The Stay-Awake Men & Other Unstable Entities by Bartlett Matthew

Author:Bartlett, Matthew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

kuklalar

Artemis entered without knocking and rapped his knuckles on the side of the filing cabinet. I was struggling with the wording of an Official Company Statement due to my superiors before the end of the day, so I shook my head no, but he held up three fingers, each meant to represent one minute of my time. I rolled back my chair, stood, and pulled on my jacket. I knew from experience that it would take considerably longer than advertised, and I’d already guessed the topic of the desired conversation: the renovations, now in their third week, smirking workmen and ladders and dust, wires hanging from the drop ceiling like intestinal loops, no word from corporate as to what exactly was being installed. Impeding one’s progress through the corridors were ladders, unruly deadfalls of metal tracks, large metal tool cases, and industrial-size rolls of high-tensile wire that resembled metallic hay bales, materials for the installation of two sets of tracks into the hallway ceilings and the running of wires along them. The noise proved intrusive and distracting: drilling, hammering, sawing, instructions shouted from man to man.

In fact, Artemis did not want to talk about that. We stood with our backs to the wall in the courtyard between the two buildings that comprised the campus, shielded from the rain by a slight overhang. He ran his hands back and forth over his rumpled white hair until his coiffure came undone, forming a storm cloud around his head. He looked like a mad scientist. Shielding his lighter from the wind, he lit a cigarette, and I lit my own off of his. His ruddy hand trembled as he drew the smoke into his lungs. I noted the dry skin at his knuckles, honeycombed with cracks, some of them red with blood. “There's a cabal against me in this place,” he said, smoke billowing out around the words.

“Do you think so?” I said.

“Martina Denton's in on it. And Glen what’s-his-name. Dale Kherr, in Maintenance? What it is is, the people in power don't like me because I lack an internal censor—I got this from my father, who was fired from more jobs than I’ve ever held—I tell them the truth. The unadorned truth.” He pointed a cigarette-yellowed finger at me and jabbed it into the air a few times. “And do I like being in this situation? Do I enjoy being on the bubble?”

“Of course not.”

He grinned, revealing teeth stained from tobacco smoke and profusely chipped at the edges. “Of course not. It's just that I'm not...what's the word?”

“Constitutionally.”

“Not constitutionally able to prevent myself doing so.” He paused, looked skyward. “I think I was looking for 'congenitally.' At any rate, I want you to watch my back, will you? If you hear anything, anything they might have on me, you’ll let me know, won’t you, buddy? Can I give you that assignment? Will you be my eyes and ears, if I keep it at that, anatomically speaking?”

I said that I would.

Again with the jabbing finger.

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