The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy (digital ebook reader txt) 📕

The men gasped fishily. “It’s you. You’re the only one keeping you here. No one leaves until everyone’s better. If you don’t like it here, work on yourself, help the others work on themselves. And if resenting me makes you work harder I invite your resentment. Sasha welcomes your resentment.”

I didn’t.

“We’re not making you work because we’re sadistic or cruel. We’re doing it because we care about you. No one has ever cared about you the way we will. More than a program, The Atmosphere is a family. We are your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your daughter, your son, your cat, your parrot, your fish. There is no alternative to The Atmosphere. You have lived the alternative. And what has it gotten you? Depression. Doubt. Fear. Unemployment. Poverty. Debt. You’ve been overlooked. Abandoned. Why? Because you’ve lived difficult lives. Made some mistakes. Who in the world hasn’t made some mistakes?

“But you’re people, dammit. You deserve a home where your skills are respected, where your skills are enhanced. Where you can be free to love yourselves for once in your lives. And that place is here: at The Atmosphere. You’re necessary here. You’re needed. You’re loved. It’s a crime the world tells you you’re useless. You suck; you’re worthless; you never amounted to anything; you’re an imbecile; you’re a stain on society; you’ve never earned anything in your life; the only thing you deserve is a kick in the dick; go jump out of a plane, swallow a mug of thumbtacks; you’re timid and weak; you’re fragile; you’re shit—please go die and quit being a problem. That. Ends. Today.”

I substituted myself for the men when hearing these words. I was necessary, important. For too long I had suffered under the weight of groundless harassment. I slipped into a trance of enthusiastic bitterness, flinging snowballs of blame at Cassandra and Blake and Lucas Devry.

Dyson repeated my name—“Sasha! Sasha!”—to haul me back to the moment. It was time to destroy the phones. Each man received a phone that didn’t belong to him. “On my signal,” said Dyson, “throw the phone against the broad side of the bus. Be careful you don’t hit the windows.” They were so amped from the speech, they threw as soon as we stepped out of the way. They retrieved the phones, threw them again and retrieved them and threw them again. Dyson kicked the phones into a pile. I hauled over the hose and laid the end on top of the phones, letting the water soak through the cracked screens.

Dyson inhaled dramatically, nostrils piping. “Now we can really get started.” He led them into the barn. The men seated themselves around the picnic table.

Dyson and I commanded from the head. “Why are you here?” he asked.

Peter raised his hand.

Dyson said, “I know why you’re here. You’re here because nothing has worked. You’ve spent your lives chasing specters and fantasies. You’ve ruined your bodies, broken your backs, repressed every emotion. For what? To become real men? What did it get you? Your friends resent you. Your wives left you. Your kids never answer your calls. Your kids never text you. Your kids never remember your birthdays.

“But don’t misunderstand me. Don’t think I’m any better. I’m the sickest man in this camp. I spent my entire career trying to be other people. Imagine. Dyson Layne? Not good enough. Never. Always suppressing myself to be someone else. Like all of you, I would’ve happily traded my life for anyone else’s. Then one day it hit me: I don’t know what I want in this life. I don’t know what I love. I don’t even know what I fear. I had no clue who I was.

“Every day men like you are expected to be people you aren’t. You try to be men who might impress your fathers, men from comic books, action movies, professional athletes, the men who bring home new women every night. But we aren’t those men. You know why? Those men. Have never. Existed. We need to accept that. Because we’re making ourselves sick, depressed, lonely, obese, violent. How many of you have hurt people—emotionally, physically—because you couldn’t handle your feelings?”

A few men raised their hands.

“If you want to lie to yourselves find someplace else to live. You won’t be doing it here.”

Most of the remaining men lifted their arms. I raised mine in a show of solidarity—to make them think we were equally culpable, though our situations hardly compared.

“I see we have a saint among us,” said Dyson. “Saint Dent. Care to tell us how you did it, how you managed to hurt no one in your life?”

“I don’t find the exercise useful,” Randy said.

“We all want to believe we’re good people, that we’ve done nothing wrong. But if things were all pretty and bright, you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

The men chuckled anxiously.

“I am not a bad man,” Randy said.

“Well, you’re certainly not a good man,” said Dyson.

“What makes a good man?” Randy asked.

“Maybe someone who respects and protects his family.”

“That’s the type of thing people say when they want me to hit ’em.”

“I assure you I don’t,” Dyson said.

“Just because I’m flawed doesn’t mean I’m not good.”

“You have the potential to become good, Randy. All of you do. But your flaws are holding you back. Your flaws are why you’re searching for work and for love and respect. And this—what you’re doing right now. This stubbornness, Randy, it shows me you’re not ready to change. You’re clinging to some false image of yourself. Maybe you’re proud of who you were. Me? I admit that I hate who I was before we all met. And I should hate who I was. I was irascible, selfish, cruel, and empty. I am disgusted by that person. And soon you’ll be disgusted by the men you were before coming here. Those men were toxic. They infected you.”

It was, I think, his attention to words like toxic and sick and infection that led to accusations of premeditation—not to