me.

“Order blooms outwards,” he said.

Sitting me down on the bed.

“Blooming and pulsating Order,” she said.

Lowering my shirt.

“Inward and outward,” he said.

They reached into my trousers.

“You are not an energy.”

My eyes blurred and their faces merged closer.

“You are a person,” they said.

The same person.

“You are ordered.”

There was no option now.

“To Obey.”

SOCRATES

Ambrogio was buggered three thousand years (and more) into the future by Socrates.

It all started when Ambrogio was a student of Socrates in the heart of cool, hipster, ancient Athens.