Forty-Fifth Paradox Writing

Not much happened for what seemed like hours. I hadn’t been there too long before boredom made me try the fasteners on the straitjacket. They had shiny metal and intricate structure in the buckles, and I seemed to lose track of time trying to put them together. Try after try I failed to fasten the sleeves behind behind my back. Leaning against the wall, I decided to fold my arms instead.

It’s amazing what boredom can lead to. I’m not quite sure when I started to hum the alphabet….or maybe I hummed Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Either way, I started humming it to pass the time…or maybe to entertain myself. Either way, I forgot about finding an exit. Somehow humming turned to singing. I wished I had a bottle of water. Pretty soon my voice went hoarse without any water to replenish it, but I didn’t stop singing, until someone interrupted me.

The door opened, revealing a white hallway…with tiles on the floor outside. I only saw a shadow of a person, holding something in their hand. Stepping forward, the figure chimed flatly: “It’s time for your meds.”

I stiffened, seeing a nurse with a needle in the full light of the padded room. “Where am I?” The question seemed appropriate for the first time that day.

The nurse smiled sweetly, like she would to a feral dog. “Same place you always are, Parge’s Asylum.”

I blinked, backing up against the padded wall behind me. “You’ve got it all wrong! I work in an office building! I’m an accountant!”

She winked with a sparkle in her eyes as she grabbed my arm. “Yesterday you told me you were a straightjacket tester. What will it be tomorrow? A professional bungee jumper?”

“But… I have a driver’s license.  Let me show you.” I fumbled in to reach in my pockets, but straightjackets sleeves had been designed to be too long. I couldn’t reach that far.

She didn’t respond. “It’s in my wallet! In my pocket!” I became more hysterical by the second.

“Calm down now, just a little poke is all.” She said soothingly, as she cleared an area on my neck.

With tears running down my face I whimpered. “Please…don’t. I don’t belong here.” I’m pretty sure she couldn’t hear the last word bathed in a sob. Then the needle reached my skin, and she forced some medicine into my veins. I blacked out.

These days I spend on what I think is the 13th floor, but I’ll never know because they never let me leave. I still wonder if I truly had a life outside of here…or if they’re telling me the truth. One day I will get out, and I will learn what exists beyond the 13th Floor.

I stepped through the door, and once again blinked at the brightness of the room. How could anyone even sleep in here? My eyes traveled along the padded walls, but not for long. The only occupant in the room quickly demanded my attention. He had blond hair, one green eye, and one blue one. Or, at least it seemed that way at first. They seemed to change like lights at a dance club.

“Hi!” He greeted cheerily. Standing up on two legs, he walked over to inspect my elbows. Leaning each way and that, he nearly fell over once or twice. You see, his arms had been fastened behind his back by the straight jacket.

I didn’t quite know what to say. ‘Hello’ just didn’t seem appropriate. “So…you test straight jackets?”

He nodded eagerly. To demonstrate, he struggled, and writhed. The jacket didn’t come off.

“So it works pretty good, then.”

More nodding. “Oh, one thing.” He stepped closer. “Could you unlock this for me?” Turning around, he showed me the buckles holding the jacket together.

I blinked. “Wouldn’t defeat the purpose of testing it?”

He didn’t move away. “No! That is the purpose.”

Until I left the floor, or the room, anyway, I figured I had nothing better to do. I grabbed the buckle and undid it. “How long have you been working here?”

“Long enough.” As soon as the buckle came off, a smile exploded off his face, sending his teeth scattering around the room. Hours later I still found pieces of teeth in my hair. “I’m free!” He dashed toward the door.

Finally it occured to me that I should probably ask for directions out of here, but the straight-jacket tester had already disapeared. I moved to follow him out the door…but it slammed shut. Sitting on the floor, I wondered how I would find my way out of here. I walked to the door, but the inside didn’t have a handle. I walked past each corner of the room, checked the ceiling and the floor, but still I didn’t find an escape.

And so I picked up the straight jacket and I put it on.

For a moment I couldn’t see anything; the light had left so many purple and green spots in my eyes. I glanced back toward the elevator, trying to ride my head of the dull ache. Who knew that elevators could leave me with a hangover? A few moments passed and the dull ache waned, and I shakily stood up. How could I ever guess an elevator would irk my fear of heights?

I guess I found it most odd that the elevator doors never closed, even after all that time, until after I stepped out of the elevator. Thirteen steps out of the elevator, and the doors snapped shut, and the elevator, shaft, ropes, and all dropped through the floor. Curious, I turned around and walked back the way I came, and peered into the hole. Heat blasted my face so intensely that I couldn’t open my eyes. Glancing upwards, and I saw clouds and heard birds singing.

Rubbing my eyes, I explored the thirteenth floor. So far, besides the creepy elevator, everything seemed pretty normal. The elevator opened  onto a hall wall, with office doors, windows, and brass name plates lining it on each side. I turned to my right and read the nameplates as I went by. They started out pretty normal as well. A doctor, a lawyer, a shrink had the offices closest to the elevator. The further I walked though, the stranger the occupations of the owners of these offices became. Frame thrower inspector, balloon blower, professional lip-syncher, the name plates read. Finally, I reached a door with a profession I couldn’t ignore: straight-jacket tester.

I leaned my ear against the door and listened. Inside I could hear singing, off-key, but clearly someone at least tried to sing beyond that door. Knocking on the door, I listened more. The singing stopped.

“Wash your elbows before you enter, please.” The voice requested.

As I blinked in confusion, a slot opened up next to the doorknob. Like a drive-up window at a bank a canister popped out of the slot. Inside the canister I found a washcloth and some hand sanitizer. Shrugging, I squeezed a dab of the anti-bacterial gel onto the cloth and rubbed my elbows. A camera over head buzzed curiously as it watched my progress.

“Thank you!” The voice chimed.

And then the door opened.

(This drabble continues a story about a disgruntled customer seeking to retrieve his computer from repair, which can be found here: http://fortyfifthparadox.com/?p=151

I sat in the airport trapped for hours, until cunning businessmen began to take advantage of the storm. Right and left, preying about the swarms of airline passengers like wolves in a chicken coop, men and women proffered their signs, offering rides to the nearest blizzard-free airport.  Likewise the stranded passengers rushed the drivers like gnats to a lamp on a summer night. My eyes settled on the nearest driver, and I moved as quickly as I could to a man taller than most cloaked in a long coat and long brimmed hat.

It didn’t strike me at first that I couldn’t see his eyes. I followed him out the doors to a newly cleared path to the parking garage, and we held eachothers arms that held our suitcases as the wind threatened to blow us over. Past shivering, past shaking, we stood numb as he unlocked his van and opened the doors for us. We shuffled inside and sat down, handing him our money and our blind trust that he would lead us to part of the way home.

None of us spoke much on the ride to the other airport. We sat, rubbing our hands together, too impatient to wait for the heaters in the van to thaw out our frozen meat. The driver, who introduced himself Poly Femus,  gave each of us a sandwich, soda, and chips to eat, and played upbeat songs on his stereo. Finally blissfully warm, we settled our seats, barely able to keep our eyes open. One by one we each succumbed to sleep, and as my eyes closed I glanced at a rear view mirror and saw a single eye underneath the driver’s hat.

I awoke alone in the van, save for the driver. Taking a deep breath of awakening air, I wretched at the coppery smell of blood. A brief glance about the van revealed the streaked seats and a lonely hand leaning precariously out the van door. Clearing his throat, the driver removed his hat, and my eyes confirmed what they had seen before…a rather human-looking cyclops. He asked for my name, and I told him I was no one. Poly Femus seemed rather sastified with that answer, as he licked his lips.

Something about him screeched more thirsty than hungry, I offered to share a soda with him as he digested my fellow passengers. We sat across from eachother, only a console and some seats seperating Poly Femus from his third course. I turned up the heat, offering him a candy bar and some crackers. The cyclops glanced at me suspiciously, munching on the offered junk food, listening to the radio. After some idle chatter I offered him more food, especially more sugar. Within minutes I had closed the van doors, letting it heat up the interior like an oven.

Finally, Poly Femus’s eyes began to drift closed, and I bolted from the van.

(This story follows a certain letter from an unhappy customer, which can be found here: http://fortyfifthparadox.com/?p=149

The journey began easily enough. It didn’t end so easily. I drove from my home to the airport, parked my car, and headed to the terminal. As I sat in my chair, my cushy-yet-still-uncomfortable chair, I saw the worst happen. Just outside the windows the world had gone white. Not that it had ceased to exist or anything, but that a blizzard had fell upon the airport. My head jerked towards the flight status sign, seeing city after green city turn red. Time slowed as the the light changed on my destination, and the word seemed stuck at an angle, halfway between delayed and canceled. I swallowed deeply.

Canceled.

Without thinking, I ran back out of the airport to my car. More white barred my way to the parking garage, along with freshly unrolled caution tape. My pulse quickened its pace faster than a plane down a clean runway. I punched numbers on my cell phone, only to find the signal dead. And all I wanted to do was pick up my computer. It sounded a bit more sane at the time, but I wondered if the manufacturer had caused the storm….