Aaron and the Void

This story is a continuation of "Driving For Mr. Chen," which was a finalist in the Vocal+ Fiction Awards.

It was after the breakup of his 19th band when Aaron Villenivue moved to the "Limited Acres Apartment Neighborhood." One of the first questions he asked the building supervisor who gave his rental interview (besides how much a month and is there a laundry machine) was "why is it called that?" He had asked around to some newer friends (before the interview) who lived in the area; to which they replied, "they had no idea."

"We always figured it was some racist stuff from the 50's," said Tad Murphy, who Aaron had met a week prior at a party.

"I looks like it was made in the 2000's," said Brent Christanson. "You can tell because that architectural style got more bland and uniform in the 2000's."

"I think it used to be a retirement home," said Sandra Evanston, who Aaron had asked on date recently. "But then they had mice and s#$%."

"It's the government fam," said Kyle Oslo, who Aaron wasn't sure how he had met. "They are getting ready to lock it all down. Look it up on the internet."

"I'm totally in love with this new employee at the mall arcade," said his next door neighbor Janis.

"To be honest I'm not sure," said the building supervisor, who's name tag explained she was "Rebecca S."

"It was named that when I started working here three years ago. To be honest, I've never thought about asking anyone else in the office."

Rebecca S. used the phrase "to be honest" a lot.

Despite the lack of information; Aaron's rental interview went smoothly. Much to his satisfaction, he was qualified to rent the two bedroom apartment he had his eye on. He wasn't too surprised; he had managed to live the last five years of his life with a pristine employment history. Plus he had a positive (but also straight to the point) recommendation letter from his old boss, Mr. Chen.

Mr. Chen had left Aaron another letter for him to read personally. Aaron had been anxiously hoping it would explain Mr. Chen suddenly closing his karate school/grocery store and moving back to China. Mr. Chen had instructed Aaron to open the letter exactly a year after the business closed. That was a mysterious request (even from Mr. Chen). Luckily, it was exactly a year from that day today.

There were still a lot of boxes left unpacked. Aaron was about two thirds of the way through unloading his stuff and decorating his new apartment; but had somehow ended up in a pattern of not managing to finish it. He set the letter from Mr. Chen on a wooden coffee table he had found on the side of the road. His friend Shelly Davis had driven it to his place in her new car. Aaron ceremoniously set the plain white envelope at right angles on the table.

"Alright, Mr. Chen," Aaron said out loud. "Time to explain."

The letter read:

"Hello Aaron!"

Aaron could already see Mr. Chen sitting there in his perfectly buttoned Hawaiian shirt, slowly "hunting and pecking" on a computer, deftly composing the letter.

"Greetings from the other side of the world! Thank you for being a diligent and conscientious employee. Sorry you couldn't go on more dates with my granddaughter--what?! You thought I didn't know? I was going to give you a severance bonus, but Niles stole some money from me when he quit...sorry about that!"

"Sincerely, Mr. Chen."

Aaron stared blankly at the letter. It was now strewn out on the table among the tattered ruins of the envelope it came in.

"What the hell was that?"

"That didn't explain anything."

Aaron stared at the carcass of the envelop again. It started back, mocking him, never to be returned to it's original pristine form.

"What the $%@#," Aaron thought.

The strangely short and uninformative letter, matched with the amount of time (and restraint) it took to not open it; plus his incomplete home, began to cause that creeping and terrible sensation (that Aaron was certain he had completely negated by having an excellent work history) to rear it's ugly head. His mind began to wander back to his days in college. Back to the voice of...

"Anyway!" Aaron said out loud, prompting himself to think about something else.

This method had become a habit in the last few weeks.

He decided to return to unpacking and decorating his house.

"That will do the trick."

"That's how that works."

He was halfway into the process of lifting up a cardboard box when there was a knock on the apartment door. An abrupt and insistent series of three quick knocks, followed by the guest just opening the door, made it obvious it was Janis.

"I'm completely in love with the new cook at the Hot Pot restaurant," Janis explained as he ritualistically sat on Aaron's half assembled IKEA chair.

He had done this everyday since Aaron moved in a week ago.

"She's a GODDESS!" Janis explained. "She has beautiful black hair...but she dies part of it pink. And she's always at work on time, but she looks like a real bad b#$% once she's off of work. I'm pretty sure she's a DJ...and she's into some crazy new stuff...like whatever the next wave of dance music is going to be...she's already doing that."

"Where are you still meeting 2000's era dream girls?" Aaron asked.

"Don't be like that. I have no idea...she's really tall. She's six foot one...and I'm six feet even..but whatever, that doesn't matter right?"

"What happened to Cecilia at the pet store from three days ago when you thought your cat had schizophrenia?"

"She sucks," Janis explained. "She acted like she liked me, but then just stopped talking to me suddenly, and then I ran into her at the mall with this drug culture dude. Why do women do that?"

"There's no actual answer to that question."

"My friend Mystic Dan says all women are manifestations of "The Goddess" and we should kneel before their feet. That we should kiss their feet. He says we should be so lucky to be invited into their world."

"You have a friend named 'Mystic Dan?"

"Yeah," Janis explained, leaning backwards into a chair with an incomplete backboard. He looked like he was caught in rapture. "He's a street shaman with amazing powers. He gave me a tarot reading with Native American animal medicine and Arthurian tarot cards. You should meet him. He said we might do acid sometime and penetrate 'the illusion."

"That sounds fascinating."

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Aaron had started work that same week at "Mary Anne's Burger Station," which sounded like it had been around for fifty years, but was actually a new location for a chain restaurant that was growing at a moderate pace. It was the second job Aaron had had after he left Mr. Chen's karate/grocery store. The first job after was a short stint at a tattoo parlor that ended up closing it's doors two weeks after Aaron started there. Luckily, he got another letter of recommendation from his heavily tattooed boss Marvin before the job ended. Aaron had hoped his 19th band (named "NegaFauna") would start paying the bills; but once again his hopes were dashed when the drummer disappeared.

Mary Anne's Burger Station was mostly staffed by people in high school and a couple of 2000's era hipsters that hadn't changed their style. The old manager had left after getting promoted to a corporate position two days prior. The new manager was supposed to show up at 5:00 PM that night.

Aaron clocked in early and immediately proceeded to flip burgers. The trick he had realized (which was not in the employee hand book) was to wait exactly three minutes before cooking a new burger. This made the burgers optimally fresh at the rate customers made orders.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Aaron's co-worker Marlene asked. She had joined Aaron at the exact time she usually did, flipping burgers and frying fries parallel to him.

"It keeps them fresh at the same rate the customers order them," Aaron explained.

"That's not in the handbook," Marlene said.

Marlene was 21 and exceptionally diminutive. She always showed up to work exactly three minutes late with the excuse that "something had happened to her cat." She had an exceptional disregard for the Mary Anne's dress code, but otherwise was a good employee. She would often tell Aaron stories about her boyfriend, whether Aaron was listening or not. Aaron was beginning to suspect her boyfriend had some serious issues.

They flipped burgers silently for a while and they both listened to the sound of the french fryer crackle dangerously.

"You ever think what it would be like to fall in there forever?" Marlene asked, gesturing at the bubbling fryer with a spatula.

"That's messed up."

"The new boss will be here in twenty minutes," Marlene stated, sliding her spatula between two cooking patties, to symbolize someone walking through a door. Marlene made a lot of gestures like that. Aaron found it fascinating. He was tempted to flirt with her constantly, but was certain her boyfriend was dangerous.

"Where do you live?" She asked, after having worked with him for a week.

"I live at 'Limited Acres," Aaron explained.

"You live at that place? I heard it was called that because it was built on a graveyard. It's like a joke they made...calling it 'limited' because people go there when they die."

Aaron wasn't sure he got the joke.

The two automatic doors of Marry Anne's made a harsh chiming sound as their new boss entered the store. The two of them had not been given a description of who this person was. They couldn't see them either, and could only hear the front of house staff talk nervously to this new authority figure.

"I'm gonna go check it out!" Marlene yelled, already around the corner.

"You're not supposed to lea-

It was too late. Aaron could hear Marlene talking loudly to the new manager, sizing him up with all sorts of leading questions. Eventually the sound of them talking got closer. Aaron continued to flip the hamburger patties with his patented method. He heard Marlene make an excuse about needing to do something in the bathroom (he wasn't paying attention to exactly what she said). The new manager must have had an exceptionally quiet walk; as he was already standing next to Aaron. The manager started silently flipping patties parallel to Aaron as well.

"Hello Aaron," the new manager said with a strangely detached voice as he read Aaron's name tag.

His voice wasn't detached in a calm or enlightened style; but the way you would imagine an alien pretending to be human would talk. Aaron looked over his shoulder slowly. That terrible feeling of emptiness started to return.

It was Lucas Bevellen (the old college roommate who had forever tainted Aaron's soul). He was the new manager.

"Oh...hey Lucas," Aaron said, listening to himself talk in a dissociated and shocked fashion. Aaron looked down at the hamburger patties, watching them slowly bubble. They looked sad now.

"Thank you for working at Mary Anne's...Aaron," Lucas said, checking the name on Aaron's name tag again. Lucas talked as if reading line for line out of the managers handbook.

"That's uh...crazy that life has brought us together again," Aaron said, watching the patties cook away with no say in what happened to them.

"Excuse me?"

"It's crazy that you are my boss now," Aaron said louder, sounding and feeling phony.

"Well...yes, of course...," Lucas said, looking Aaron in the eye, but with no sense of connection. The best way Aaron could describe it; was that it was like Lucas was trying to look into his pineal gland.

"Welcome to the team," Lucas continued.

Lucas walked away after that. He appeared to be systematically greeting his new employees. Aaron stared down at the bubbling patties; which were beginning to turn a sad gray color from being overcooked.

"What the hell was that?" Aaron thought. "Does he not remember me?"

Aaron began to drift into that horrible memory of that night in college, when Lucas broke his very soul. He cold remember the strange monotone of his psychedelic inflected monologue. He could feel th-

Marlene walked back in line with Aaron, looking energized. Whatever mysterious thing she had done in the last few minutes had left her looking refreshed.

"He was pretty cool huh?" Marlene asked, picking up her spatula.

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Aaron finally had enough time to finish unpacking his furniture and arrange his new apartment. He had set aside a two hour block of time especially for the task. He had already mapped out how the apartment would look, mentally. It had been one week too long of living in an incomplete home and he could already feel himself being satisfied once everything was done. He reached for the edges of the cardboard IKEA box that contained the rest of his chair. His fingers tingled with excitement.

There was a loud knock on the door just as he grabbed the edges of the box. Janis' latest romantic exploit must have failed; as he was using a sad sounding knock.

"Is it possible to get any work done in here?" Aaron yelled out loud as he walked to the door.

"I brought a friend! It's Mystic Dan!" Janis announced as he blasted past Aaron into the apartment.

Perhaps Aaron had misinterpreted Janis' "sad knock." What he actually must have heard was Janis' "I bought a decrepit, but mystical looking street person into your house, I figured you wouldn't mind. He's going to lay out his stuff everywhere" knock.

"Are you ever going to finish this chair Aaron?" Janis asked as he attempted to recline in the incomplete IKEA chair.

"Can't say for sure," Aaron said.

Mystic Dan proceeded to open a huge, black duffel bag that looked like it was manufactured in the 70's. It reminded Aaron of something a wizard might have if he fell on hard times. Mystic Dan began to extract a seemingly endless series of objects from it.

"What's all that?" Aaron asked.

"These are my totems!" Mystic Dan explained. "This is how I balance my aura! I can't function without them."

"Naturally," Aaron replied.

Aaron was both intrigued and concerned about the new carpet.

"I told you he was cool," Janis said to Mystic Dan, in reference to Aaron letting Mystic Dan lay out his totems.

"Welcome to 'Limited Acres," Aaron said to Mystic Dan, already aware that this would be the rest of his night.

"They call it that because they had to build this place on a very small amount of land," Mystic Dan explained, still removing the contents of his bag. "You see that kind of thing everywhere in Florida."

"We are going to do a Heart Chakra Tarot card reading for Jason,"Mystic Dan explained. "He's completely in love with this new clerk at the library."

"My name is Janis!" Janis explained.

"Don't correct me!!" Mystic Dan yelled suddenly. He jarred his head to one side intensely. "You'll throw off the ethos!"

"Don't mess with the ethos man," Aaron said, smiling at Janis.

Mystic Dan finally emptied everything out of his bag. It had taken a good fifteen minutes. After that he cleared an open space for his "Ethereal Visions Illuminated Tarot Card Deck" by ritualistically spacing out the rest of the bags contents to create a circle of open space. He immediately began giving Janis a psychic reading designed to get at "forecast" on the possibilities of love with the new library clerk.

"You're gonna' clean this up later right?" Aaron asked.

"Don't distract me!" Mystic Dan yelled.

"This guy is scary," Aaron thought.

"His spirit animal is 'the badger," Janis explained. "That's why his power is aggression and force."

Aaron was too scarred to talk after that, and ended up just watching the rest of the forecast take place. He didn't talk for ten minutes as he watched. Mystic Dan and Janis must have already formed some sort of bond, as they went through the whole forecast with nothing more than nods of agreement and hand pointing. Eventually Mystic Dan said something.

"I can tell you trained with a very powerful karate master Aaron...," Mystic Dan said suddenly in a calm voice, as if he was speaking into Aaron's mind.

"Did I tell him my name...?" Aaron wondered.

Mystic Dan gazed up at the ceiling and then stretched out his arms as if he was trying to absorb the energy of the entire room.

"OH YEAH!" Mystic Dan said, growling like a bear. He started to jump up and down on the carpet; entering some sort of trance. "MAN IS HE POWERFUL! I CAN FEEL IT!!"

"That was Mr. Chen," Aaron explained.

"Mr. Chen huh?" Mystic Dan said, sitting back down.

"Aaron is an empath," Janis explained.

"Am I?" Aaron said out loud.

"Don't doubt your own power," said Mystic Dan. "Just remember what the karate master taught you."

"What did the karate master teach me...? I just worked there; I didn't take a single karate lesson. Or...did I?"

Mystic Dan began to say a lot of stuff after that. He explained how Aaron's spirit animal was the Coyote; which was why his ideas always backfired on him. He told him Janis had joined him in his mystical fight against sorcerers and energy vampires; and that he thought Aaron should join them too. He said Aaron had the mark of an "energy healer" and "paladin." He also asked Aaron if he was "rainbow family" and if he could live at his house as his cat.

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Aaron was flipping patties at Mary Anne's again. He was still refining his three minute timing technique and trying to shave off every millisecond possible in order to get the burgers perfect. Marlene and his other co-worker Brice (who always had the same shift) kept correcting him, saying the hand book said "two minutes and thirty seconds!" Aaron realized it was better to just nod and agree, and then later make the burgers perfectly without telling them. His new boss Lucas Bevellen had taken to flipping burgers parallel to him, while completely neglecting his managerial duties.

"You know I've been trained to do this Lucas. You don't have to help me."

"I like doing this...Aaron," Lucas said, leaning over Aaron to check his name tag.

Aaron decided getting an explanation as to why Lucas didn't remember being his roommate for a year was better left unanswered. Who knows what could have possibly happened to this man's mind since college.

"Do you like girls Aaron?" Lucas asked.

"Do I like girls?" Aaron replied

Lucas continued to stare down at the sizzling patties without following up on his question. The one directly in front of him was beginning to crack and overflow with grease from neglect. Lucas continued to stare down at it.

"Hey Lucas, I think that burger is done, you can-

"I have to go," Lucas said.

"Okay?"

Lucas shuffled away, back to the front of the store; hopefully to do something managerial.

"What the hell was that?" Aaron thought.

Lucas' mannerisms and speech patters were getting closer and closer to matching that terrible night when Lucas had opened a terrible void in Aaron's soul.

"Did they really hire this guy?" Aaron thought.

The rest of the nights work shift went (much to Aaron's relief) smoothly. Lucas kept to the front of the restaurant and talked to customers. Marlene showed up at 9 PM; although she was not scheduled to work that night, and proceeded to clock in and work another three hours.

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One week later:

Aaron opened his door with a sigh or relief and threw his keys in the basket on the table next to his door. He scanned around the house; mentally running through his plan to finally unpack and organize the whole place.

"Let's get this done!" he thought confidently.

There was the sound of a cat from the other corner of the half decorated living room.

"Meeowwwwwwwwww!" Mystic Dan exclaimed, licking the back of his hand in feline fashion.

This had been happening since two days before; after Janis departed and Mystic Dan stayed.

"You don't have to be a cat all the time!" Aaron insisted.

"Meoowww!"

Aaron had assumed this was supposed to be a fun game that would be over by the end of the first night. Janis had left his apartment, saying something about the new employee at the electric car charging station "who was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen." He left Mystic Dan there; and right away Mystic Dan began meowing like a cat and requesting that Aaron pet him. After an hour of this, Aaron began to worry something was not right. He insisted Mystic Dan leave several times; but he appeared completely committed to his cat act. Aaron ended up going to bed, leaving Mystic Dan scampering and running about his un-decorated living room. He awoke the next day to find Mystic Dan sleeping at the foot of his bed.

"Can I just get a tarot reading or something?" Aaron said as he rubbed his waking eyes. "I'll pay you to leave!"

"Meowwww!"

Aaron was tempted to call the police by afternoon the next day; but some part of him felt tempted to leave things this way. He couldn't help but feel strangely refreshed by the new world Janis and Mystic Dan had begun to show him. Besides Mr. Chen and a couple of other fascinating figures; Aaron had mostly kept the company of normal (if that was such a thing) people. Straight from childhood and all the way through college Aaron had been connected with people who knew they were going forward in life and based their surroundings around that. Even as an aspiring musician; he had still managed to keep the world around him tight and safe. He was tempted to see what lied in the unexplored and unexpected. Maybe there was wisdom in the unchecked alleyways and broken homes. As long as he didn't fall into whatever terrible void had consumed his new boss.

And that's how Aaron spent an entire week tending to and feeding a homeless shaman. Mystic Dan did not break character one time in that week, as far as Aaron knew. He had began feeding him only cans of tuna, and was starting to worry about his dietary health. Going to work and listening to Lucas talk about whatever philosophical abyss he had fallen into; plus the exploits of Marlene's boyfriend, became his normal routine. He had to almost completely cover for Lucas in terms of managing the restaurant. He felt tempted to contact upper management for help. He would often just stare at the faded, yellow piece of paper (that listed the number) tapped by the phone, weighing the possibilities. Every time he was about to dial; he felt a little voice inside of him saying "don't do it..." or "let's see how it plays out..." It was the same way he felt about Mystic Dan and Janis' introducing him to their spiritual world. They hadn't actually provided a name or definition to it, so he just called it "shamanism." So, (with the worry he might go insane haunting him) he continued to manage Mary Anne's from the shadows while also taking up the roll of full time cat ownership.

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At work, at the end of that weekend:

"You know Aaron," Lucas said as he continued to flip an unreasonably plump burger for a minute too long.

"Yes Lucas?" Aaron asked.

"When I finished college I ended up just burning all of my books in the bonfire at my parents vacation farm."

Lucas still didn't remember they were college roommates.

"You know you can return those for hundreds of dollars in refunds."

"I care not for earthly possessions..."

"They're just books, you read them. It's a good thing. You don't have to burn them to prove a point."

"Did you know that the preying mantis female decapitates their male lover after they are finished mating?"

"We need to prepare twenty 'Mary Anne's Burger Party Boxes' at 7:30."

"Just have Marlene do it..."

Lucas continued to watch the patty overcook.

Aaron could feel Lucas' inevitable monologue of pain and death creeping back. There was no preventing it now. The horror had returned.

"You know Aaron..."

"This is it...," Aaron thought. "This is how I die."

"It will take a quadrillion of a quadrillion years for all the particles of the universe to decay. And then there will be nothingness...forever. Entropy will have become complete, with no hope of returning back. The lives that exist due to matters configurations will have already been long gone...well past the trace of memory a billion times over."

The quality of the hamburger patty was almost gone without a trace. Aaron could hear costumers in the front lobby becoming confused and beginning to form their own militia.

"Think about that Aaron...the true nature of the universe is nothingness; just decay. Actual life and creation is just a small, tiny experiment. It's like a little silly flash in the face of the void..."

"You know we were roommates for a year right?"

"The void is my only roommate. It is me and I am it."

"Jesus Christ..."

Marlene showed up to work an hour late that night. Aaron ended up having to do most of the work again. Marlene mostly tended to her drunk boyfriend in the lobby. Aaron was tempted to go out into the lobby to see what Marlene's boyfriend looked like. He kept getting distracted by covering for Lucas, and ended up only hearing the boyfriend drunkenly talk from the lobby. He never actually saw his face that night. The "Marry Anne's Burger Party Boxes" were assembled in a rushed and slapdash manner. Aaron was sure at least half of the burgers were made differently than specified; as the order had been agonizingly specific. Amazingly, no one ever called in to complain about them.

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Aaron walked back into his apartment, feeling unusually enthusiastic; despite having spent a day covering for his boss. He tossed his keys in the basket and went straight to the kitchen to prepare some tuna for his "cat."

This would be the night when he would finally finish moving in.

"Hello Aaron," Mystic Dan said from the unfinished IKEA chair.

Aaron was genuinely shocked to hear his cat talk in human language for the first time in a week.

"Are you...are you back to normal?" Aaron asked, still holding the tuna and can opener in separate hands.

Mystic Dan looked especially sullen, and seemed more like a man in his sixties than a street shaman.

"I'm sorry Aaron...," Mystic Dan said, looking like something from his past made it's way back into his mind. "I'm not feeling like a cat today."

"Well, that's...okay," Aaron said, setting down the tuna and can opener. "I was actually planning on finally-

"The Ethos just isn't with me tonight," Mystic Dan apologized. "That's just how it is."

Mystic Dan looked truly depressed. He began to tell Aaron a long story about his father who ran midway games for traveling fairs in the 50's and how he was terribly abusive. He explained that his brother (who ran his own circus now) had fallen on hard times and was unable to send the monthly stipend of $600 dollars that sustained Mystic Dan.

"Couldn't you do some more tarot readings?" Aaron suggested, already knowing he wouldn't be organizing his apartment.

"I suppose I could...," said Mystic Dan, looking slightly more optimistic.

Janis exploded through the door without even knocking. He was clutching something tightly in the palm of his hand (and looked like he had been for a long time).

"DUDES!" He proclaimed.

"New goddess?!" Aaron and Mystic Dan asked in unison.

"Yeah! The bus transfer station has this super hot new attendant. She has blonde hair and dresses like it's the seventies...but, never mind that!"

They were both surprised to hear Janis say that.

Janis held out a shaking hand in front of them and finally showed them the contents. He looked like Charlie when he found the golden ticket to the chocolate factory. In his hand were three small pieces of paper that looked like they had been taken out of a magazine and soaked in something.

"It's called 'SpaZZ!" Janis explained. "It takes you to a higher dimension!"

"It does!?" Mystic Dan asked, looking like he had regained his taste for life.

"I can't do drugs tonight...," Aaron said.

"YES! YES you can!" Janis said. "This isn't like...uh, oh yeah, uh uh...drugs man. This is our ticket to a night of freedom and beauty! I've been holding this in my hand for an hour and a half since the super hottie who works at the ticket box office at The Venue gave it to me. I walked all the way here in the rain. Just clutching this stuff like my life depended on it. I had to take two buses and stop through the CVS while my hand was like this. I haven't even turned it upside down in forty minutes! So who cares what form it came in..this is our night!"

"I....I don't know," Aaron said, looking at Janis' clutched hand with temptation.

"Come on Aaron!" Mystic Dan and Janis insisted, shaking him like they were on the same sports team.

Aaron really thought hard about it. The most recent years of his life had been dedicated to playing by the rules; but there was that feeling again. If he was honest with himself; feeling like he was in a self constructed prison had been haunting him for longer than he wanted to admit. For years actually. There was no denying that the look in both Janis' and Mystic Dan's eyes was the definitive crescendo to the thread he dared to keep pulling on.