Seconds before the chime chimed to finish eating, Cooper obtained his meal. Deftly, he hooked a spool of noodles from his plate as the whole table began rolling away, towards the kitchen washroom.
Evacuating the cafeteria hungry, Cooper dreamed of working as a shady washer, packing his own leftovers to steal home and slurp greedily in his nook by the lightwell, scrubbing the lunchware mindlessly clean to secure a decent living.
“Come on, Cooper!” Reed heaved him out of reach of any more noodles.
Now that lunch had ended, speaking was recommended in moderation. The hall filled with echoes. The surround sound bounced off the walls. Operators flowed onto the leveler for the short drop one story down.
“Hey, Reed, you know that sound you’ve been hearing all day?” Cooper jumped at the chance to broadcast, “That sound playing right now?”
“Which sound? What about it?” Reed replied, deeply uninterested in a way that annoyed Cooper, who questioned the sanity of his colleague.
“That sound surrounding you, all around you nonstop. It’s weird. It’s crazy. Do you know what it is? Where do you think it’s coming from?”
“From your insides, you moron, screaming for survival. Don’t tell me I didn’t tell you, Cooper, not to be late for lunch. You can’t just show up like the whole world cares about your existence and expect to make it here.”
“Now, listen! Do you hear your own organs consuming themselves in end-stage starvation? Everyone will be able to hear you. You’re like weaponized noise pollution. Why not apply for that washroom position you said you always wanted? You could lap up the leftovers. We would operate in peace and quiet,” Reed indicated the tabletops, still rolling.
Cooper side-eyed the washroom viewport, but lacked access inside. He drifted slowly away, dreaming of a fine dinner in his lightwell nook, his attic girl with him. Soundly sequestered in the small space, she would never leave him there, as long as he wished her to linger.
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Lit up by a dark source deep within, his eyes gleamed his inner vision. His magical delusion danced in thin, silvery vapors out of his ears and into the air. In the reverie, he gazed in her general direction and whispered, “Tell me, what’s your name?” stealing in and in and in, as he stole her love.
If he could steal one thing, he could steal another. As a washer, the kitchen became available for plunder. The refrigerator bank could be sampled for significant value. Cooper could garner the finest windfall, a little bounty now and then.
Whenever he procured enough, he would “bring home the bacon”, so to speak. Nate was right! Females might fall upon him, but he longed to steal from just one girl her sweet and sexy smile, as she stole in and in, whispering, “Tell me, what’s yours?”
He shook the notion out of his head as he pulled up the latest prompt. His company would never transfer him to food service in an apparent downgrade from creative production yet advancement over borderline starvation.
In a game that summed to zero, winners needed losers to beat, but the game enforced stringent standards of losing, so Cooper retained his role. He was too talented to waste on a menial job. His talent impoverished his life. A talent could be a blight.
That evening, once the chime chimed to pause work for the weekend, Cooper stumbled into a thunderstorm splitting apart the heat dome. It broke through the swelter, and blew in the summer monsoon.
The rain charged the atmosphere with its refreshing coolness drifting up a memory well. Cooper reveled in it. It splattered the city into blurry motion, yet sharpened the intricate lattice. In the sheltering sphere of a raindrop, a whole world might thrive for the time it took to ride a downdraft to earth, its age then lost.
Cooper had always loved the pouring rain, now slicing sideways with his surround sound. The storm whipped and gusted, boomed and flashed, in synchrony with an unseen machine lurking above. A bow sawed a string to sling a wave along it. Wave after wave, the bow sawed the sky, decrypting the sound code.
“Dun! Dun! Dun!” the code sounded.
“Run! Run! Run!” Cooper caught its chant as he acted by it.
He sighted the Circuit, sighting him. He ran!
