Grueberfest '06: The Banality of Evil (627 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.47 on 23 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by goferforhire <goferforhire.at.yahoo.com> (View user info) at 2006-10-02 12:27:01 EDT
Routines are dangerous. They dull the senses with mindless repetition, hammering the same precise series of motions and behaviors into your psyche until you're so used to them that any variation constitutes an assault on everything you've come to call reality. If you can maintain a routine, you'll go through the easiest life you could have imagined, but if you relax your grip for even a tenth of an instant, your entire world will fall apart.
I had a regiment-
6:00 alarm
6:15 shit, shower, shave (in that order)
6:25 dress
6:30 brush teeth
6:35 eat
and etcetera.
Every minute was planned out. Every contingency was accounted for as long as the time was still rationed out. I was in control and it was infinitely beautiful... but then I screwed it up.
It was a trite detail, an utterly predictable and meaningless occurance that I completely overlooked and of course it cost me everything. If I believed in a greater consciousness, a living, breathing evil, I would have to give them credit for keeping it simple.
October 2, 2006
7:20- Arrive at work
7:21- Watch stops
I worked at my predetermined pace for a good while, trying to be sure I had exactly half of my work done before my half-hour of lunch break, so that I would waste no time in the latter portion of the day. I had it down to a science, to the point where I could tell just by looking at my 'in and out' stacks how quickly I needed to be working. As such, I was quite confused when I finished precisely half of my duties, looked at my watch to make sure I didn't have a minute or so left before 12, and discovered that I was still in 7:21. I thought about it for a second, visualized my schedule in my head, and muttered aloud.
"I'm supposed to be sitting down at my chair right now."
My hands grasped the chair to be sure that this task had, in fact been completed. I gripped the chair harder and tried to figure out what I could have done wrong.
"I woke up at 6, I showered for exactly 10 minutes, and I ate faster than normal." I looked at my watch- still 7:21. It made no sense.
Cautiously, fearful of disrupting my routine, I got out from behind my desk and peeked my head out of the cubicle. Everyone else was still working, which served only to confirm my suspicions.
"I'm stuck in some kind of warp." It was pure logic. "I've forgotten something and time has stopped as a result. All I have to do is go back and do it, and everything will be fine and I can have lunch and finish my work and be home at the right time." I smiled, visualizing myself scraping dirt from my shoes on the welcome mat as 5:19 blended into 20.
Thinking carefully, I determined that I must have left out a piece of my departure routine. I didn't specifically recall whether I'd shined my shoes, or buttoned myself in the right order, or even if I'd put down cereal first or milk... had I had cereal at all? Of course I had, I wasn't that foolish. I took a few deep breaths, closed down my computer, and left my cubicle behind to set things right. I very nearly made it to the door undisturbed, but I was stopped. Rachel, a mousy but attractive girl who always went to the watercooler at 10:30 just like I did, called out to me just as my finger touched the door.
"Are you taking your lunch break early, Michael?" She breathed nervously, glancing at her watch.
I nearly rolled my eyes at her stupidity (who eats lunch at 7:21? I'd just finished breakfast 36 minutes ago... though I was still hungry) but I managed to smile and respond politely.
"Something like that, yes." I said and turned the handle to leave.
"Can I come with you?" She said so quickly as to be almost offensive. I managed to not wince with an effort.
"If you must. I suppose I might even enjoy the company."
I checked my watch- 7:21... this business with Rachel was certainly disturbing my routine, but I was confident that I could make it right if I just went back.
"Let's go." I said. "I'll drive."
I drove quickly, a sense of urgency growing out of my suppressed discomfort with my current scenario. Rachel had maintained a dialogue with me in the car, and even as I bantered distractedly my mind flitted through my morning, looking for where I'd gone wrong. I must have missed some small detail, some little banal thing that I'd been so careless as to neglect. I felt foolish, but it was foregivable so long as I could fix my mistake. The car pulled into the garage, almost on its own.
"At your house?" Rachel said, excitement lighting her face.
"It's... a break from the normal." I said, slightly pained, "But circumstances being what they are I suppose that makes the most sense." I opened the door.
I led her into the kitchen, quietly analyzing my home for any sign of disorder that may have caused my temporal crisis. To my chagrin, everything was in its place. All the chairs were pushed in, all the dishes were in their place, the remote was stacked on top of the TV guide, and a quick glance in the refridgerator revealed that the milk was in its place. All had gone as I'd planned it to. What could I be missing? I sat down to think over my lunch.
Rachel sat at the chair closest to me and slid it closer. I was too distracted to be uncomfortable, but I would have been otherwise. Her mouth opened, and as her words pierced my increasingly nervous and distracted fog of thought, I grew angrier.
"I just hate it when you get off your groove." She said, carefully unwrapping her sandwhich. "It's just so easy when you know what you're going to be doing on a daily basis. It's nice to have a routine, but if you forget part of it, you're playing catch up all day."
I checked my watch, reaching the other hand up to suppress the twitching vein on my forehead. 7:21.
"Today I messed up. I parked in the wrong spot, I took too long arranging my papers, and worst of all, I forgot to take my water break at 10:30."
My teeth gritted as I went through my morning one last time.
7:18- pull into work parking lot
7:18- usual spot is occupied
I got up from my seat and went over to the couch. Rachel followed me.
"Where did you park?" I asked, putting my hand on her leg.
She grinned, wrapped an arm around me, and tossed her hair back. She was too busy enjoying herself to realize how angry I was.
"32b." She laughed, "You know Michael, you're much less shy than I imagined you to be. You might be more experienced with breaking your routines than I am." She chuckled at her own joke, and her face positioned itself as though it expected a kiss.
I cocked my head, looking at the little lines on her lips, and as I ran a finger accross them I visualized myself on a normal day, pulling into my normal spot... 32b. In my head, 7:21 became 7:22.
I planted a kiss on her, allowing her to take the initiative with the tongue. I let the thing go for a second, almost enjoying it despite how unexpected it was, but then I opened my eyes. Her left hand was resting on my shoulder, and on it was a tiny little Seiko watch which proudly displayed the time as 12:33. My lunchbreak had just begun. Her eyes opened, and we watched each other for a second as our tongues wrestled in the slick silence of my sterilized and ordered room. My watch still said 7:21.
I bit down roughly, and a muffled scream emerged from Rachel's stunned mouth. Without hardly thinking, I grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her through the glass table. She didn't make a sound at all as she fell, she just lay there and bled for a while. It took me exactly three minutes to realize that she had died, but when I did, I checked my watch and sure enough it read 7:22. I smiled, exited my home, and made it to work. I was late, but at least I was there on time.
It's the little banal details that get you, every time. I should have realized that that girl was out to get me as soon as she didn't show up at the water cooler.
User Reviews
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-10-04 20:38:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Sacrilicious- today I upgraded from Wordperfect to Microsoft Word
There will be fewer mistakes from here on out.
I, too, look back on *many* of my posts and think...
"That word's not right"
I'm your uberfan.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-10-04 20:28:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Anansie- I wasn't clear. I didn't dock a whole half point just because of typos, it was just my overall rating, and I happened to mention that. Gofer knows I'm one of his biggest uberfans and wouldn't dock him outside of a comp. And I did enjoy this piece.
And another +2 because this deserves a higher overall rating.
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2006-10-04 16:20:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Talk about being a tad too Obsessive Compulsive about your routines!
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-10-04 15:34:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-03 23:32:48 (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't know, Lishy. I thought the charactarization of the protagonist (if you could call him that) was good enough to ignore the typos. All the entries I've read have had typos and mistakes.
---
Ah, but would the narrator have approved of these typos? Or would he have caught them before posting?
I liked this. It was...different.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-10-04 14:07:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I had a regiment
Do you mean a regime? Or a load of blokes?
Not keen on this.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-03 23:32:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't know, Lishy. I thought the charactarization of the protagonist (if you could call him that) was good enough to ignore the typos. All the entries I've read have had typos and mistakes.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-10-03 23:11:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
1.5
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-10-03 23:11:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yes, I liked it. But spellcheck, man..especially for a comp, you dig?
1.5
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-03 21:24:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked it.
Submitted by ColchesterDr (user info) at 2006-10-03 03:58:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-10-03 01:01:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
My jury is still out on this one.
Not bad though.
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2006-10-02 18:53:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
excellently OCD
Submitted by Kaelic (user info) at 2006-10-02 18:40:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
If it's part of a contest, then fine, I will +2 you out of apology for not paying attention to whatever rules applied, but the story was still predictable in the regard that I could tell it was going to be about murder without having even known about the contest.
And the reason I "retal" -2 is because I read a lot of posts, and the vast majority I simply don't rate because I tend dislike needless criticism of someone else's intellectual property. When someone goes out of their way to say something pointless and fucking retarded on one of my posts, I generally disregard that little point of etiquette.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2006-10-02 17:27:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like, yes.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-10-02 17:13:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"My teeth gritted as I went through my morning one last time."
That's an awkward sentence. It'd sound better if you said "I gritted my teeth and went through my morning one last time."
Same thing with this sentence: "My hands grasped the chair to be sure that this task had."
Even if these sentences were purposeful, I think they detracted from the piece overall.
Worth reading, but not terribly impressive.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-10-02 16:48:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-10-02 16:43:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Kaelic (user info) at 2006-10-02 15:35:58 (#)
Ranking: -2
Why do these lame stories always end in murder? I saw that coming after the first sentence. I knew someone was going to get killed.
Do you write stories like this because you secretly want to murder a female co-worker because your mom didn't breast feed you long enough? Just trying to play Freud, here, like you.""'
what a fucking loser.
still single kaelic? still pining over the myriad birds who have shagged around on you?
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-10-02 16:23:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Kaelic, what is it with you and retal -2s stemming from nowhere?
If you paid attention to the competition, you'd realize that murder's part of the genre. If you paid attention to what I said in your post you'd realize that I didn't go anywhere near Freudian on your ass, and if you paid attention to yourself you'd realize how unnecessary and pathetic you sound.
You want to talk predictable? As soon as I said what I said and gave you that +1 on your attention-grabbing, self-masturbatory little puppy post I knew that you were going to -2 this post. Why? Because you're a simple and sad little man.
Submitted by Kaelic (user info) at 2006-10-02 15:35:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Why do these lame stories always end in murder? I saw that coming after the first sentence. I knew someone was going to get killed.
Do you write stories like this because you secretly want to murder a female co-worker because your mom didn't breast feed you long enough? Just trying to play Freud, here, like you.
Submitted by MouthSore (user info) at 2006-10-02 13:55:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-10-02 13:13:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No necrophilia? No bratwurst? Geez....
But it was still fun to read.
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-10-02 13:02:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
http://www.ubersite.com/m/93382
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-10-02 12:35:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Haha, not quite what I expected it would be, which is good. I liked this. I will write mine as soon as I finish the essay I'm working on right now.