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

“Gillian Frost, 35, was born in Bleaksville, MS to John and Mary Frost. At the age of six, her parents enrolled her in a Calamityville community center art class. On the first day, one of the other children pressed acrylic paint covered hands against her pink flower overalls because he thought she was pretty. She would never attend another session. At the age of eight, her uncle took her to see Santa Clause at Macy’s, inadvertently triggering her life-long fear of crushed red velvet. At the age of ten…”

“What the hell?” Gillian whispered.

“Hey,” she hissed, when Arlo’s hand snatched the file from her fingers before she had a chance to read any further.

He shook his head and looked over his shoulder as he shoved the lot back in the drawer, closing it with a snap. Gillian turned around just as the noise behind them reached a new high.

Roger was no longer alone in a sea of surly simians. Another mostly hairless bi-pedal life form stood before him.

The other man stood before Roger in the exact center of the room and waited impatiently for a response from the supervisor turned sanitation worker. Arlo and Gillian joined Roger, standing just behind him in a triangle formation with Roger on pointe. How a washed-up, inept waste of office equipment (Phil’s words) like Roger Goodspeed had managed to secure a spot as the troublesome troupe’s troubadour was anyone’s guess.

“Phil, I presume?” Arlo said, holding out a hand in greeting.

Phil ignored him.

“This is what happens when the system becomes unstable,” Phil said. “I tried to warn you, Roger. The data department is running at only eighty-five percent efficiency, and declining. Frost and Black must return to their positions immediately and get back to filing. And Roger…” He glared at Roger over his glasses. “You will get back to sanitation or end up with an even more severe punishment.”

“Why does he get a severe punishment?” Arlo asked.

“What?”

“Why does he get punished? And we don’t?”

“Are you asking for a punishment?” Phil said.

“No.” Arlo held both hands up and shook his head quickly. “Nope. Definitely not.” The burble of nervous laughter chose that particularly unfortunate moment to escape his throat. He clamped his lips shut in near record time but not before Phil’s hands clenched in anger at the nerve-wracking sound.

“Roger is a supervisor,” Phil said. “True, he’s only supervising a mop and bucket at the moment, but no matter. That is his lot.”

“But that still doesn’t answer my question,” Arlo said. “Why is that his lot?”

“You may as well ask why is the sky gray? Why is the gravel gray? It is what it is. You are a drone. He is a super. End of story. Now run along like a good little cog and climb back in your wheel.”

“No,” Gillian said defiantly.

“No?” Phil said. “Just who do you think you are talking to, Miss Frost?”

She shrugged. “I don’t care. Whoever you are… whatever you are… we demand answers.”

“You are in no position to demand anything,” he said. “Now get back to work or suffer the consequences.”

“You can’t just make us do what you want.”

“Oh, really?” Phil said.

Gillian blinked.

She was standing in line at Java Joe’s. Arlo stood beside her.

“Garblargargh!” she yelled unintelligibly. “This is ridiculous!”

“A prison of the mind,” Arlo said mysteriously, nodding his head.

“What?”

“It’s like the great philosophical debate- what is life? How do we even know that we’re not just dreaming all of this- OWWW!”

He yanked back his arm, rubbing the spot where Gillian had just pinched him.

“What was that for?”

“You’re not dreaming,” Gillian said matter-of-factly.

Yanking her handbag off her shoulder, she dumped it out on the order counter. Loose change, cough drops, receipts and makeup tumbled out over the edges and onto the floor. A small waterfall of junk pooled at her feet.

“What are you doing?” Arlo asked.

“Have you ever seen the gameshow ‘Let’s Make a Deal’?”

Grabbing the tattered paperback novel and the purple paw attached to her keys, she dropped the now empty handbag to join its discarded contents on the counter, clutching the book and keys tightly in her fists. Free of all attachments save the pulp fiction and lucky charm, Gillian marched out of the coffee haus, Arlo hard on her heels.

Let’s Make A Deal

Phil stood in the exact center of the sidewalk outside the coffee shop, calmly waiting for the two truant employees to exit.

“Now then…” he said as Arlo and Gillian skidded to a stop before him. “As you can see, you are not the ones in control here. So why don’t you… What are you doing with that book?”

Gillian’s eyes narrowed. She clutched the tattered paperback novel in her hand, the scantily clad aliens on the cover a bright pop of color in the otherwise dull surroundings.

“Give me that,” Phil said, holding out his hand.

“Why do you want it?” she said.

“Because it’s mine.”

Gillian’s eyebrows lifted in surprise as she glanced from the well-read romance with the dogeared pages to the uptight accountant standing before them.

“If you want it, we want something in return,” Arlo said, grabbing the book from Gillian.

Phil frowned, a deep line forming between his eyebrows as he glared at the impertinent drone and his recalcitrant companion. “Are you trying to extort me?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Arlo said. “I just know that you’re not getting it back unless you help us.”

“Why would I ever help you?”

“Because I think you can,” Arlo said. “And because this place is a nightmare. Shit jobs. Horrible clothes. No color.”

Gillian rolled her eyes. “None of that is important. Idiot. We need to leave because we don’t belong here.”

“Well…” Phil said. “That’s not actually true.”

“We don’t belong here,” Gillian continued, her voice rising as her indignation gathered steam. “And what’s more, neither does Roger.”

“Why do you care what happens to Roger?”

Gillian shrugged. “He’s a person, isn’t he?”

“More or less,” Phil agreed.

“So,” Gillian continued, “He has just as much right to life, liberty and happiness as the rest of us.”

Phil grunted noncommittally.

“In fact,”