Nasty Conjugation

Hello everybody! Tonight I have a favor to ask of you. I have written a short story for the compilation being put together at MachineofDeath.net. If you don’t feel like clicking the link, here is a brief description from their site:

The machine had been invented a few years ago: a machine that could tell, from just a sample of your blood, how you were going to die. It didn’t give you the date and it didn’t give you specifics. It just spat out a sliver of paper upon which were printed, in careful block letters, the words “DROWNED” or “CANCER” or “OLD AGE” or “CHOKED ON A HANDFUL OF POPCORN”. It let people know how they were going to die.

My job was to write a story with their machine as a central theme. The submission deadline is the end of April, and they’re going to pick their favorites to go in the compilation. As a sidenote, one of the editors is Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics.

I would really, really appreciate it if anyone can find it in their heart to read and comment on what I’ve written. I know it’s long, so only enter into this venture if you’re bored at work or avoiding final exams. This is the first rough draft, so let me know if you have any criticisms or suggestions. There may be some formatting or syntax errors which I will fix as I find them. I want to submit a fixed-up draft to them within a day or two. Thanks for reading!

“Conclusive Predictions Helpline, my name is Cassy. How may I help you today?”

Silence on the line. She thought she could hear someone breathing.

“Hello? Can I help you?”

More breathy silence. Then:

“Tell me yours,” someone said in a low voice. Cassy sighed and adjusted her headset. Him again.

“Sir, you’ve been told multiple times that operators will not reveal details about their personal predictions.”

“Just this once. Come on.”

“Sir, unless you have a real question I will have to ask that you stop calling.”

“Aw honey, don’t be that way. What’s your - ,” he started, but she hung up before he could finish asking. Four times already this week, and it was only Wednesday. She could hear someone in an adjoining cubicle saying, “No sir, we cannot share personal information about predictions.” She hoped his prediction said something like, “helpline operator.”

Cassy had been working at Conclusive Predictions, Inc. for about eight months, answering the phone for their help hotline. Most calls followed one of a few basic categories:

Category 1: The “It Can’t Be True!”

Category 2: The “What Does It Mean?” and

Category 3: The “Can’t I Change It?”

And she had a laminated cheat sheet provided by Management with a list of pre-approved responses. It looked like this:

Category 1: Unforunately, sir/ma’am, our machines are always accurate in its predictions. We recommend that you continue to live your life as normally as possible.

Category 2: Sir/ma’am, we are not permitted to give advice concerning customer predictions. However, we can warn that the wording of your prediction might be misleading. Please do not make any life-altering decisions based on your prediction.

Category 3: Our machines merely provide insight into an important and inevitable part of everyone’s life. Attempts to avoid or change the outcome of the prediction frequently lead to its fulfillment. We suggest that you continue to live your life as normally as possible.

So, aside from the few weirdoes, Cassy sat in her cubicle and mindlessly recited one of three pre-written statements to distraught customer for eight hours a day. Sometimes she would catch herself reciting the same answer as the girl in the neighboring cubicle and feel a brief, intense vertigo, like someone else was speaking through her mouth. Sometimes she would go home sick, feigning, “monthly problems.” Sometimes she wished she could throw up on her keyboard, just to make a statement. She never really thought about what the statement would be. She figured it would make one, regardless.

She didn’t even understand why people needed to call the helpline anyway. All of her pre-written phrases were taken straight from the warning on the machine, printed in red letters under the heading, “Read This First!” Some days she almost looked forward to the weirdoes, just to break up the monotony. Her line lit up, indicating an incoming call. She sighed.

“Conclusive Predictions Helpline, my name is Cassy. How may I help you today?”

“Cassy! I’m so glad you’re there. I was thinking about our last conversation and wanted to talk to you about something.”

Christ, she thought. And then there was Dell.

“Sir, do you have a question that I can answer?”

“No, you can’t answer it! That’s what I wanted to talk about, it’s the whole problem with the machine in the -,”

“Sir -,”

“Dell. My name’s Dell. Remember? Last week I called and we discussed the Mobius Paradox, and the week before that it was Schroedinger’s Bull Terrier, and - ”

“Sir, as always, unless you have a real question I’ll have to ask you not to call the helpline.”

“Okay, okay, yeah, I have a question. What if, for example, suddenly knowing – or thinking you know – the manner of your demise actually changes it? Right? I mean, if there’s such a thing as destiny –,”

“Sir,” she interrupted, “have you purchased a prediction yet?”

Dell cleared his throat, was silent, and then hung up.

Of course she remembered Dell, but she tried not to encourage him by using his name. He called at least once a week wanting to debate the philosophical problems with their machines – despite the fact that he’d never had a prediction done. When she was new at the helpline she’d made the terrible mistake of humoring him. At first he hadn’t seemed so bad - he talked too fast and didn’t make much sense, but he’d been more entertaining than answering questions number one, two, or three. After a few weeks, though, his awkward charm wore incredibly thin. Honestly, she should’ve known better than to be friendly to him.

Cassy decided to take her last cigarette break before she got tied up with another caller. She’d already had one today, not counting her lunch break, but being at her cubicle made her crave nicotine more than usual. She unplugged her headset and signed herself out for a ten minute break.

“Your prediction will probably say ‘Phillip Morris,’ Cassy,” her boss, Brenda, called from her office as Cassy tried to sneak out.

“I’m saving money on a prediction by narrowing the odds down to lung cancer,” she said over her shoulder. Thanks to Brenda she now fully recognized the irony of smoking cigarettes at a company whose specialty was predicting death.

Outside, she lit up her first cigarette and perched on the lopsided concrete bench someone had placed at the back of the building for smokers. She could get through three cigarettes in her ten-minute break if she put some effort into it, which she frequently did. The overflowing ashtray had littered the ground around the bench with spent cigarette butts, but all the other smokers preferred to wait for someone else to clean it up. She shoved them around with the scuffed toe of her sensible pump as she smoked.

Cassy had never actually gotten a prediction from the Machine. Even though company policy prohibited co-workers from discussing their predictions at work, it never took long to circulate the cubicles with who had and who hadn’t. Other than Cassy, only Jim in the mail room and their college intern Crystal were still Machine virgins. Jim had religious reasons for abstaining, and Crystal didn’t even count; a new law set the legal prediction age at twenty-one, and she was just a Freshman.

The office gossip mill also kept close track of everyone’s predictions. Rumor had it that the big boss, Brenda, had gotten, “Smelly Breakfast,” for her prediction. No one had ever been able to present any real evidence, but everyone agreed it made a hilariously disturbing sexual euphemism. Shane, the shift manager, had recently done his prediction and gotten, “Old Age.” The next day he was so overwhelmed with relief that, despite company policy, he told everyone in the office. Brenda was quick to point out that it could mean he’s fated to get run over by a senior citizen. He hadn’t mentioned it since then.

Cassy snubbed out her third cigarette on the bench and left it there. Someone else would clean it up, or at least shove it onto the ground with all the other crash-landed butts. Not her problem.

She plugged back into the system and sat through another two and a half hours of answering questions one through three. The only interesting call for the rest of the day was an irate lady with a deep southern accent who called to complain about her prediction. Apparently her thin white slip of paper just said, “Fuck.” Cassy had trouble choosing a pre-canned answer for the situation so played it safe and just read them all.

Between Cassy’s office and home were no fewer than eight different establishments where you could get a Conclusive Predictions™ brand Life Assessment: two walk-in clinics, a specialty shop, three drug stores, a hair salon, a Hot Topic, and a church. Every day she would drive past and watch people going in and out, wondering if they’d had a good or a bad one. Sometimes people would come out crying. Sometimes a whole group would go in or out, laughing or patting each other on the shoulder. She didn’t like watching elderly people do it. The drive never helped lift her mood after a long day of enduring calls from those same people.

She took a bath when she got home. She put on bright green pajama pants. She microwaved half a quiche that she’d made over the weekend in a fit of boredom, ate it on the couch with a large glass of cheap white wine, and then consumed two and a half hours of television. She poured another wine, turned off the television, and laid on the floor with a copy of Dianetics – she’d been promising herself that she’d read it, but had still only managed to make it through fifty pages. At three in the morning she woke up and stumbled into bed, having only made it to page sixty-three.

The drive to work in the morning was never as depressing as driving home at night. Apparently fewer people had the urge to divine their eventual death before lunch, so she rarely had to watch someone burst into tears in broad daylight. She got to work ten minutes early and went to the break room to fill her large, bullet-shaped thermos with coffee. Crystal was there, breathlessly explaining something to the new girl who Cassy thought was named Rebecca.

“So the really weird thing is I think I’ve got it figured out,” Crystal was saying to Rachel (or Rebecca), “See, the prediction said ‘Knife Wounds,’ right? And my ex-boyfriend’s name is Kyle Wilson. Get it?”

“I…no. I don’t get it.”

“He’s totally going to stab me to death!”

Rebecca looked over Crystal’s head at Cassy, her eyes desperate.
“Do you think it might be, um, more literal than that?” Rebecca asked, but Crystal shook her head.

“No, no, I’ve read about this online! It never works out how you think it will,” she said.

“Aren’t you underage, Crystal?” Cassy interrupted, screwing the lid on her thermos. Crystal turned to look at her, mouth half open in mid-explanation.

“Oh…yeah, but my friend works at the Hot Topic and let me use the machine after they closed,” she said, a little red-faced. Rebecca took her opportunity to sneak out of the break room unnoticed.

“Plus, if you think your ex-boyfriend is going to stab you to death,” Cassy said, “by your logic, doesn’t that mean he won’t?”

“Well, I mean…” Crystal said, searching for an answer, “well…what do you know about it anyway? I heard you haven’t even had your prediction done.”

Cassy narrowed her eyes at Crystal, who now had a smug little look on her face. She realized how much she hated their little college intern. Crystal is such a ridiculous name, she thought. What she said, though, was:

“Last time I checked it was against office policy to talk about our predictions at work, Crystal.”

She couldn’t believe she’d just cited office rules to shut up the sorority girl. Five years ago she would have hated someone like that. Crystal seemed to agree.

“Sorry, ma’am,” she said frostily, stalking out to her little makeshift cubicle. Cassy took a deep breath and went to her own desk. Her little spat with Crystal had made her lose track of the time, and she had to clock in five minutes late. A hand with huge red fake nails appeared over her shoulder, holding a piece of paper.

“Running a little late this morning, Cassy?” Brenda said, shaking the memo to indicate she should take it.

“A little,” Cassy replied, grudgingly taking the paper from her boss. “What’s this?”

“Oh, just a new company incentive program. Take a look at it whenever you’ve got a chance,” Brenda said, already moving down the cubicles with her stack of memos. Cassy looked down at the piece of paper in her hand:

ATTN: EMPLOYEES OF CONCLUSIVE PREDICTIONS, INC.

RE: GROUP PREDICTION PARTY/TEAMBUILDING WORKSHOP

In order to promote a sense of camaraderie and teamwork in our corporate offices, management has organized a Group Prediction Party/Teambuilding Workshop this Saturday, April 4, in the Sabal Palm Ballroom of the Holiday Inn Suites. Participants should wear casual clothing and bring something to write with.

The first half of the day will be open for employees to mingle, enjoy a continental breakfast, and have their predictions done. Our latest Oracle v.3 Machines will be provided for all employees who have yet to purchase their own Conclusive Prediction. Immediately after lunch you will split into groups to roleplay a variety of situations in which you will assist your fellow co-worker with their predictions in a considerate, professional manner.

Sign in will begin at 9:00 a.m., and best of all, it’s free! Make sure you stick around for the end and you might win a door prize!

Sincerely,
MANAGEMENT

Cassy reread the memo one more time and was on the verge of tossing it in the trash when Brenda cleared her throat behind her.

“Oh, and, Cassy? Could I speak with you in my office for just a sec? It’ll be real quick,” she said.

Cassy reluctantly got up and followed her into her office. She’d been in Brenda’s office before, but it was still a little jarring every time. Pictures of her show dog, a fluffy white bichon frise, occupied almost every flat surface in the office. In one, it triumphantly hopped through a red plastic hoop. In another it was joyfully licking Brenda’s red, smiling face. At least five of them featured the dog in the same stupid bee costume. No matter what it was doing, it always had the same enthusiastically stunned expression on its face.

“How’s, um, whatever his name is?” Cassy asked lamely, recovering from the momentary shock of hundreds of shiny, black little dog eyes giving her the same blank stare.

“Sergeant Wuffles is doing just great,” Brenda said, taking a seat behind her desk and adjusting a picture of the dog wearing a top hat and gripping a cane in its mouth. “He learned how to spell his name yesterday.”

Cassy wasn’t sure what to say to that so just smiled and said, “Wow.”

“But as much as I love talking about my little Sergeant,” she said, folding her hands on her desk, “that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh, uh,” Cassy said, looking for something in the room to focus on that wasn’t Brenda or a bichon frise in a bee suit. “Well, what did you want to talk about?”

“Who’s Dell, Cassy?” her boss said, looking at a post-it note on her desk. Cassy blinked and looked at Brenda.

“Dell? He’s this weird guy who calls the helpline all the time. Why?” She was a little nervous about where things were going.

“Well, recently he’s been calling and asking other operators for you. I don’t think I need to remind you about taking personal phone calls on company lines…” Brenda said in a tone that implied Cassy did, actually, need to be reminded.

“I don’t even know this guy! He’s just some freak that calls all the time and wants to discuss philosophy,” Cassy said.

“And I noted today that you clocked in five minutes late,” Brenda said, ignoring her. “I do try to maintain a lighthearted, fun office environment, but I hope everyone realizes that it doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply.”

Cassy clenched her fist and glared at her boss. She had a brief fantasy about leaping across the desk and punching her in the face, then thought again and had an even better fantasy about dropkicking Sergeant Wuffles.

“I’ll try to do better next time,” Cassy said through gritted teeth.

“Great! Good to hear it,” Brenda said, instantly recovering her obnoxiously perky demeanor. “I won’t keep you any longer.”

Cassy gratefully turned to go.

“Oh! One more thing,” Brenda said, “I hope we’ll see you at the office prediction party on Saturday. There’s going to be donuts!”

“I’m taking my first smoke break,” Cassy said.

On her way to the smoker’s bench she mentally set Sergeant Wuffles on fire and threw him through a window. She considered it a mercy killing.

She burned through her three cigarettes faster than usual and started on a fourth. Already she regretted taking her first smoke break so early, therefore drastically reducing her opportunities to escape later in the day. She hated being reprimanded, and she hated being reprimanded by Brenda even more. It was the condescending note in her voice, something that made Cassy feel like a rebellious teenager even though she was pushing twenty-six. She checked her watch and snubbed out her cigarette, keen to avoid being reprimanded again for being late.

At her desk she pulled a bottle of citrus air freshener from a drawer and sprayed it to clear the stale scent of smoke. Her line started flashing, so she hurriedly plugged her headset in and took the call.

“Conclusive Predictions Helpline, my name is Cassy. How may I help you today?”

“Yeah, so, alright. My name is Wilson Majors, and I had my prediction done the other day,” the caller said in a shaky voice.

“Alright Mister Majors, how can I help you today?” Cassy said, settling into autopilot.

“Okay, well, see…I had my prediction, and it said, “Table and Chairs,” and I kind of have a question about this,” he said, still sounding really nervous. Idly dismantling her ballpoint pen, Cassy went straight for the, “What Does it Mean?” answer.

“Sir, we are not permitted to give advice concerning customer predictions. However, we can warn that the wording -,” Cassy started to say, but he interrupted her.

“No, no, I don’t need advice. I mean, I don’t need advice about the wording of my prediction per se…” he said, trailing off. There was silence on the line for a moment.

“Sir?”

“What I want to know is if I somehow replace all of my blood and take the test again, can I change my prediction?” he said, all in a rush. Cassy dropped a piece of her pen, which rolled off the desk and under her chair.

“ Sir, um…Mr. Majors, are you being serious? Is this a serious question?”

“Of course I’m serious!” he said, his voicing trembling a little. “If the prediction works from a blood test, I should be able to change it if I have different blood!”

“I don’t think I would recommend trying to replace all the blood in your body, though,” Cassy said, quickly losing her footing in the conversation.

“They do it all the time! In hospitals!” he said, almost yelling into the phone. “Who are you to tell me what to do in a hospital?”

“I’m not trying to tell you what to do in a hospital, Mr. Majors,” Cassy said. This was getting incredibly out of hand.

“Are you making fun of me?” Mr. Majors yelped. “I think you’re making fun of me!”

“No, sir, I’m not making fun of you!” Cassy said defensively. “Now if you could please just calm down…”

“I will not calm down! This is serious! I’m serious! Do you have a supervisor?”

Oh god. There it was. The worst possible question anyone in an entry-level position could hear. She took a deep breath.

“Yes, sir. If you would like to speak with her, I can transfer –,” she said, desperately hoping he wouldn’t really want to speak with Brenda.

“Please!” he snapped. “Transfer!”

And so fifteen minutes later Cassy was back in her boss’s office, once again looking for that one tiny spot to focus on that wasn’t covered in Sergeant Wuffles.

“So I just had a complaint from one of your callers, Cassy,” Brenda said, arranging and then rearranging some papers on her desk.

“Oh? Really?” Cassy said. Honestly, she thought. The first call of an already shitty day.

“Yes, really. He claimed that you were mocking his concerns.”

“Did he happen to tell you what his concerns were? Because honestly, how can someone take a question like that seriously?”

“So you were mocking him?” Brenda asked, looking up at Cassy. Her stare was really uncomfortable when she chose to use it.

“No! Of course I wasn’t mocking him! I’m just saying, he asked me if he should replace all his blood so he could change his prediction. What was I supposed to say?”

“It’s not our place to judge people’s concerns, Cassy,” Brenda said slowly, as if talking to a child. “It’s your job to assist our customers with their concerns in a professional, considerate manner. Now, this is the second time this morning I’ve had to see you in my office. I hope I can trust you to conduct yourself professionally for the rest of the day?”

Cassy wanted to erupt. She felt like a tiny, angry volcano about to rain molten death on the tiny villages living on her slopes. She felt like telling Brenda three specific places where she could shove her professional manner. Instead she said:

“I’m taking my second smoke break.”

So far today she had only taken four calls, including Wilson “Dangerously Psychotic” Majors, but she had already used up both her smoke breaks. She broke a personal record and made it through five cigarettes before stalking back to her cubicle and plugging in her headset. She didn’t bother spraying her citrus air freshener this time. She wanted to smell like smoke.

The next hour held no surprise weirdoes. Cassy settled back into autopilot – an agitated, pissy autopilot, but still automatic.

“Conclusive Predictions. Can I help you?”

“Yes, I have a question about your machines,” a woman said in a lazy drawl.

“Yes?” Cassy said. “What’s your question?”

“Well,” the woman said. She sounded like she wore pearls. “I just wanted to know if I could get a prediction for someone else.”

“Someone else…?”

“My…friend,” the woman said. “He’s a shut-in, hates leaving the house.”

“Technically,” said Cassy. “But the owner of the blood must sign waiver before they can take the test.”

“A waiver? Could, say, his wife sign for it?”

Cassy felt slightly uncomfortable with what she was hearing.

“Ma’am?” Cassy said. “I don’t quite understand your situation.”

“Of course you don’t!” the woman said. “And I never expected you would!”

The woman hung up loudly. Cassy massaged her temples. It was like someone left the door unlocked at the weird farm today. Her line started flashing.

“Conclusive Predictions. This is Cassy, can I help you?”

Silence. She thought she heard someone breathing heavily. I swear to god, Cassy thought.

“Hello?”

“Tell me yours,” a man said breathily. “Come on, tell me –“

Cassy hung up. She couldn’t believe her rotten luck today. Her line started blinking again, and she decided this day had nothing to lose. She’d finally give him a real piece of her mind. She took a breath and pressed the button.

“Listen, you freakish little pervert,” she said in a low voice so as not to attract attention. “I don’t know what kind of pleasure you get out of asking for my prediction, but how about this? I don’t even have one! Okay? Does that do it for you! I’m a virgin! Do you like that? Does that help you somehow?”

Once again there was silence on the line. Someone cleared their throat.

“Uh, Cassy?”

Shit, she thought. Shitty shit.

“Wow, I mean…well, um, first of all, I don’t think I’m much of a pervert, but I guess you could argue either way on that one,” Dell said. “And second of all, wow, I didn’t know you were a prediction virgin, too!”

“Dell,” Cassy said. “This is absolutely the wrong time for you to be calling. I’m serious. I’ve almost been fired twice today, and after that little outburst I’m pretty sure this is it.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a rough day,” he said. “Don’t worry, I won’t call your boss and tell on your or anything. I mean, now that I know we’re kindred spirits and all I’d hate to get you in trouble.”

“We are not kindred spirits,” Cassy said, uncomfortable with how friendly their conversation was getting. “Listen, I can’t talk to you like this, my boss could walk by any minute.”

“Well, okay, jeez this is weird, but…” Dell started to say, sounding even more awkward than usual. “But I’ve been thinking, and I was wondering if you wanted to meet for a drink or something, you know, after you get off work. Not romantic or anything.”

Cassy couldn’t believe she was getting asked out by one of the helpline weirdoes. Then again, she hadn’t actually gone out with a member of the opposite sex in more than a year. She briefly weighed her options and shocked herself by deciding to give it a try.

“Alright, Dell, be at Munglow’s Snackery at eight thirty tonight,” she said. She peeked over the top of her cubicle and could see Brenda exiting her office. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait wait, how will I know who –“ Dell started to say, but she disconnected before he could finish. Brenda floated past her cubicle, humming tunelessly, and gave a perky little thumbs up to Cassy. Cassy forced a smile and then began shakily rearranging the two papers on her desk until her boss was gone.

For a moment she sat at her desk, her head buzzing. What the hell was wrong with her? Why had she accepted Dell’s offer? She blamed it on the stressful day she was having. She wasn’t operating normally. But still! The last thing this day needed was a date with one of the frequent weirdoes. What if he chopped her up and fed all her bits to his pet pig? Oh god! What if he had a pet pig?

But there was another voice that sometimes pierced the cloud of disbelief.
How long has it been?

She wanted to ask herself, ‘Since what?’ She realized that would be redundant (and a little schizophrenic, to talk to herself like that). She knew what the tiny interior voice was talking about.

What if he’s sweet? Maybe he’s a grad student.

Great, a grad student.

Better than another lonely night.

Not if he feeds me to his pet pig!

He doesn’t have a pet pig.

She was getting schizophrenic again. She wanted a cigarette. Fortunately she only had fifteen more minutes until her lunch break, which she passed without further incident.

Cassy was so keyed up and nervous from her day so far that she ate only half her low-carb no-cal veggie gyro before giving up and smoking the rest of her cigarettes. She’d burnt through both her smoke breaks already thanks to the furies of her morning, so she genuinely dreaded finishing the second half of her day. She briefly considered pulling the fire alarm. The rest of the day actually passed pretty quickly. She was so preoccupied with thoughts of her evening plans that she barely noticed the callers.

“Conclusive Predictions, this is Cassy. How may I help you?”

“Yes, ah, I don’t know if this is a stupid question, but I wanted to ask if I could administer the test to my cat,” a woman said, sounding a little nervous.

“Unfortunately, ma’am, our machine’s predictions are always accurate,” Cassy said, mentally wrestling with whether she should treat tonight as a date. Was it worth it to hurry home and change clothes? The woman made a little coughing noise.

“Ah, yes, but…well, are you saying it will be accurate for my cat?”

“Cat?” Cassy said, only now fully tuning in to the conversation.

“Yes, my cat,” the woman said slowly. “The cat I want to take for a prediction.”

“Oh! No,” Cassy said, “no, no, you can’t do that. Testing non-human blood always yields the same prediction.”

“And that is…?”

“Bob Newhart,” Cassy said. The woman thanked her and hung up.

Four hours later Cassy was clocking out of work, fiercely craving a cigarette and gripped in a sudden nervous panic. Maybe she should just go home. This was a terrible idea from the start. Brenda came up behind her, rattling her enormous bundle of keys and keychains.

“Any exciting plans tonight, Cassy?” Brenda asked on her way to the door.

“No!” Cassy said loudly. “I mean, no. Nothing. Just staying home.”

Brenda raised an eyebrow, and Cassy smiled a nervous, fake smile. Brenda shook her head and rattled out the door.

On the way home from work Cassy hardly even noticed the people walking in and out of the Prediction Parlors. She mentally cancelled the date four times. She thought of every possible excuse why she should stay in. She had been planning to catch up on her laundry tonight. There was a new episode of Scrubs on. Did solar winds count as an excuse? But in the end, the tiny, insistent voice won out with the same simple argument:

Better than another lonely night.

At home she threw on a skirt and a cardigan that she’d only worn once that week. Did the skirt make it seem like more of a date than it was? She swapped the skirt for jeans. The jeans and the cardigan didn’t work at all, so she tried the jeans and a little boys’ t-shirt she’d bought at a thrift store. Too tom-boy. The jeans changed back into the skirt. She checked the clock – ten after eight, and she still needed to buy cigarettes. She got back in her car and hurried to the bar.

Munglow’s Snackery was a big neon-lit bar right on the main strip through town. She’d instinctively chosen a very public place, just in case he had any real intention of feeding her to a pig. It occurred to her that she had forgotten to mention any way for them to know each other in a crowd of fellow strangers. That thought buoyed her spirits a little. Maybe they’d never be able to find each other. Her hopeful thoughts were rudely crushed when she rounded the corner of the building.

There, standing near the entrance, was a man holding a piece of paper with, “Cassie,” scribbled in red letters. He was short, with curly brown hair and square black glasses that made him look like the singer for a band with songs about equations. She had to decide whether to suck it up and introduce herself. Taking one more purposeful drag on her cigarette, she tossed it in the parking lot and approached him.

“You spelled my name wrong,” she said, putting out her hand.

“Oh my god! Oh good, thank goodness. See, we hadn’t discussed how we’d know each other, and so I figured this was my only hope. Sorry for spelling your name wrong,” he said, offering her the piece of paper . It looked like he’d tried drawing some kind of design along the edges. He obviously had given up, covering the doodles with solid blocks of red, but she thought one of them looked like a robot. She took it, folded it, and put it in her purse.

“I’ll let it slide,” she said. Dell looked as nervous as she felt. Maybe this wouldn’t be so awful. He followed her into the bar, and they got a seat at a little booth covered in pictures of Samuel L. Jackson’s character from Pulp Fiction. Like most bars the music was generic pop music played just loud enough to force people to lean towards each other to converse. The lighting was also standard, dim, with a few red lamps thrown in to make everyone look a little better. Dell pointed at a little plaque on the wall.

“Looks like we got the, ‘BMF Booth,’ tonight,” he said. She opened the drink menu even though she already knew what she wanted. He coughed.

“So…,” he said. She closed the menu and looked at the back. Wines. He opened his drink menu. “I’m thinking about some nachos, what do you think about nachos?”

“I’m okay with nachos,” Cassy said. He spent a moment intensely examining the menu.

“Nachos…sound really good,” he said. Cassy coughed. The waitress rescued both of them by bustling up to the table.

“Hi guys!” she said. Cassy wondered how someone could remain so perky in a job like that. At least Cassy didn’t have to physically interact with her customers. “My name’s Melissa and I’ll be your server tonight. Can I start you off with some drinks? We’ve got a margarita special tonight!”

“Vodka tonic,” Cassy said, closing her menu.

“Gin and tonic,” Dell said. Melissa wrote down their orders and returned to the kitchen.

After Melissa left they burned through about ten minutes of perfunctory chit-chat, hitting such safe topics as birthdays, favorite movies, and weather that they hate. A lull had crept into the conversation by time Melissa returned with their drinks.

“So, yeah, I mean, that’s why I stopped eating peanut butter at a young age,” Dell said. She gratefully accepted her vodka from their server.

“I see,” she said, taking a big sip of her drink. She was considering the possibility that she had made a mistake. Dell stopped Melissa just as she was leaving for the kitchen.

“Oh! Can you bring us some nachos?” he said, then turned to Cassy. “You still feeling nachos?”

She sighed and confirmed that she was still, in fact, feeling nachos. They each silently considered their drinks for a minute. Dell took a deep breath and sat up a little.

“So, I was real surprised when I found out that you’re a, uh, prediction virgin,” he said, stuttering nervously. Cassy continued to look into her vodka tonic. “Because, you know, working for the company that makes these machines, I kind of thought…”

“ Thought what, Dell?” Cassy asked. She took another long sip from her vodka. “That my boss would command me to get my prediction?”

Dell looked even more nervous after that. Cassy thought about the team-building workshop on Saturday and frowned.

“But…” she said, “they might as well. There’s some stupid workshop on Saturday where we are welcomed to be guinea pigs for their new model. Everyone who hasn’t had their prediction is encouraged to come.”

“Are you serious?” Dell said. “That’s like the worst kind of abuse, forcing someone to get knowledge like that. You shouldn’t do it.”

They sipped their drinks. Cassy’s was almost empty.

“I don’t want to go, but I already got in trouble with my boss for…” she started to say, then fixed him with a mild glare. He paused mid-drink.

“What? What did you get in trouble for?” he said.

“You,” she said. “I got in trouble because you call me all the time.”

Dell ducked his head like he’d been scolded.

“I’m really sorry you got in trouble because of me,” he said. She finished her drink just as Melissa arrived with the nachos. They both ordered new drinks.

“Why do you call so much, though?” she asked, peeling a nacho from the pile. “Seriously. What do you get out of it?”

He gingerly poked at the messy stack of tortilla chips with a fork.

“I don’t know. I’ve got lots of problems with this machine,” he said. “I called the helpline because I didn’t know how to answer them. That’s what a helpline is for, right?”

“Yeah, but I think you need to at least buy the product before you can use its customer service,” she said. Their new drinks arrived. “And that still doesn’t explain why you specifically asked for me.”

He was digging through the nachos with his fork, separating the tomatoes from every piece he ate.

“Well, I mean, you listened at first. All the other operators just recited the same lines. I thought maybe you’d be able to help,” he said. She took a sip of vodka and raised her eyebrows at him. He shrugged.

“You realize that’s pretty dumb, right?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, running his hand through hair which looked permanently messy. He wouldn’t seem so short if he didn’t slouch over his drink like that.

“So I don’t make a habit of meeting callers after work,” Cassy said, suddenly wanting to fill the silence.

“I should hope not!” he said. “I bet you get all kinds of weirdoes calling you!”

She laughed, genuinely for once.

“Yeah, some of them can get pretty weird.”

They veered to new topics for a little while, speaking more comfortably now. Another round of drinks arrived. What was left of the nachos had already developed a hard cheesy shell.

“So what’s the big deal, Dell? Really, what’s your problem with these predictions?” Cassy said. He opened his mouth and she held up her hand. “Just the important parts, you’ve already given me the introduction on the phone.”

“Well, I mean, it’s hard to condense it like that,” he said, fidgeting with his napkin. “But, you know, philosophers have examined this problem over and over, and their conclusions have inevitably shown that man can’t handle knowledge of his own death, and so many people simultaneously obtaining this knowledge can’t possibly…”

“Enough big words,” she said, watching him. He had blue eyes. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed that. “Why do you, personally, have a problem with this machine?”

“Honestly?” he said slowly. “Personally, I don’t know. I guess I couldn’t handle the paranoia. Always looking for where it’s going to come from, guessing whether I was doing things right.”

“You can do that without a prediction,” Cassy said. She finished her current drink and looked at the pattern of rings she’d made on the table with her vodka tonics. “Can’t you?”

He shrugged. They ordered another round and listened to the average jazz coming from the tastefully recessed speakers. Dell tapped his finger a little on the table with the high-hat.

“I guess that’s true,” he said, raising his recently-arrived drink. “But what about you? Why’re you still virgin?”

“Conscientious objector,” she said, not meeting his eye. He broke off a piece of cold nacho and considered eating it. Cassy stirred her drink. He discarded the nacho shard back in its basket.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yes, really,” she said, chewing on the red swizzle stick that came with her drink. “I mean, of course I am. I work the stupid helpline for these predictions. I have to wade through the fallout of these things all day. Why would I want to put myself through that?”

“Maybe it would be easier if you just got it out of the way,” Dell said, cocking his head to one side and looking at her. “You know, so it wouldn’t bother you so much that you haven’t done yours yet. One less source of pressure.”

She looked back at him. He was kind of cute when he was trying to look earnest. Cassy finished her drink and waved Melissa over to the table.

“Fuck it,” she said, and Dell blinked twice. “Let’s go. Let’s do it.”

“It? Do what? What are we doing?” he said, finishing off his drink as well. “We’re going to do it?”

“We’re going to get our predictions done,” she said, handing her credit card to Melissa. “Right down the street, there’s a place that’s open until two in the morning.”

“Wait, wait, slow all the way down. You really want to go and get our predictions? Now? Together?”

“Yeah. I do. Let’s just get it out of the way, like you said,” Cassy said as she signed off on the credit slip. She gave Melissa a ten dollar tip. “Right? It’ll be one less thing to worry about.”

“Knowing how I’m going to die is not one less thing to worry about,” said Dell, following her out of the Snackery. “I actually think it’s more like one more major thing to worry about.”

“Come on, man up and let’s do this,” she said, lighting a cigarette. She was pleased to note that he didn’t say anything about her smoking. They half-stumbled down the sidewalk towards Late Night Predictions. A neon sign hung out front boasting their slogan in hot blue light: “Everyone finds out sooner or later!” A poster on the front door announced their new, later hours.

“Are you really sure about this, Cassy?” Dell said, looking up at the glaring sign. “Maybe we should sleep on it.”

“It’s now or never, Dell,” she said, surprising herself by grabbing his arm. She felt light-headed. “Come on.”

She pulled him through the door and they entered a lobby with a red velvet counter and a bored-looking girl wearing a gold pillbox hat.

“ID please,” she said, holding out her hand. She was wearing white gloves. They showed her their drivers’ licenses, and she waved them through with a deadpan wish to have fun. Dell pulled out a twenty dollar bill.

“You pay after,” she staff girl said. He put his wallet away.

“I guess it’s better to do it this way,” Dell mused as they wandered between prediction cubicles hung with thick, colorful curtains. People sometimes wandered in or out in various states of excitement or despair, often clutching a little pamphlet titled in white letters with, “Coping With Your News.” Each booth had a sign above its entrance with the brand name of the machine and a blue light that glows when occupied. The cheapest one was the Delphi Express, which boasted on its booth that it was the quickest legal prediction on the market. Some of the more expensive ones offered pre-recorded condolences from celebrities or complimentary cigarettes.

“Which one do you think?” she asked, concentrating on a floor map. Dell peeked over her shoulder.

“There’s that William Shatner model,” he said. “You can get one of ten voicemails delivered to your phone afterwards.”

“Or how about Pandora’s Veil. It’s a new one with aromatherapy and massage chairs.”

They wandered past one with black curtains called Black Madame. The sign featured a woman in black lingerie holding a whip and a collar. Cassy dragged Dell past it without stopping.

At the end of the row they came to a large booth featuring a tall silver curtain and a row of comfortable chairs for people to wait in. The sign above the entrance had big, red letters that read, “Oracle, version three.” They paused in front of it. Cassy still had her hand on Dell’s arm.

“This is my company’s new machine,” she said. “It’s the one they want us to use on Saturday for that stupid team-building thing.”

“It’s, uh, big,” he said, shuffling his feet. “What’s so great about it?”

“It’s not much different from the other two models,” she said, poking the curtains. The occupied light was dark. “It’s just got a high-def television and fancier graphics. There’s a new intro video with Martin Short, too.”

Dell pulled back the curtain and peeked inside. The machine was a sleek silver column standing before a red leather couch. A big flat panel television hung on the wall next to it, pulsing through gradients of deep red and purple. The coping pamphlets were spread across a short table in the corner, and they could see that the back said, “Thank You For Your Purchase.” Cassy sat down on the couch and browsed one of the brochures.

“We can pay right here if you brought your credit card,” she said. Dell was still standing at the entrance. “You coming in?”

“How much is it?” he asked, standing where he was. He was staring at the machine in the middle of the booth.

“Thirty bucks, I think,” she said. “And another fifteen if you want them to mail you a framed Certificate of Prediction.”

“Ah,” he said.

“I can’t decide if I want one or not. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he said. She looked back at him, standing with his hands in his pockets. “I think maybe I should go.”

“What? Come on,” she said. She patted the couch next to her. “We’re already here, we might as well do it.”

He wavered, taking his hands out of his pockets and running them through his hair. He stepped into the booth, but he didn’t let the curtain drop. Cassy smiled at him.

“I don’t think I can do it tonight,” he said, looking down at his feet. “I just…well, we just met, and I don’t think I’m in the right frame of mind to do it. I’m really sorry.”

“Really?” she said, deflating a little. “I mean, we could go get a coffee, maybe just hang out some before we do it.”

“I’m sorry, Cassy, I mean, you’re really nice, I had a great time, but I just can’t,” he said, backing out of the booth. “It was super nice meeting you.”

The curtain dropped behind him. Cassy sat on the comfortable couch and stared at the patterns washing across the flat panel screen, casting a wavy light on the interior of the booth. She dropped her pamphlet on the couch next to her.

“Coping with your news,” she said to herself. She lit a cigarette and smoked until the bored clerk chased her out of the building.

She showed up at work the next day in jeans and a wrinkled black blouse. Brenda greeted her in the break room with her awful morning smile in full force.

“Rough night last night?” she asked, filling her phallic silver thermos.

“Nothing worth discussing,” Cassy said, taking her mug out of the cabinet. Brenda cackled briefly and left for her office. Cassy was jumpy all day, constantly wondering if the next caller would be Dell. She smoked more than half a pack of cigarettes in her two smoke breaks. By the end of the day she considered going back to Munglow’s Snackery to see if, by some insane chance, he’d be there waiting for her. She hardly even got upset when someone asked her if she thought predictions were allowed for Seventh Day Adventists.

She clocked out that evening and drove home the same way as always, down the main drag an its loud neon revelry. She stopped at a red light before Late Night Predictions and watched a young couple come out of the lobby. She had her head on his shoulder, his arm around her shoulders, and they seemed to be having a whispered conversation. Cassy couldn’t tell if the girl was crying.

Someone honked their horn, and Cassy looked up to see that the light was green. The couple jumped and looked over, then laughed and turned towards each other again. She accelerated and watched them in her rearview mirror. They turned the corner and disappeared, still arm in arm, and Cassy drove home.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 12:53 am and is filed under Short Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.