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The Time Line

When I walk through the gate, I am joined by thousands of others who are also waiting in line. Marching towards some goal they can't see.

By Charlie NihilPublished 2 years ago 10 min read
3
They Live

At the entrance stands a husky woman, half a shaved head with half her hair half tinted purple, the other half is halfway between blue and green. Staring me down as she holds out her hand. The closer I get, the more her body towers over mine, and I stand over six feet tall. She doesn't say anything as she opens and closes her hand impatiently, as if this means to give her something. I place my university transcript in her opening and closing claw, the only thing I have of any value. When I received it in the mail a week ago, it came with a letter from the dean stating that I had to bring the transcript to this building and follow the instructions on what to do from here.

The woman with half a head of hair looks me up and down, her eyes twitching as I watch her grazing over my contours with her gaze. Locking eyes with the transcript. Suddenly a light flash blinds my sight, and I realize in a disco of white bulbs that she has taken a picture of me. Attached to her belt is a small printer that I am only now learning is there as it buzzes and makes all kinds of mechanical noises. A card slowly rises from the slot at the top of the machine, mimicking that old printer noise, painting each line of ink across the surface. We both stand there in silence. The wind occasionally playing in my ears. The mechanical sex noise of tiny pins placing micro dots of ink in paper slots between us. I go to ask her how her day is, and just before I oddly blurt out the first word, she slaps the freshly printed card on my transcript and pushes the bundle of papers and the card toward me. Her voice is like nails being stabbed into charcoaled meat "repeat the name on the card," she says this decisively, and honestly I am just happy that she said anything at all.

With shaken tendons, I fumble the card once, then twice and finally and only by sticking the card under my fingernail do I hold it. I study the card, a picture of my face across a white background, eyes half-open. Finally, I look at the name and read it aloud "Victor Illiyich"

She throws her right hand over her head, and with her thumb pointing at the gate, she grunts. I cowardly tuck my soul beneath my hunched-over shoulders and walk towards the entrance.

While still studying the simple card, I push through the gate, the number seven beside my dumb-eyed picture. When I enter the building, I am joined by thousands of others patiently waiting in one line. In the distance, I can see a row of large screens, with the numbers one through ten on them. On one of those screens, it displays the number seven. I am bumped from behind, only to now be greeted by a line of people that stretch far behind me, and way out there, further back from where I came from, I see the flashing light of the gate I came through opening and closing. The person who bumped me says, "move forward, idiot" I look at the card on his stack of papers and see that he is a five.

The line moves steadily like a calm stream of water, but there are so many others that the distance never seems to dramatically get closer. I notice now that my shoelaces have started to tear apart after all this time spent in line. I think about this for a while and how annoying the feeling is in my shoe. Then, a couple of hours later, I see a man standing beside the line in rags, holding a small cup and shaking it. I watch as some of my fellow peers throw change at this man, and similarly, after nearing him for the last few hours, I also throw a few coins into his cup. I stare at his face for a long time and notice he is the same age as when I first entered this building. I grip my transcripts tightly, and before I can mumble it under my breath, a woman's voice behind me says, "Thank god I made the right choices," which was exactly what I was going to mumble.

I turn around half expecting to be greeted by that angry man standing behind me so long ago. But, instead, I am met by the long green eyes of a small woman with Italian curves and a German face. I think that she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and as I think this, blood pools around my groin and my face, and I can feel the beads of sweat drip down my cheeks. Then, words fall out of my mouth like marbles, "Victor, Illiyich my name."

She turns her head and laughs, placing her hand in front of her big pink lips, covering her teeth cutely. Then stretches her other hand out invitingly, "Samantha, Samantha Evergreen."

I hold out my hand, and she takes it in hers. We talk about our days in university and all the strange, quirky professors we had in intimate classrooms. She tells me about the time she made love in the university bookstore that she worked at on weekends, and I tell her about the time I hooked up with this girl in the telescope tower. We laugh, and when I next check out the numbered screens, I see that they now span from one to seventeen. We talk about this global change and how the new kids have more opportunities than we ever did. We decide that our generation is the backbone holding up the new concepts for the younger generation to latch onto. That without our fortitude, and our driving of all these new technologies, then they wouldn’t have a chance to escape the nonsense we are stuck in from previous generations. I look behind me now and notice the line spans into a distance beyond what I can see. I look up, and it is nothing but cameras along a black surface that very much looks like a mirror. Alongside the line are tents and small shacks filled with people doing drugs and copulating and asking for help. There are beggars and prostitutes. I have nothing left to give them that I can freely spare.

I now am close to screen seven, and so much time has passed. I am overwhelmed with the idea that I have wasted nearly a decade of my life, and I drift now away from Samantha and into solitude. I spend months with my head down, writing in journals that I pass to homeless people alongside the line to use how they please. When I finally stick my head up, I see now that a person stands in a booth below each of the screens. The next time I see Samantha, she is married to a thirteen and has two children. I tell myself it's okay because our numbers didn't match up anyway; she was a nine, and I was a seven, and the timing was all wrong. I move towards booth seven and wait a few meters away from the same gentleman I have only recently been following. He stands tall in a grey suit and red tie. I stand in jeans and a pink button-up. I quickly tuck in my shirt. I remember now what my mother said to me the day I left to come here, she said always dress for success, I wish I could tell her she was right. He and the person in the booth talk about things that I cannot hear. The person in the booth holds out her hand, and he places his on top of it; she pricks him with something, and suddenly a red light and siren blare. People all around seem unaware of what is happening as two husky women come and snatch this guy up and drag him away as he cries for more time.

I approach the woman in the booth. I am on the verge of pissing my pants with dread and confusion. She asks me for my transcripts and card. I give her both and see now that they have wrinkled with time, and the card's protective plastic has nearly all but been wiped away. A long silence comes over us, and she scans the transcripts and looks towards her computer screen. Her face is lit with vibrant green from the information displayed on her monitor. Humming and hawing occasionally, I ask about the gentleman before, breaking the silence. Finally, she adjusts her glasses and says, "shame, stage four lung cancer, he had perfect scores too."

Her hand now appears on the table, "Place your hand here I don't have all day" that's what she says indifferently, almost all in the same breath.

I turn around now and look up and see nothing but darkness in this building; the darkness stretches upwards into the heavens and into places impossible of the architecture. The flashing lights of all the cameras blink occasionally and I do not see a beauty in any of it. I see bobbing heads of all colours and sizes, a mass of flesh that moves aimlessly towards something that cannot be defined. I want to ask someone around me if I made the right choices; I want to yell at the millions of people behind me and ask them what we aim for. Nothing is permanent. I scream these words from inside my chest. I feel my eyes water as I turn to face the woman in the booth. I place my shaking hand on hers, and she stabs me with something, and as she does, a single tear falls down my cheeks. I feel the weight of all my memories pulling me down towards the ground where hundreds of thousands of others have stood. I can feel their footprints like fingers wrapping around my feet, holding me in place, trying to make me see all the places I could have made different choices to not wind up here below screen seven. I realize now that all the giants are dead, and those who stood on their shoulders perished a long time ago. We are all stuck in this loop of false prophets and get rich quick schemes. Then a big green bulb above my head ignites, and for a brief moment, the substance of my soul is absorbed into the green shine of light until I am nothing but empty meat wrapped around ivory tusks.

I focus now on the woman in the booth as she throws my transcripts in the trash along with the identification card I received all that time ago. Then, giving me a new card and pointing to something in the distance, she says, "go wait in line number five and watch your cholesterol."

I leave now in silence. Heading towards the seats of line number five. I sit down in the pale blue chairs, and as I do, all that weight that had been building up inside me leaves through the soles of my feet. I lock eyes with a woman sitting across from me, and she smiles. I say to her, "I am so happy I finally made it."

She replies “So am I”

Short Story
3

About the Creator

Charlie Nihil

Aspiring novelist. Writer of realist dystopian fiction. Trying to capture our existential reality and all the beauty surrounding it. Also write a lot of casual free verse poems.

@ContemporaryCharlie

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