(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
Christmas fell on a Tuesday that year, so the city closed its offices the Friday previous. As usual, Looper would go to his cousins’ home east of the city for dinner. He did not see them often. This year, he looked forward to the three-hour train ride more than he had since his wife died.
The final straw came on Saturday night, however. Looper had called the cousins to remind him he was coming. He opened the window to admit cold air into the room to mingle with the radiator’s pleasant humidity. Instead, the offness filled his apartment, and he felt as if at the bottom of the ocean.
Looper had the sense to bundle up before he walked onto the street. He did not rush. It was late. The city was silent. He needed to surface. Looper again walked west on 79th Avenue. Soon, he would reach the plaza. And, on the other side of the plaza, he would emerge into the normal. It was only when he got there that he remembered how close he was to the factory.
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
It got worse. Looper remembered reading a story in the newspaper about how sunspots caused interference on people’s telephones and televisions. He wondered if the sun had caused this, too. He sat for hours in the warm living room. The furniture moved silently, like tectonic plates, and shifted back. Looper wondered if he was running a fever.
As the holidays approached, Looper thought again about the factory he had visited some weeks earlier. It was the milk that did it. The milk that now always tasted wrong. He had smelled it, at the factory, he knew. It was in the air, trace elements were.
It was not hard to get the secretary to print out the file for the building. Bowman Manufacturing, it was. The documents were unclear about the factory’s purpose. In fact, the file contained little more than Looper’s notes. He tucked the folder in his briefcase. It was the last day before the vacation, and he was glad. Even in the offness, it was still his room.
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
It was in the next week that other people began to recognize the offness, too. Walking to work in the snow, Looper saw a boy, perhaps about 9. The boy was blonde, and he studied the row of Christmas trees on the sidewalk as the snow fell around him. Looper could see why instantly.
The trees were not in a straight line, absolutely, but the wind blew through them wrong, as well. In some places, the branches sagged, as if in a breeze. In others, they threatened to snap. Looper could not tell if it was the fault of the wind or the trees. He and the boy acknowledged each other, and Looper continued on to work.
The man at the newsstand complained of too much ink on his fingers. At the bank, Looper overheard tellers speaking in hushed voices about the ledgers being several dozen cents incorrect. In the dark, Looper drank his off-flavored milk and wondered when society began to expect it to taste the same every time.
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
Mr. Brown led Looper off the floor. They entered another hallway. Looper felt a change in the air. He smelled something, too. He could practically taste it on his tongue. The sound of the machines quieted as they walked deeper into the building. The odor increased, though. Looper could feel a layer of saliva on his tongue.
“The vents from upstairs,” Mr. Brown noted. “Some people seem to like it. I do not mind it myself.”
“What is it?” Looper asked. He had tasted it before, somewhere. Perhaps inside a chocolate, once.
“Byproducts, mostly,” Mr. Brown replied, fixing his tie. “Byproducts,” he said again. Looper inspected the remainder of the building.
Twice, he got lost in passages of endless doors. Both times, he was unhappy to recover his bearings.
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
In the warehouse’s halls, Looper felt as if he were on an exotic vacation. “We’re mostly a factory now,” Mr. Brown, the manager, explained to him as they walked. They passed door after door. The snowy street seemed miles away. The collar of Mr. Brown’s red shirt jutted at an unusual angle, Looper thought. It was most pleasing.
“The upper floors are for specialty machines,” Mr. Brown pointed out, showing Looper the building map. “None gets used more than once or twice a month. There are rarely more than a half-dozen men up there at a time.” Looper nodded. The tone of Mr. Brown’s desk was one he could not name, like a shade from an early color photograph.
On the factory floor, high windows transformed the thin winter sun into something magnificent. Earphones muffled Looper’s ears. Mr. Brown pointed out the fire exits, professionally silent in the din. It occurred to Looper that he did not know the factory’s purpose. One machine was at least two stories tall. Two men tended to dials and counters at its base.
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
In fact, the warehouse looked especially normal. It was a perfect cube. The walls were a soft, white cinderblock. They met the sidewalk evenly, giving the entire block symmetry. The windows began on the third of the five stories. Looper could not find a doorbell. For a moment, he stood confused. He tried the knob. It was a silver sphere. Clean, very clean, and quite unlocked. There was no lock on the door at all, in fact.
Looper stepped into entry. It was empty. The ceiling was low, Looper observed. Lower than he would expect. The room was an olive green, the light warm. He felt welcome, which is not what he usually felt when it came to inspecting warehouses. A sliding window opened into an office, also empty.
The chair Looper sat in while he waited was of bright white leather, also welcoming. The arms were wooden, cut at sharp 90-degree angles. Looper relaxed into the room’s plainness. It washed over him like a sea breeze. When the secretary called at him from the window, he was not upset. He stood, still in reverie.
Looper in the Dark will continue next week…
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
It was perhaps on account of the offness that Looper was even there, in the other neighborhood. That is what he called it: the offness. Looper considered this as he walked west on 79th Avenue. To be fair, he had not yet called it that to anyone. He merely thought it. Nobody else seemed to do even that.
Like the new secretary. She reminded him of wool, dense wool. She was the one who sent him to the neighborhood. The printed dispatcher sheet was in his coat pocket. Its folds were uneven, of course, despite his best efforts. The destination was far afield, a distance from his office’s assigned territory. “That’s what the computer says,” the secretary shrugged, chewing her gum.
The wind was biting. Looper counted Salvation Army Santas. He looked for a pattern in their distribution. At least his scarf still worked as it should. He crossed a plaza. He remembered a farmer’s market he’d once been to there. On its far side, everything was normal again.
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
In the morning, everything remained flawed. The alarm rang at 6, as usual. It seemed too dark, however. Looper’s coffee was too strong. His toast was too burnt. Even his bootlaces were too short. Walking to the dispatcher’s office, all the world seemed askew. The newspaper headlines were off-center. The traffic signals hesitated before changing.
The time clock punched Looper’s card with an abnormally resounding thud. It echoed through the office. Looper looked around, though neither of the secretaries looked up from her desk. All day, Looper trudged about the neighborhood in the dirtying snow. None of the buildings failed his inspection, though each was wrong, as if it might remove a mask as soon as he was out of sight.
In the dark, later, he held the milk in his mouth. He could taste something else in it, as well. Besides milk. He swallowed it slowly. In his chair, he tried to feel the room around him. He did not want to feel the room. He just wanted to sit. Why should that be difficult?
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
Looper was in the dark. He was sitting, that was all. Outside, it snowed. The apartment sang in response. Steam rushed through the pipes, crying and hissing. Looper listened, though not that closely. He was happy to sit. From his green easy chair, he could see the heavy flakes falling. They were gray and muted through the glass.
The streetlamp was dim. Looper rose to see if the snow was accumulating on the cars and the fire escape. That was when he bumped into the corner of the table. He felt his thigh bruise. That should not be, he thought crossly. The table had not moved for decades. The snow was blanketing the street, unbroken by tire tracks or footprints. It was late. Nobody should be out anyway.
Before he went to bed, Looper drank a glass of milk. It was not cold enough. He’d been drinking milk from this refrigerator for some 33 years, since he first moved to the city. The dials indicated that there was nothing wrong, yet that was incorrect. Oddly temperatured milk and furniture not where it should be. Looper did not like it. The snow kept falling.
