Uncanny Valley by Jeffrey Thomas

Author:Jeffrey Thomas [Thomas, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Forma Street Press
Published: 2019-07-29T04:00:00+00:00

SLICED BREAD

Lawrence could tell just by touching the first slice from a newly opened package – bypassing the heel, though he’d use it later – that the white bread was unpalatable. He had never tried this brand before, and had been hoping it would be something of an improvement over the last brand he’d fallen into the habit of buying. As with the last, though, this bread was like some spongy paper product, but not spongy in the sense of being moist. More like a porous kind of semi-soft cardboard, and he could taste it just by touch; it would be as dry as chalk. And yet many thousands of people bought this brand of bread, and all the other brands he was familiar with were much the same. As long as these people bought it, it would remain, and it would be bought because they needed it and it was all they were offered. They expected no better, because they didn’t feel they deserved any better.

But he didn’t care for it at all. He remembered bread in his youth being softer – and even a little sweet, was it? – but then again people spoke of foodstuffs being more healthy these days. He could only take their word for that.

Had countless stalks of wheat raised their blond heads toward the sun and given their lives only to make something as blank and tasteless as this? Many thousands of stalks rooted in place, impassively waiting to be scythed down by their masters...like those who would eat this bread?

Lawrence finished making his sandwich to bring with him to work, dispirited with the thought that this white bread was only just the beginning of his day.

***

It was never good when the boss called one into his office, unless it was something like news of a pay increase. Then again, Lawrence hadn’t seen a pay increase in four years.

The door was open, and when he poked his head in his manager, Rod, looked up and said pleasantly, “Oh, come in, Lawrence.”

As he entered the room he saw another man standing in the corner, in front of a whiteboard covered in sloppy boxes with indecipherable words inside and arrows scrawled between them. These kinds of formulas were to Lawrence like the secret code of those above. The man in the corner wore a black uniform, and didn’t greet Lawrence verbally but stared at him intently.

“Could you close the door?” said Rod.

Dread seeped into Lawrence’s belly like a solution of caustic soda. He complied, then sat in a chair positioned in front of Rod’s desk.

“Well,” Rod sighed, fidgeting with a pen. He clicked its tip in and out. “Lawrence, I can’t help but notice you’ve been spending a lot of time again on the internet during working hours. Email, social media, search engines.” He used the pen to point to his monitor, to call to Lawrence’s attention the record of his internet activities.

“I’m sorry,” Lawrence said. “I try to stick to break times, but –”

“If it was only break times I wouldn’t have called you in here.

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