The Review

Casy plodded up the curved staircase that spanned ten floors from twenty-five to thirty-five. As he neared thirty-two he raised his eyes and drew up his shoulders: he feigned confidence. Turning to his right from the staircase, he strode to the Automaton’s corner office.

The door was ajar, and Casy tapped on it with his knuckles as he entered. The Automaton directed him to sit with a gesture, never lifting his bespectacled eyes from a document on his desk.

Silence.

Casy stared out the window at the urban sprawl north of the office. The sprawl eventually disappeared into small, rounded mountains, which were draped in green. Casy longed to be walking in those mountains, to get out of this office. His throat constricted, and he pressed his hands together gently.

The Automaton glanced up, emotionless. We need more hours from you. Casy raised his palms, grasping at a response. Your work is satisfactory, but we need more hours. Casy scratched his predominantly dark head. The Automaton looked dully at Casy then dove back into the paper on his desk. That is all.

The young man straightened himself up and strode back down the hall way. As he descended the staircase, he allowed his shoulders to slump. He had been a rising star: that’s what they all said. Just work, that was all he had done. No women, no pets, no fun. He had thrown himself into it entirely—if not listlessly. He returned to his desk and began to churn out another draft.

Pack Mentality

His associates milled about him like a pack of wolves in the penultimate moments before the hunt.  They leaned slightly toward him, eyes glistening with intensity.  Though still, the feeling of the room evoked a sense of motion.  Chaos lurked beneath a thin veil of obedience.

When Casy entered the room all eyes snapped to him, then back to the alpha, then back at him.  Inaudible snarls resonated throughout the room.  Eyes gleamed–not only with intensity–with defensiveness.  They searched their mind for a reason, any reason, to bare fangs.

The alpha criticized Casy.  The others took their signal to attack and set in on him as well.  The order and decorum of the attacks masked the pack’s savage intent.  Casy stared on silently: the pack was attacking merely for the scent of blood; his downfall provided no opportunity for the others.

Thoroughly chastised, Casy bowed his head in supplication–unaware of the gesture’s sincerity.  The alpha raised his hand to cease the attack.  With a flick of the wrist, he sent Casy away.

The Descent

The young man hurtled through the blackness—the shadows slapping at his face. Currents of wind tunneled through his clothing. Tiny bits of glass winked and orbited about him. The pockmarked blacktop, still warm from the day’s heat, broke his twenty-eight story free fall.

Stillness reclaimed the night as the last beads of glass came to a rest. The body lay there for a long time, his descent had interrupted nothing. A street light began to buzz. Some sound of metal clinked from an alley. More stillness.

The body began to stir. He awoke, disoriented. He lay for a few moments before attempting to move. He rose to a kneel; he planted his right fist on the ground; he inhaled deeply. Shaking his head slowly, he rose to his feet. He took a few steps, feeling as if he had just awoke from a long nap. He shuffled a block and a half to the Nosh Pit—open all night, as usual—and ordered a black coffee.

He sat in a stupor—bedraggled from both the late night in his office and his descent. Brushing crumbs of glass from his knuckles, he—looking every bit the part of a vagrant—grasped at the significance of his survival. He was nobody’s fool. His intellectual horsepower had been enough to elevate him quickly through the firm’s power structure. Though sensing some great lesson should have been learned, he was unable to understand it. Resignedly, he dug in his pockets for a few coins, drained the ceramic mug, and tossed a few silver pieces onto the boomerang-patterned formica.

The night was cold and quiet, excepting city-noise; he mirrored the night. He walked, still dense from impact. The blazer—frayed well before tonight—hung shapelessly from his shoulders. he wondered why he had donned the blazer before hurling himself through the window, but he was grateful for it. Thirty years wearily trailed the rising star, rattling behind him like tin cans strung to a car bumper. Glass gleamed from the cuff of his grey slacks, mocking him. An open dumpster gratefully swallowed his busted sterling silver wristwatch.

In an alley, a hobo tossed balled up socks to a mongrel. The mutt’s tail thrashed in ecstatic spasms while he growled at the old man, who was tugging at the socks clenched in the dog’s teeth. Eventually, the dog released the socks and hopped place to place, all four feet in the air at once like a water bug. The old man lobbed the socks again; the dog leapt, catching the socks at the leaps apex. The vicious-sounding game of tug began again.

Casy shook his head as he walked on. The old man had been smiling, yellow choppers beaming, unashamed of his station, unworried about the coming winter, unfazed by hunger. He scratched at his head, further disheveling the predominantly dark mop.