A GOOD PRODUCT
by Bryan Singleton
Max Eisenberg was seated comfortably in his favorite
chair. Dust motes maintained a vigilant dance under the photonic blanket above
his head, while brown recluse spiders morbidly stalked one another behind the
bookshelves that lined the walls of his apartment. A beautiful dracaena marginata dutifully scrubbed
the foul indoor air of its invisible toxins. A piece of paper lay on the small
wooden desk in his living room with the word specticle inscribed on it. Something to check out later, Max was
thinking while consumed in a sea of words.
Such are how the days go for Max. Besides his
unrewarding job as a pizza delivery man, his time is spent cramped in an
artificial habitat (indoors) where he appears decidedly sessile, as if his
chair were an oceanic rock and he were a clinging mussel. For avid readers, a
good dictionary is an indispensable tool to be kept nearby at all times, much
as a rap star keeps a gold chain nearby. Max is a bibliophile and while not
logorrheic, he is nonetheless a logophile. His activities necessitate a
proximal dictionary, in order to facilitate encounters with unfamiliar words.
It was 2:30 p.m. and Max rose from his chair,
muttering profanities. To be yanked out of peaceful reading and reverie into
the real world of a job is insulting. Insulting to existence, to pander to the
whims of corpulent consumers of cheese that value taste so much they are
content having cannonballs for bellies. Thus, Max is disturbed about the nature
of his work, knowing intimately that his job decreases healthiness and
contributes to rising health care costs. And when soda or cheese sticks are
part of the delivery his silent curses drive fear into the oxygen atoms as they
desperately try to escape his irate inhalations. Max is like many strange men
in that he thinks all people should desire to improve their grossly inadequate
biological bodies.
2:30 p.m. is also time to eat lunch, brush his teeth
and change into work clothes. Ah, how he loves wearing a uniform. It’s proof of
being a slave, whether it’s pizza delivery or flying an airplane. Like most
people, Max isn’t sure how to escape slavery, which is the condition of having
to work for, and follow orders from, another human, regardless of pay or
benefits. The debilitating rawness of forced routine coarsely erodes one’s
vitality, but for Max, the routine itself is not noticed. Nor is his mundane
job. A bibliophile is never bored.
Dan Smothers, the manager on duty, was grinning as
Max walked into Widdershin’s Pizzeria.
The familiar, yet tantalizing, aroma of pizza ingredients wafted through the
air.
“Hello, Gemini”, shouted Smothers, much to the
irritation of Max. Max had never been able to understand the throngs’
fascination with astrology.
Max said hello to his under educated boss and clocked
in. While waiting for orders to arrive, he busied himself by gluing coupon
fliers to the lids of pizza boxes. After having happily glued roughly 50
coupons, an odd misprint caught his eye.
ALL PRICES SUBJECT TO 7.25%
ECHUST
Thumbing through more coupons, Max satisfied himself
that they all contained the peculiar word, much like specticle, which he had found in a book about the war in Iraq
before coming to work. The phone rang and moments later, Smothers voice broke
his mysterious cogitation. “Four large, two pepperoni, two sausage and onion,
all extra cheese.”
With four hot pizzas in hand, Max walked through the
patronless seating area, wishing most earnestly for the economy to improve.
People just order pizzas these days because they don’t want to spend any extra
money on gas. A large fly casually walked along the vertical scape of glass in
the front of the store, unable to make sense of the lack of auxiliary
information that usually accompanies vision. Max studied the fly and wondered
if it felt trapped. He grimly realized that the fly is in a better situation,
as its barrier is merely physical. Max can physically leave the store and still
be trapped. By low income, neurotic disorders, ineffable shyness and enigmatic
ennui.
After eight splendid hours of listening to inanities
from his boss, gluing coupons to pizza boxes and driving around the
neighborhood, Max doesn’t handle the mental and physical fatigue as do most
denizens of the civilized world. Rather than drinking acumen reducing fluids,
such as vodka or beer, he goes to the gym and improves himself. The gym would
probably be a healthier place if it weren’t for all the attractive women, which
only exude temporizations when approached by a thinking person. Max has a
frustrated love life.
With great futility he attempted to control the
microsaccades as he exited the gym, a path that forced him to walk past many
sexually provocative women, due to their choice of “spray paint” attire. He
understands clearly why fashion in the past contrived to conceal the shape of women
under amorphous skirts and frilly blouses.
He arrived home near midnight and added echust to the piece of paper on his
desk. Echust obviously referred to
sales tax and from the context in the Iraqi war novel, he inferred that specticle referred to an officer in the
military, probably one of high rank. Neither word could be found in his
American Heritage Dictionary, published in 1992, nor did they turn up in google
searches. Several hours later he woke up with a powerful sore spot on his
forehead, brushed his teeth, and resumed sleeping in his lonely bedroom.
Trisha Porter sat placidly behind the counter in the
library, eyeing all men with pavid glances and smiling exuberantly at small
children. Knitting quilts for her grandchildren and watching them play occupied
her thoughts, although any tike to traipse by made her think of them.
Considering the flux of small children in a library, Trisha had a dream job.
A little girl stepped up to the counter. In a
minuscule, squeaky voice she asked, “Do you have Jigglebang’s Rumpslicks?” The latest craze in childhood reading.
Trisha brightened like the glare off a car’s rear
window. “Why yes we do, little sweetheart.” Before Trisha could admire her
adorability any further, the little critter darted to the children’s area,
apparently already aware of which books it contained. She wanted to talk to the
grandmotherly woman behind the counter.
Max Eisenberg walked into Fridley’s Fjord Public
Library on a Saturday at 10:00 a.m. The smell of thousands of books imbued his
dull life with a sense of hope. Children capitulated to high energy noise
making in lieu of visiting popular intangible worlds. Adults, the progenitors
of the silent weasels, sat reading magazines. A precocious youth sat at a table
studying some arcane subject, oblivious to the tangible world in his
autodidactic angst. Max looked to his left and saw Mrs. Porter staring
something vicious into him.
“What a
paranoid beldam. Old crone probably thinks I’m here to maliciously disorganize
the books.”
He stepped up to the counter and gingerly handed her
the Iraq war book, maintaining a stolid expression. “How are you today?”, he
asked in an attempt at friendliness. A cold breeze could have departed from his
lips, as she did not reply.
Mrs. Porter put the book on a cart, which she pushed
into the recesses behind the counter. Several pieces of paper were pushed off a
shelf by her turbulent maneuvers and sliced through the air at varying angles
before silently coming to rest on the aloof carpet. When she disappeared from
view, he numbly headed for the reference section.
Eastern Orthodoxy...Echinoderms...Eclipse,
Occultation, and Transit... Max found no entry for echust in the 2007 Encyclopedia Britannica. He tried specticle next, with equally encouraging
results: Spanish Literature...Speech...Sponges. He found an old dictionary. His
idea had been that perhaps they were older, replaced words, having not yet been
googlized. Leaving it as a mystery for another day, Max started to leave the
small room and something caught his eye. A very thick book with a wordless
spine supinely rested on top of a shelf. He had to stand on his toes to reach
it and the other man in the room eyed him with leveled curiosity.
Max nearly gasped when he read the title:
CHURZON’S SALIKYSTIC DICTIONARY
“My word! What
is going on? Two more bizarre words, together, no less!”
The strange dictionary had a fair amount of heft,
several kilograms at least. Heavier books tend to increase the anticipation of
reading, for there are potentially more unknown wonders. Max was delighted and
mystified. And dispirited. Reference books must stay in the reference section,
as many people depend on it for important research. He opened the book randomly
to the ‘C’ section and started perusing the entries. Nothing made any sense! It
was completely full of gibberish nonsense words, akin to echust and specticle.
Here’s what he initially saw:
clyx
coanthiguate
cobamst
Cobargu,
Faldox
cocewuum
codrivok
“I must have this book!”
Max confidently carried the strange dictionary to the
counter and waited patiently for Mrs. Porter. It would be a few minutes wait,
as a small group of children were being entertained by her grotesque facial
contortions and offensive noises. When she finally walked to him, he nonchalantly
slid the book across the counter and feigned an interest in some abstract point
in the distance, in order to achieve an air of casualness to offset her
paranoid accusations.
She lividly inspected the book and blurted, “This is
a dictionary. You know the policy for reference material.” Much like a soldier
ant guarding the anthill, with its parochial programming, she resolutely
adhered to policy. “And you must have removed the spine label. Why did you do
that?”
“I didn’t.” Her jowls perceptibly quivered at the
fringes of his sight as he started into her hateful eyes. “I guess I’ll bring
it back to the reference room.”
“You are not going to do that. Since you removed the
spine label, I have to print a new one. It may be several weeks. Or months.”
“Just let me look at it for a second. I need to check
a few things.”
“No.” She put the strange dictionary on a cart behind
her and attended to a woman, ignoring Max.
He left the library, cursing his stupidity. He
should’ve read through more of the book before confronting that stony woman. On
the way home, he listened to Keiichi Okabe’s rendition of Walking on the Land of Flames from the Mushihimesama Arrange Album.
At 3:30 p.m. he arrived at work. Dan Smothers was
talking about his car. “I dropped a dime in the lighter socket and the stereo
stopped working. What a piece of shit.” Noticing Max, he said, “Hey Gemini,
you’re smart. Wanna fix my stereo?”
“You have to make friends with the right electrons.”
Max knew that would irritate Smothers considerably.
“Fuck you, Gemini.”
Ignoring his ignobility, Max clocked in and gathered
up the two pizzas under the heating element. Passing again through the
patronless restaurant he noticed a fly and wondered if it was the same one from
yesterday. Hard to say. They looked
pretty similar.
The Swinechurdlers ordered 12 pizzas again. Several
of their blueberry shaped children trundled down the walk to help carry the
carbohydrate feast as Max pulled into the driveway. Waiting expectantly, like
vultures on the fringes of a lion kill. He felt sorry for the kids and anger
for the parents - but he had to be nice to them. Disgusting or not, these are
some of the people that allow him to pay his bills.
Mr. Swinechurdler heaved and huffed and puffed as his
gigantic girth greeted him at the front door. The wheezing never abated as he
laboriously handed over $100 in an assortment of small bills. Max thanked him
for the tip and walked back to his car, stopping to inspect a beautiful black
jumping spider with white stripes on his windshield.
During the day’s pizza deliveries his mind was
conjuring ways to read Churzon’s
Salikystic Dictionary. Asking Mrs. Porter was out of the question. The head
librarian, Ms. Gillian Raw, was even more intractable. She would not listen to
his concerns or pleas either. Nor could he wait. Nor did he trust Mrs. Porter
to ever put the book back. He had never seen another librarian on duty and for
all he knew, the beldams could in fact be living behind the counter somewhere.
Thus, sneaking behind the counter during business hours did not seem
worthwhile, simply because he did not know the location of the book. Sneaking
would only work if it could be done in a time span of mere moments and not
minutes. As for breaking in, his tactical skills included rock throwing, which
is not a very elegant solution. Plus, it attracts the police with celerity.
Two weeks had passed and he had drawn the library on
graph paper, noting all access points save those on the roof, which he could
not see. While he could claim to be an amateur vexillologist in order to gain
access to the roof, that seemed like too tall a tale for anyone to swallow with
satisfaction. He wasn’t sure why he had drawn the library on graph paper, but
it was to scale and skulking around the place at night to take measurements
made him feel like a spy.
The next day he checked the reference section to see
if the strange dictionary had been reshelved,
but it had not. He had already surreptitiously inspected the interior of the
library for hiding places, to attempt to stay after hours, and that yielded
nothing. But there were two places he had not yet checked - the restrooms. The
men’s restroom had a janitorial supply closet and a hatch in the ceiling above
one of the urinals. The hatch could offer a way behind the counter, a way to
slip back there unnoticed. The only problem was how to reach it, since there
was nothing to stand on. Using a ladder would solve the problem, but as usual,
the solution would cause more problems. He left the restroom and sat on the
steps in front of the library, carefully watching the autotrophic plant life
feed on photons as a bumblebee most earnestly tried to fly in an alarmingly
erratic fashion. He got an idea.
He still had a few hours before having to report to
work, so he walked 2 miles to the nearest car rental center, Jalopy in a Jiffy. The man behind the
counter, named Bud, wore blue coveralls with a large wrench sticking out of a
hip pocket. Bud had a great selection of old pick-up trucks, replete with
rusted beds and punctured floorboards. Max picked one with an extra long bed
and drove it to Johnny Lumbar’s Lumber,
which was a general hardware store, but specialized in lumber. Mr. Lumbar had a
fine selection of ladders and Max picked out the finest.
Bud had given Max a further idea he had not
considered while pondering on the steps. Bud looked like a maintenance man,
with those coveralls. So Max drove to Sartorial
Inelegance and bought some work boots, a ball cap and blue coveralls, a
fairly standard outfit for a maintenance man or janitor. Parking the rental
truck in an unnumbered spot in his apartment complex, he carried the ladder
inside, then went back to retrieve the clothing.
After work, he drove to the library and parked by the
dumpster. His previous data gathering had proved fruitful, since he had a found
a spot where the ladder could be stashed. There was a wooded area behind the
dumpster. He concealed the ladder underneath a swath of overgrowth, greatly
disturbed the arthropod population, and gave his immune system something to do,
what with all the scrapes and cuts the brushwood so kindly proffered. With the
ladder successfully stashed and his skin smarting, he drove to an adjacent lot
and parked the truck. He then began the 3 mile walk home.
The next morning, he donned the ersatz maintenance
uniform, and drove to the corporate complex located next to the library. He
parked near the rental truck. It was 6:30 a.m. The library opened at 7 a.m.
Max sat in his car, waiting for Ms. Raw to arrive. An
old Buick Electra, a veritable boat on the road, pulled into the empty lot in
front of the library. Gillian Raw stepped out of the car and unlocked the front
doors to the library, entering without a single askew glance. The door closed
behind her and sunlight meticulously reflected off the glass. He figured she
would be unlocking doors, turning on lights and making rounds throughout the
building. So he had made plans to enter at 8:00 a.m.
An hour passed and he stepped out of his vehicle and
headed towards the concealed ladder behind the dumpster. Several people,
wearing suits, were arriving at Pecuniary, Inc. for their wild day of sitting
at tables and desks. But they did not look in his direction; their minds were
occupied with keeping up with Mr. Jones himself. Max braved the brush a second
time, irritating more scores of arthropods, pulled the ladder out, and started
walking towards the front steps. His footsteps made light grinding noises as
they ground the small rocks into the pavement, transferring energy as sound
waves, which crashed into the library walls. The walls did not care. A few
people were entering the library as he walked up the steps and one lady even
held the door for him, assuming he was a maintenance man.
The men’s restroom was empty. Max quickly leaned the
ladder against the wall and climbed up to the hatch, which was simply a piece
of drywall resting over the hole in the ceiling. He pushed the drywall up and
scooted it to one side. A surge of dust particles randomly scattered through
the air, covering his hair and shoulders. Since only breathing out is
impossible, many of them entered his lungs. And he hacked.
“Must move
quickly!”
Ignoring the obnoxious dust particles invading his
lungs, Max climbed into the crawlspace, turned around and started to pull up the
ladder, careful to not make any scraping noises. When the ladder was secure, he
put the drywall back in place.
“Done! What a
relief!”
The library closed at 9 p.m. and he had prepared a
backpack with food, water, a flashlight, and a Scientific American magazine. He planned to urinate and defecate
freely, with abundance if necessary. He considered trying to hit the urinal
from the hole, finding it rather humorous to imagine how someone would react if
they walked in to see a stream of piss 8 feet long.
After just 2 hours, he began to experience rather
uncomfortable discomfort, wishing most pointlessly that he had thought of
bringing a pillow. After 5 hours, he passed out on the dust laden floor,
unaware of the microscopic creatures that were enjoying his body. He awoke 3
hours later, with a menacing 6 hours left until closing time.
Six hours later, having finished the entire magazine,
he started to pay very close attention to any sounds, particularly those of
doors being locked. He heard sharp metallic clicking noises at 9:15 p.m. and
waited another 45 minutes, primarily due to anxiety. As noiselessly as
possible, he exited the restroom and headed for the counter. The library was
dark and silent, amplifying his patters on the carpet and producing a variety
of intangible threats. His flashlight produced a photonic cloud that made even
darker, densely impenetrable, shadows.
A variety of metal carts, bookcases of varying
heights, strewn papers and pencil holders comprised the habitat behind the
counter. And it was deep, perhaps 30 feet. Max started the task of looking for
the strange dictionary, heading confidently towards the very back, where he
presumed Mrs. Porter would have left it. It didn’t take long to find,
considering it was the only book in the library bereft of a spine label. It was
then that he noticed the faint line of light at the base of the door, labeled
“OFFICE”. The door opened.
Mrs. Porter stepped out and Max froze. Coming to his
senses, he shined the flashlight at her eyes, in an attempt to conceal his
identity. But no one has faster reflexes than an expanding shell of photons.
She had already recognized him when she opened the door.
Her face became delightfully crimson, as if her
purpose in existence was to finally catch someone stealing books. “I’m calling
the police. And don’t you dare try to run out of here.”
Max bolted for the entrance and frantically pushed at
the glass and metal doors until he flipped the deadbolt switch to the right. He
ran for the back of the library and cut through the small wooded area, coming
out in the rear of the corporate complex. Nothing in particular was running
through his mind, except taking the most evasive possible route to the rented
truck. When he got in the cab, he saw the familiar flashing lights coming up
the street. The patrol car pulled up to the steps as closely as possible and
two officers got out; one went into the library and the other began to circle
the complex. He started the truck and pulled out of the lot when the officer
left his field of view.
The police would find the ladder and evidence
indicating he had spent some time above the ceiling. He also dropped the
flashlight. He couldn’t imagine what they would think, but imagining was very
low on the list of mental priorities. They would find his car in the adjacent
lot, they already knew his identity and time flows the same for everyone.
Max drove to a popular steakhouse, The Gruesome Grill, and parked in the
rear of the lot. A lot of hooting and yelling could be heard. There was no doubt
a ruckus of raucous rib eating in that place. Coming back to a different type
of reality, he pulled Churzon’s
Salikystic Dictionary out of his backpack. His suspicions had been growing,
so he opened it to the ‘S’ section and looked for specticle.
spec•ti•cle
(spÄ•kʹtÄ-kÉ™l)
n.
1. A general in a
military. 2. Any sentient life-form
in a position to kill without restraint or possible punishment. 3. A dangerous animal. [Old Ghavish spektkyl, to cause suffering.]
Max leaned his head back against the seat, staring at
nothing, wondering desperately about what he had found. Somehow, some odd words
had made it into the vox populi, as
indicated by the inclusion of specticle
in the best-selling Iraqi war novel. Remembering the coupon flier, he looked up
echust.
ec•hust (Ä•kʹhÅst)
n.
1. A tax imposed by a
government on its citizens. 2. The
excess hydrogen atoms given to home planets from asteroid dwellers. 3. Assistance. [Middle Sjask ecchjsdt, assistance.]
A large bellow of laughter, mixed with chortles and
obnoxious hoots, disturbed his contemplation. Four men with distended stomachs
wearing stained T-shirts piled into the car next to him. Max entertained the
notion that an analysis of their stomach contents could serve as the
dissertation for a gastroenterologist. While the bustling activity provided
great cover from the prying police, it had the disadvantage of stymieing
cognition. Carrying the strange dictionary, Max walked behind the restaurant
into a complex of warehouses. He had driven 20 miles from the library; thus
sitting under a light on metal steps provided no discomfort other than the
hardness of the metal.
After nearly an hour and one sore rump later, he
determined that it was not the work of a creative writer. While someone
clinically insane could make up 300,000 new words, he doubted such a person
would be able to get it professionally printed and bound. A group of people
could have made it, but for what purpose? Curiously, the front of the
dictionary provided an address for the publisher. It was unlike any address he
had seen before:
Churzon’s Nask
122 Gryd Suhjart
Yholpulga, MO 63033
Max checked Google Earth on his cell phone and 63033
was on the other side of Missouri, about 4 hours away from his hometown of
Lawson. While it could find no match for ‘Yholpulga’, the zip code and state
were something, at least. He had $400 in cash, which was plenty enough to make
it to 63033. Again checking Google Earth, he determined the most efficient
route to Highway 70, which connected directly to 63033.
The trip across Missouri provided no adrenaline
rushing moments, for, after all, the police weren’t going to scour the country
for him. Not for hiding in a library and stealing a book. But the back of his
head felt eyes staring at him, in the usual way that backs of heads feel
things. According to Google Earth, the zip code 63033 was Florissant. Except,
when he arrived, a sign stating “Welcome to Yholpulga” greeted him.
He pulled into one of the ubiquitous Quiktrips and
asked whereabouts Florissant could be found.
“Don’t know what yer talkin’ ‘bout, bud.” The man,
coincidentally, named Bud, had a large stomach, with eyes glazed over from
carbohydrate laden snack foods. Bud was a shining example of the benefits of a
Quiktrip diet.
“So this has always been Yholpulga?” Max asked as Bud
scratched his stomach.
“As far back as I can reckon.”
“And just how far back can you reckon?”
“Mister, you is crazy.”
Max ignored the jibe and pressed further. “Do you
know where grid sue-jart is?”
“Surely I do. Except ya say it like gride suh-jart.”
Max was listening very attentively now.
“Ya pull a left outta here and head up thataways
until ya hit Flyd Suhjart. Make uh right and go ‘bout 2 miles. You’ll hit it as
surely as my turds hit toilet water.”
“What a
disgusting fucking redneck.”
Max walked out and got back in the truck, noticing
the gas prices were not in dollars. The stated prices were in Arabic numerals,
but the dollar symbol was replaced by a paraboloid with a ray, presumably
intended to be light, shooting from the center. It looked similar to a cereal
bowl with a knife, viewed edge-on, sticking straight out.
Max felt uncomfortable as he drove up Flyd Suhjart.
The prospect of being found by the police had been replaced by more urgent
concerns. Whatever he was going to find at 122 Gryd Suhjart would likely
outclass the inconsistent words and strange symbol.
Churzon’s Nask was an opulent office building
hovering approximately 6 inches off the ground. He parked and noticed nothing
else peculiar. All the cars in the lot looked normal, the trees were not
inverted, the squirrels were not talking, and the pavement was not flowing. One
must be ready for anything when they see a floating building.
He opened the strange dictionary to nask and read the entry...
nask (năsk)
n.
1. The headquarters of a
company or corporation. 2. A
decision. [Old Ghavish naysk,
clarity]
Well, that did
clear things up. Max boldly stepped up thin air into the lobby of the building.
And shortly discovered he couldn’t move.
Two men in dark clothing were talking. Max supinely
rested on a cot, unrestrained, but nonetheless immobile. One of them looked at
Max and he felt his jaw muscles become functional.
“Where am I?”
The man walked to the cot and stared down into Max’s
eyes. They revealed nothing.
“You’re at the Leptonic Laundry Facility,” he stated
with unequivocal precision.
“But I thought...this was the headquarters...”
“You were sent here when our system detected you.”
“What happened with the words? Why were they
changing?”
“The problem, Max, is that you were not changing.”
“Is this a parallel universe?”
“No, those are fanciful constructs in the science
fiction stories you like to read.”
“Am I in a computer, like The Matrix?”
The man conferred with the other for a moment.
“No. You are real. The universe itself is
artificial.”
Max was nonplused. He finally asked, “Are you
Churzon?”
“Churzon is not a man. It is the name of the company
I work for.”
“What does Churzon do?”
“We make artificial universes.”
“Why?”
“There is a market for them. Some people want a
private universe.”
Max asked, “What’s going to happen to me?”
The man walked away and left the room. The other
faced Max, with a grin.
“We take pride in making good products and we can’t
have any defects.”
