HUM by Dan Hawley (chromebook ebook reader TXT) 📕

one of Amanda’s social media profiles and started poking around, clicking on pictures and reading updates.

Creeping is what it’s called, Jerry thought.

Creeping through her pictures, he saw Amanda at school with some friends. Another post showed Amanda at a party, a little blurry-eyed and smiling her gorgeous smile. She was wearing a little black dress so tight that her perfect breasts seemed to be on the verge of popping out.

Jerry kept going, clicking further until he saw what he wanted—pictures from the trip she had taken to California with her girlfriends.

Dozens of photos of that gorgeous smile, perfect face, and scantily clad body. Her bikinis barely covered up her perfect, round breasts. Her butt cheeks spilled out of her skimpy bottoms.

And in one picture, Jerry’s favorite, her pink bikini bottoms hugged everything just right—displaying a perfect camel toe.

Jerry grabbed the hand lotion and a few tissues from the nightstand and furiously masturbated before he gave in to his eyelids’ demands and went to sleep.

After waking from his midday sleep, Jerry played video games, ate whatever he could heat in the microwave, and had himself another round of grinding the pepper just before bed.

What else was he going to do during a pandemic anyway? Still—he wasn’t proud of his unproductive day and was not about to discuss it with Amanda.

“Who do you got?” Jerry asked, only half interested. It was a little game they played on Mondays. “Umm…”

Amanda’s brow furrowed as she looked at the shining monitors in front of her.

“I got the old guy that smelled like sausage and sauerkraut, and the lady with Tourette’s who kept calling me a slut cunt when I hooked her up to the machine.”

Jerry laughed like an eighth grader who had just heard a fart joke, interrupting his coworker. Amanda looked over at Jerry quickly and glared.

“It’s a serious condition, Jerry,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I know…” Jerry snorted, “But you gotta admit, that shit’s a little funny!” His ridiculous clown smile mask added to the insult, but Amanda couldn’t help but smile. Jerry looked ridiculous. And it was true that a pleasant, modest-looking middle-aged woman suddenly yelling out “slut!” and “cunt!” in a halted, jerky voice was funny.

Even the poor lady herself had giggled a little after apologizing to the young nurse.

“Aaaand, oh.”

Amanda paused, staring at the monitor for room 2B. “That little boy.” She shivered.

“Nice,” Jerry replied.

“I got the fat chick, the mobster, and that guy that couldn’t stop staring at you.”

“That’s not nice, Jerry.”

“What? He was obviously undressing you with his eyes. Here, I’ll show you.” Jerry started clicking away with his mouse.

“I meant calling that girl fat. She could have a glandular problem or something; you don’t know.” Jerry scoffed and continued clicking.

“Here, check this out.”

Amanda wheeled over on her office chair, not too close, but close enough for Jerry to take her sweet scent into his lungs. He couldn’t help but take a quick peek at Amanda’s breasts as they settled into their spot beside him.

Another click started the recording.

It showed the man in 2D standing in shorts and a t-shirt by the window of his room. He was browsing or texting on his phone. Suddenly his door opened, and Amanda walked through wheeling in the monitoring device.

The two technicians watched the monitor closely. Jerry’s breathing slowly started to get heavier, almost a pant, distracting Amanda. She tried to block it out. The recording’s sound was playing through Jerry’s headphones, so she couldn’t hear it, but she was only interested in the video anyway. Amanda wasn’t all that interested, but she knew that Jerry would be insufferable if she didn’t play along.

She watched as Jason crossed the room without taking his eyes off her.

This was normal.

Men stared at her all the time, women too.

The man lay down, and the recording of herself began attaching the probes to his head; whoops, the last one wasn’t on correctly, so she adjusted it.

“There!” Jerry said as he paused the video.

“What?” Amanda asked as she searched the paused video.

Jerry zoomed the camera in, then a little more.

“Oh jeez, Jerry!” Amanda’s cheeks flushed. Jerry laughed, his clown teeth a sick blue color against the light of the screen.

“Mr. Steele is hard for you! Get it!? Hard!”

Jerry went off in a fit of immature laughter, actual tears forming in his eyes. The ridiculous smile on his mask matched his pitch perfectly. Amanda let out a loud groan and pushed herself away from Jerry’s desk.

“’Cause steel is hard! You don’t get it, do you?” Jerry continued as she fled, not consciously realizing he often had a way of taking things a little too far.

“I get it, Jerry; it’s just not funny.”

Amanda took a deep breath and turned to focus on her work. She brought up the first video, the little boy, and started the recording.

May as well get this one out of the way, she thought. Jerry was still snickering as he restarted his video. “Well, I’d say it’s a nice compliment anyway,” he finished. Amanda did not reply, but a small part of her agreed.

Jerry and Amanda’s task on Mondays was fairly easy but time-consuming, depending on the subject of the recordings. They would essentially watch the video, doubling or tripling the speed until they saw something noteworthy from the slumbering subject, and then make a note of the incident.

When a subject moved in some way—rolled over, sat up, or even got up for a sleepwalk—the action and duration were noted. Or a spike would appear on the audio recording below the video, and the technician would document something like: 12:31 a.m.—Subject audible for five seconds. They did this so that the video could be compared to the brain scan data. The idea was to compare the physical and audible disturbances with the readings from the scan. As a result, the doctor could formulate certain hypotheses and diagnoses.

“Oh, looks like Mr. Hard As Steel went for a little stroll Saturday night,” Jerry said as he backed the video up to locate the beginning of the disturbance. Amanda