Interior: A nondescript government conference room. At its center, a table large enough to seat thirteen. At one end a smaller table butted perpendicular against it, the false grain that veneered its chipboard top a different shade and pattern than the other. It sat a half inch lower than the main table, just enough to make the passing of documents, the only thing of note that ever happens inside of a government conference room, difficult. The perpendicular table had space for three chairs on one end, chairs of slightly better quality and in turn slightly more important, though perhaps both were only perceived.
The walls of the room were beige, of course. All walls in all government conference rooms have always been beige. It is a foundational law of the universe. The lights above, crystalline white in their illuminatory nature, were fluorescents. They thrummed a steady beat in time with the happenings within, whatever they might be. Perhaps there were flags, perhaps there were awards, and perhaps there was a legal bookcase, inside it the codes of law that governs even the government. Those things are largely unimportant, as flags and laws often are. What is important is the interior as it has been given so far: two tables, beige walls, and fluorescent lights. It is in that room that things began, as the room demanded, in a daze.
#
He awoke upright in one of the many chairs at the big table. Though names are unimportant for this tale, he was called Smith. Of course he was Smith, because all men of all places had always been called Smith. What he looked like was also unimportant. He appeared exactly as he appeared, no more or less attractive than all other people. The aesthetics of his clothes and the lines of his jaw were unimportant to the events that occurred within those beige walls. The chairs around the table were only half full, of course, for no government conference room has ever been full. The three who sat in the Important Chairs did not appear to be the Important People. It was not the kind of meeting the room was built for. It was a training, voluntary though very much required, on a thing Smith already understood.
The attainment of consciousness was slow. At first, his vision returned, and Smith looked around in a moment of confusion. The faces of the others, even that of the man who stood at the podium near the far end of the room, were blurred and incomplete. He saw that the woman next to him appeared to have a mouth constructed of a great, moving mass of putty, and he wondered if he had a mouth of putty. No, of course not. He appeared as he appeared. A person, correct and constructed as a person was expected to be. He wondered, only for a fractional moment, if that woman had once been Robinelle, but before the fractions could solidify into their natural state of wholeness, he forgot who Robinelle was. He could only assume that his faculties had momentarily ceased operation, and now his sense of vision was returning in a way that distorted the faces around him and confused him of their identities. Of course, that had to be it. All would return to normal, as people should never look like smeared putty, and especially not the assumedly educated and qualified individuals who would occupy a government conference room.
The return of vision was followed soon with the return of touch, the faux leather sticking to places where enough skin was exposed to facilitate the process. The temperature of the room was tepid, not too cold but warm enough to increase perspiration in the areas Smith had hoped he would not perspire while indoors. The return of touch was short, because there is very little to touch inside a government conference room besides poor leather chairs. He ran a finger along the veneer top of the table, realizing that it was a false veneer, a plastic and rubbery thing so far from wood that it could hardly be called a tabletop. It was a rubberized replication of a minor lie that sent a comfortable feeling of familiarity into the center of his being. Falseness was something he was familiar with in the contextualization of employment by the government of his residence.
Perhaps insulted by touch’s quick return, hearing crashed into Smith’s ears as if the entirety of a jazz ensemble had erupted into being just within the edges of his ear canal. His mind reeled as the ephemeral Cab Calloway called out in his mind, forcing him into full and proper being whether he wanted it or not. He jerked, his elbow snapping onto the edge of the liar’s table. A shock of pain screamed through his body. He started to shriek, but the thought was ejected from his mind as if it was the most foolish thought to ever occur. The scream died just behind his lips, and his eyes settled on the man at the podium, a hand rubbing at his elbow. As the screaming return of sound subsided, the steady thrum of the lights above filled him ear to ear. His hearing was coming around and he could finally make out the training. It pulsed in time with the fluorescent metronomes above.
“As you will see,” said the dark-haired man, “there are many general categories of governmental procurement.” The man spoke through a jagged crack of a mouth that split the smear of his face from one ear to the other. Beyond the mawed smear of putty were no teeth, just the empty black ichor of the endless.
Smith sank into his seat and ran a hand over his eyes, strange-feeling eyes that weren’t quite right, but there was no time for that. His mind was focused on a single, acute purpose: finding a way out of those beige walls. He wondered if this was some sort of horrible punishment, procurement the vile thing that it is, but he knew that was not possible. Of all the topics which are spoken of within the beige cages of government conference rooms, procurement surely occurred most frequent.
“There are many actors in the procurement process, but it is, of course, important to remember that we are not looking at information technology services here.”
The others around the table laughed, though Smith had no idea why they would be laughing unless they were truly cenobites, and he truly was in hell. No matter though, he had been in that place a half dozen times before. He knew what to do. He knew where to go. The sacred land. The land of beauty and safety and silence where none questioned your reason for being.
He stood up, and the others at the table turned to look at him. The dark-haired man at the podium orating his horrible opera of capital stopped and locked eyes with him. The man’s staring inquisitor’s eyes seemed strange, hazed in a way that sent a shiver down Smith’s spine.
“Gotta step to the restroom,” Smith said. His mouth felt thick and cottoned as he spoke, but he knew it was the nervousness. There was nothing else it ever could have been. With those strange eyes locked on him, it felt normal, perfectly, completely normal, to be nervous to the point of cottonmouth.
The endless, hazing eyes of the man bore into the back of Smith’s head as he turned to the door and walked in quick, apologetic steps. A thin buzzing silence emanated from the scene behind him, but as he touched the brass handle of the simple wooden door, his heart fluttered. He could feel the freedom on the other side. He turned the handle and the door opened with a groan.
#
Vision. Silly putty faces of the other attendants.
Touch. Horrible, lying leather chairs.
Hearing. A screaming return. Hee-de-hee-de-hee-de-hee.
“OPQRM is responsible for overseeing the daily execution of purchasing authority for around ninety-nine percent of state agencies,” said the dark-haired man at the podium. “They, of course, promote an economy of efficiency in procurement entities across the state.”
Smith’s insides screamed against him. Nothing made sense. The door, then inside anew. Reborn into consciousness in the same training. Torment. Perfect, total torment. That is what his irrational brain screamed at him as he sat there, the song of procurement seeping into his mind. Of course, he knew it wasn’t really his own hell, because it was tepid in those beige walls and hell was hot, according to Brother Donalds of the First Glorious Missionary Baptist of His Savior, say amen and hallelujah. A slip of consciousness is the only thing he could think of. Besides, hell surely would be somewhere worse than a government conference room.
“SQR, of course, covers a different piece of the procurement puzzle. They are, and their staff, as well as their relationship to the board, in charge of oversight of procurement contracts for personal services.”
The others at the table nod as if nothing more sensical has ever been uttered. Smith sank deeper into his chair, wondering if he could use the bathroom as an excuse again. It appeared to him that none of the putty-mouthed attendees had noticed or remembered his previous exit. He stood up and nodded and motioned over his shoulder, and then he trotted to the door again. The handle was the same, and the door was the same, and the step across it was, predictably, the same.
#
Horrible sight, renewed.
Horrible touch, renewed.
Horrible hearing, god damned renewed. Poor Min, poor Min, poor Min.
A new tickle at the back of his mind. Smith saw himself hiding in the bathroom. Returning home to his small ranch house along the eastern edges of some old suburb. He tasted dinner. He felt the warmth of his wife against him as they made love. He felt the rumble of the commute beneath him. He heard the chime of his computer, the clicks of opening his email. All of it, though, felt as if it was the most distant thing that he had ever experienced. A whisper of a memory, not really his or anyone else’s. All that was real was the beige walls and the thrumming pulse of the lights, both ruled over by their veneered gods.
“The basic beginning of the procurement process must, as you all know, begin with the undenied blood sacrifice of your next-door neighbor’s first-born daughter,” said the dark-haired man, though his hair was no longer dark. It was the soft gray of television static. Of course it was, all hair of all people had always been the soft gray of television static. His denotation as the dark-haired man could not change that fact, no matter how hard it tried within the confines of Smith’s boiling mind.
Another of the people at the table raised their hand, a new development. Smith watched with bated breath. Answers must await beyond the questioning, twinkling fingers of that grade school gesture.
“Yes,” said the split putty mouth of that gray haired person. They had been a woman the times before, Smith thought, but he couldn’t be sure. The people at the table now appeared a great mass of sameness. “Yes, I wanted to ask, um, what we are supposed to do if our nextdoor neighbor does not have a first-born daughter?”
The once-dark haired man smiled and nodded. “Of course. The process dictates that then you should take your neighbor in the non-existent daughter’s place, and, prior to the holy bloodletting, beat them severely for the failure of their loins. Excellent question Abanakateonet. Any other questions?”
Smith sat up from his chair, no longer able to handle the scene laid out before him. He had known Abanakateonet his entire life. He had known their children and their neighbors. Abanakateonet had always been Mary Kathryn Robinelle, he was sure of it now. She had always been the loving mother of three with gentle eyes and beautiful red hair. Now they were a static haired thing, split puttied mouth of horrible dimensions. In hurried, angered, terrified steps, he rushed to the door.
Handle.
Groan.
Step.
#
Sight, for all must see his glory.
Touch, for all must feel his gift of corporeal form.
Hearing, for all must hear his gospel.
Speech, for all must evangelize in his name, can you say hallelujah?
Those around the tables wore their horrible, split putty mouths, and their gray hair shifted in a crackling haze of static. Their eyes were the hornet’s nest of white noise they had always been. That all eyes had always been, forever and ever and ever, amen. The people at the tables were mumbling something low and forbidden, and for a moment Smith could understand none of it. He looked over his shoulder and saw the blank beige totalitarianism where the door had once been, but that was okay. The words of the people were growing ever clearer, and the low buzz they produced felt familiar and comfortable. Right in its perfect holiness.
“For then you will go out,” said the once-dark haired but now nothing man at the podium. “You will go out and you will prophetize in his name, the name of all names that has always existed in all places. The name of that which is your name and my name and all names of all things that have ever needed to be named. We are it and it is us and we are them and he is all. Ashet Tet!”
The others at the table banged their fists on the veneered top, and Smith did the same, though he did not know why. The name, the holy name at the root of it all, of everything, of beauty and culture and life, was so warm it compelled him to follow. Do as the others do, for what they do is right. Say hallelujah and amen. It’s Ashet Tet and beige walls all the way down, little brothers and sisters.
“Ashet Tet!” bang!
“Ashet Tet!” bang!
“Ashet Tet!” bang!
Things no longer felt quite as strange as they had before, his consciousness was the comfortable buzzing that it was always supposed to have been. Smith looked across the room to the far wall at the small, round mirror that hung there. It was the mirror that had always hung on the beige walls of all government conference rooms in all places in all times. He stood up from his chair, and the others at the table did not turn to look at him. Their drumming chants continued on and on and on. The name above all names, the eternal god of the things beyond touch and comprehension, punctuated with the thudding report of lying tables. With each thunder of sound, the fluorescents above trilled a high, squealing hum. They were a singing choir to the congregation’s confirmations.
At the mirror, Smith looked into its shimmering reflection and let out a low, thankful sigh. Everything appeared exactly as it always had. His hair was a wisp of snowy, static gray, the same pallor that covered their skin in a buzz of light. Their eyes shone out as two empty sockets of rolling white noise, a gentle hiss emanating from behind their lenses. Their mouth, gray as it had always been, was a smear of wet potter’s clay. As they heard the drumming reports go on, that horrible mouth cracked open in a jagged, craggy grin. From their maw came a low growl, a whispered thankfulness for the comfortable sameness the god above all gods had blessed them all with.
“Ashet Tet, forever and again.”
