Mobile Fiction
Password incorrect
I Write Like says I wrote this story in Kurt Vonnegut’s style. It’s included in a free collection Password Incorrect.
Because this story will be painfully banal, it will be also painfully short.
Peter Maria Kedzierzyna of the Tschekan coat-of-arms bought himself the newest model of a 25th generation cell phone from Siemens-BenQ-Nokia-LG ABC 123, incorporating all achievements of the human race up to the time when Bill Gates became an honorary president of the United States.
Of Tschekan coat-of-arms, a manager in an important department of an important software company spent two whole weeks inputting all data relevant in his life. And not just phone and address data. He included all codes, PINs, passwords, e-mail addresses and the many ways they could be configured, parents’ names, first and last names of distant relatives and degrees of relationship, important dates, blood type, date of birth, social security number, driver license and passport numbers, bank accounts, top ten of his favorite books, films, CDs, gourmet dishes, golf courses, works by modern painters, ancestral silver and European palaces, in rococo style. He also added the top ten of exotic countries and places he wanted to visit.
After two weeks, Peter of Tschekan realized that the cell phone was more valuable to him than a painting by de Bonnet-Majak – the number one artist on his list. He decided to protect the cell phone with an additional password, which was: *****.
Just in case, he set up a second password to secure files containing, what he called, “personally strategic data.” He added both passwords into the cell phone, just in case.
One day, during a conversation with a certain lady, he accidentally scratched his beloved cell phone. Even though the scratch was tiny, it broke his heart and haunted him for two weeks. It drove Kedzierzyna of Tschekan to despair and to an after-therapy conclusion that he lived too intensely and needed to calm his frenzied mind. He was playing with the cell phone when by accident the top ten list of exotic places appeared.
“Nepal,” of Tschekan read, and two days later was sitting on a plane to Katmandu.
He left the cell phone in a luggage locker at the airport, so the side wouldn’t get scratched.
Three months later he was back, picked up the phone and couldn’t remember the password, which was: *****.
Soon, people noticed a tourist with a backpack, wandering around the park and repeating over and over an assortment of five-letter words. The man didn’t remember his name and wasn’t able to explain where he lived.
Puddle skin care
Dr Edward Perennial got his PhD degree in loyalistic algebra with considerable difficulty and considerable help from his brother, Dr. Perennial, who had gotten his PhD in loyalistic geometry two years earlier.
And how it often happens with the less street-smart savvy members of the academia, Dr Edward didn’t stay long at the university, or to use a more street-smart expression closer to life and the street – was kicked to the curb.
And when he was walking for the last time through the main plaza of the Piast University, pondering deep thoughts about the injustice of treating people according to the Valesa scale of street-smarts, he stepped into a puddle. It had rained two weeks ago and the capacity of the university’s drainage system was the same now as back in AD 1459.
So while standing in that vast, but not very deep puddle, Dr. Edward lost himself in his synaptic innards and didn’t even notice the students who walked by and laughed sarcastically at their former teacher, that’s how low his spirits had sunk. Neither did he notice at a small dog, belonging emotionally and lawfully to an elegant female professor from the Department of Westernmostentatious European Polonisation, who sat reading a newspaper on a nearby bench.
The doggie deposited several droplets of precious liquid from his tiny, pure-breed bladder into the puddle.
“Perennial wants to take roots! Too late, you short-lived perennial!” A student yelled out from a window somewhere. But really, it wasn’t a student at all, but the assistant lecturer Pisak in the department of loyalistic algebra, who was street-smart and savvy and took over Dr. Edward’s office, because he liked the color of the chair (inscrutable red).
Doctor Edward didn’t mind the assistant lecturer’s unpleasant behavior so much, but he did mind the unpleasant behavior of the assistant professor – Ms. Czeslawa Ceracz.
“An annual perennial for sale! Good price!” was coming down from a window of the department, but what finally brought Doctor Edward back to reality was Ms. Ceracz’s screechy laughter. Doctor Edward sincerely avoided her, and even more sincerely he wished she would trip up on the loyalistic-algebraic theory of Himko-Rybson.
Ms. Ceracz was less street-smart savvy than Pisak, but she knew how to use to her advantage the fact that he thought she liked him, which was not true, even though the woman wasn’t good-looking, but then again, neither was Pisak.
The Ceracz-Pisak wave had been rolling through the department’s vast interior for the past few months, and that resulted in a total abandonment of the professor by the very people who should have never turned their backs to display their well-worn pants, style Z.O Odra Wodzislaw 1951, to the world. Unfortunately, the vice-dean, who also thought that Ms. Ceracz fancied him, was among those who started to avoid the professor and walk backwards. All that lead to a confrontation regarding the Himko-Rybson theory, a confrontation that Doctor Edward did not survive, even though neither Himko, nor Rybson thought that Ms. Ceracz fancied them, because they were both long dead.
That way, a freshly fired doctor and a brother of world-renowned Dr. Perennial, landed in a puddle, an event which thrilled students sitting nearby, who promptly began to film it with their mobile phones with the intention of posting the footage on funnnyvideofilmsfrompoland.com.
“I got it! It’s gonna be a hit!” A young student, of psychology maybe, judging by his “I Want my Momma” t-shirt, yelled out.
An evil drill sergeant woke up in Edward. The last time the sergeant had woken up was in 1976, when his father was caught in-flagrante with a policewoman from the station in Gizajno, where they had lived at the time. The sergeant came and beat the living daylights out of the father, which prompted little Edward to run after the cop and kick him in the shins. An act of courage that the sergeant didn’t even notice. This time it was different:
Edward was lonely, unemployed, standing in a puddle, into which peed the dog of a woman he fancied, filmed and ridiculed, wearing wet shoes from a hypermart. And now he received an SMS with what? “Buy something for Lola’s zits.” Doctor Edward, feeling his helplessness turning into the drill sergeant’s revenge came up with an idea, which changed the direction of the skin care market all over the world.
“I will show yooooouuuuuu!” Edward cried out deep inside his soul with a battle cry of a future victor, and his emotions manifested themselves physiologically through the dilation of his left pupil by 6% and a very quiet, nasal “oouuu”.
Lola, Edward’s daughter, was a pimply teenager deeply insecure about her face. Her father kept bringing her various medical treatments and nothing had ever worked. This time he gave his daughter a small medicine bottle filled with brownish liquid.
“Tonic with the extract of an urban puddle,” he said and Lola ran to the bathroom to test the efficiency of the 137th acne treatment of her life.
“Thanks dad. I think it’s worked,” she said about a month later before going out to a club, and her father had a vague impression that there were more or less three zits less on his daughter’s face.
He imagined Czeslawa Ceracz using this liquid and kept dreaming for good.
About three months later, Lola’s friends began to regularly visit Doctor Edward begging for a sample of this miracle treatment, and he could barely keep up with the demand, especially since the summer was rather dry that year.
Half a year later, Edward’s friend from kindergarten, who was now an expert in loyalty programs for a chain of pleasure-domes, showed up at the Perennials’ house.
“You bring the know-how, I bring the marketing,” Olek said, and it was the beginning of a long monologue, because he was street-smart and verbally savvy. And when he finished, he asked:
“OK? So do we have a deal?”
“OK,” Edward answered, because he’d had enough.
Three months later, the company Perennial Cosmetics introduced at a chain of convenience kiosks a series of skin care products called “Puddle New Line”. The products were voted number one in a prestigious contest run by the “Style and Fashion” magazine, and received an endorsement from Wanda Dolniak, a well-known singer, which resulted in the increase of the manufacturer suggested retail price by 320%. After a name change to “Puddle Skin Care” and a contract with a chain of make-up shops Zedhwora, the brand reached an exclusive status and overtook other skin care innovations – extract of quails’ tonsils, essence of rutabaga and double C vitamin. The lady professor from the Department of Westernmostentatious European Polonisation began to use the products, but sadly Ms. Ceracz didn’t have enough time, because she was treated like crap by Pisak, and stopped taking care of herself in order to make him feel sorry.
And then, when everything was just wonderful (except maybe for Lola’s self-esteem, because her acne had returned), Olek showed up and said:
“You say nothing, just listen,” and began a monolog which lasted until 9AM the following morning.
“You get it?”
“Yeah,” Edward answered, because he’d had enough.
And just like that Olek sold the company, the name and all rights to a big make-up corporation, and made a killing on the deal. He gave Edward what he felt like, in other words, not that much. The corporation changed the name of the product to Dr Perenni’s Le Pudd Skin Care, and made an even bigger killing on it, especially in the US, where puddles are a thing of the past, because of very effective drainage systems.
And Doctor Edward Perennial? For about four and a half months he was more famous that his famous brother, but now was back up a shit creek without a paddle, pushed there by Olek who wanted more money, because he thought he had given Edward one zero too many (20 000 instead of 2 000). Lola ran away with her boyfriend to Ireland, and his wife was pissed and refused to make steamed dumplings.
And Doctor Perennial just stood there and when the evil drill sergeant woke up in him once again, he received an SMS.
Nose number 32
I Write Like says I wrote this story in Cory Doctorow’s style. It’s included in a free collection Password Incorrect.
Jolanta Moczydlowska, a former model in second-and-a-half rate fashion shows, unfulfilled MTV presenter and three times married of convenience fulfilled wife, didn’t like her nose. Sometimes it was too small, and sometimes too big, and sometimes not in the right place. Everything depended on the time of day, mood, and the number of mirrors in her line of sight.
It was an early late morning. In a beautiful villa of her fourth husband, the sun was peeking cheerfully into Jolanta’s bedroom, who whether she liked it or not, had to get up, because one, she didn’t like to sleep with the sun shining on her face (could cause zits), and two, because she had a facial appointment (so there wouldn’t be any zits). She took half an hour (which means an hour and a half) to get up, ate light breakfast and realized that today she wasn’t going to like the shape of her left nostril.
“Another wasted day,” the ex-model said to her reflection in a huge tv screen and switched the channel to a women’s talk-show:
“A new revolutionary, plastic surgery method has been developed, allowing for performing surgeries on one particular body part practically an infinite number of times. What’s more, the time between the procedures can be reduced to just three days, which for busy, modern women is certainly good news.”
The program continued with an interview with Dr la Berg from Switzerland, who opened the first clinic in the world, where this new revolutionary method named after him was being performed. The method was based on applying onto the wound a synthetically generated alpine calf’s fat tissue and covering the scar with multi-polymeric plasma, which facilitated the healing so rapidly it was noticeable to a naked eye.
Jolanta quickly dialed her husband’s number:
“Love, would you like me to be your Kassandra Lubbock?”
The future Kassandra flew to the La Berg Clinique two days later, but came back after a week, because she also had some minor shopping to do.
“And… what do you think?”
“Oh, my Kassandra,” the Fourth Husband said without paying attention. He was a respected lawyer defending discredited politicians, and as such he was very busy and didn’t normally pay attention to small, insignificant things.
“Not Kassandra, but Damonna, that singer. I changed my mind, and you should notice, you spent 150 thousand dollars on it.”
“Oh yes, that singer.”
To improve her mood, Jolanta flew back to Switzerland for another surgery.
“And now?”
“Wonderful, beautiful! Just don’t ask me, this beauty who has the most gorgeous nose on the planet, you know, that…” the Fourth Husband pretended he was trying to remember the name.
“The princess of Macaonaco!” Jolanta shouted, and for the next three days she felt as wonderful as the princess with the most beautiful nose in the world.
The wonderful feeling ended at a ladies’ gathering at a fitness club, where all her friends talked about the prominent nose (a la Depardieu) of Pawelec’s new wife, and Jolanta’s dainty nose wasn’t even noticed at all.
Again another flight to Switzerland. This time she was much better prepared. In foreign magazines she had read that snub prominent noses (but not as masculine anymore) would be in fashion this season, and that the wife of the president of Rumumbia ordered herself from the La Berg catalog, a nose listed as La Berg Shilouette 14.
“Awesome! You got a nose!” Her friends from Café Cuiudad admired her new acquisition, and Sylvia added: “I want one like that, too.”
They went together, Sylvia to get the La Berg Shilouette 14, and Jolanta to keep her company.
“And, what do you think now?” She asked the Fourth Husband after coming back from the clinic. “It’s a new model, La Berg Paco Rabanne.”
“Exquisite, as always, but could you please do me a favor and slow down for a bit with those nose things, because a new Orshe model just came out.”
This upset Jolanta enough to ask her Third Husband, who still loved her, to pay for a monthly stay at La Berg. And he did, and Jolanta changed noses every two days, because she couldn’t make up her mind. And each time she sent photos to her friends to get their opinion. Many were giving their opinions, and there were so many opinions and suggestions that Jolanta got depressed. In the end, doctor La Berg told her himself that the nose number 32 was the best.
Somewhat recovered emotionally, she came back hoping that her four-week-long effort would be appreciated by someone. The Fourth Husband said nothing of course, until the beautifully shaped nose with a fantastic set of sculpted nostrils, fell off her face and landed on the floor.
“OK, problem solved,” the husband announced, and then added, “if you want to sit in the Orshe for a while, here are the keys.”
Childult
I Write Like says I wrote this story in Chuck Palahniuk’s style. It’s included in a free collection Password Incorrect.
Benedykt Ossolinsky, age 39, began to grow childish.
On the first day of his midlife crisis, he stood in front of the mirror examining his receding hairline and wrinkles on his face. In that very moment, while staring at his reflection he found in his eyes that mad look he had last seen thirty years ago in a photograph taken at a tethered flying model competition. The photo was taken by Henryk the servant, when his little charge decided he wanted a red biplane model Curtiss Consolidated Skyhawk Cruisader 3A “Bingo Star”.
This new look was also noticed by his co-workers, who for the most part, considered him to be an infantile spoiled brat. It fit with their idea of a boss.
And Benedykt was indeed the boss, even though he himself couldn’t quite believe it. He was the head of a foundation for the self-promotion of the Ossolinsky family, well-known descendants of Polish-American aristocrats, engaged in business ventures there, and charity work here. The position was highly honorable and very prestigious.
Just as the employees didn’t like Benedykt, in equal measure Benedykt didn’t like his job. He considered it extremely stressful and felt it forced him to super-human sacrifices. Everything was arranged by the family as a penance for avoiding work. He had to go to the office at least three times a week for two full hours and entertain various smiling journalists, drink coffee with them and listen. He had to sign letters and open gifts from various companies hoping to win favors. And he had to play golf and attend social functions, movie premiers, shows and art exhibits. The family had only planned for three months of vacation time a year. Scandal! As a sign of protest he took to coming to the office wearing a t-shirt with the slogan “Attention, Baby!” on it.
All of these unfortunate circumstances resulted in Benedykt’s addiction to drugs, alcohol and sex.
“Luckily, one can be an addict in style,” he liked to repeat to himself as he inhaled another dose of funfetamine and washed it down with a Hot Benedictus cocktail.
To repeat after his father – Benedykt had everything and couldn’t appreciate it. And truly, the father was right, his son had already experienced everything, tried everything, and was interested in less and less. Not like when he was a child, when he was just discovering the world, and the parents let him do and have whatever he wanted. Including the red Curtiss biplane.
And that was exactly what Benedykt realized when he saw that wild look from thirty years ago.
The next day he noticed his skin was smoother, even though he didn’t apply his usual moisturizing cream the night before, because he was too preoccupied with getting addicted in a truly grand style.
“Listen, what happened to your wrinkle? You know, the one that kept me awake all night before the Charity Ball,” Ewelina asked, she was Benedykt’s new, eighteenth to date, fiancée and was crazy about looking good.
She was afraid that particular wrinkle on the face of her future husband will destroy the photo in the wedding announcement section of the newspaper, but fortunately, her parents arranged for photo-shopping at the editorial offices, so everything would turn out just fine.
“Not here and not coming back,” Benedykt answered mischievously realizing that he was absolutely convinced it was true.
“Ah, my Benedictino,” Ewelina the 18th fiancée said sweetly and looked at her man as if she fell in love with him all over again.
During the following days and weeks, Benedictino analyzed his look in the mirror and noticed more and more significant changes for the better. His hair returned to its college heyday, when he could use sugar paste to style himself a Mohawk, just like a certain punk band member, who always stood on the left and played on a brown guitar, which these days could be found in the basement of the Ossolinskys’ residence.
Thanks to the glorious return of the college hair, Ewelina was replaced by Marzena, the 19th Fiancée, who was only 20 years old, but the age difference was hardly visible and was still getting smaller. The only problem with Marzena was that she was tall and Benedictino was becoming shorter, thinner and his body proportions continued to change. He began to look like a teenager, and the family forbade him to go to work.
After a while Marzena left him, because next to him she felt old and fat. Which was OK with him really, as the majority of his time now was spent on playing computer games suitable for children aged 12 and up. In addition, his parents had to purchase the entire stock of a model plane shop for him, so Benedictino bambino could spent hours gluing models together with the help of old Henryk, who wasn’t really good at it at all – his hands were shaking too much. This became the subject of many pranks on the part of little Benny. Pranks, which drove the old servant to a nervous breakdown until the man decided to quit working for the Ossolinskys.
And little Benny went from model ships to model planes (but he didn’t want a red Curtiss this time), and finally to Blaster Blocks and Galactic Wars.
He also began to display interest in little girls. His parents, to avoid a scandal, locked baby Benny at the Noble Kozierobki estate, where he got to peep at his new nanny, Justyna, when she was in the shower.
His parents kept buying him smaller and smaller clothes and were happy – their own son fulfilled their great need for a grandson.
And Benny-bo at the age of 41 became the lovely adult baby just like in the photo taken at the flying model competition, and under the watchful eye of his parents, he was developing beautifully. He stopped riding his bike, stopped walking, stopped talking, and during auntie Helena’s name day party, he said for the last time: “Mama.”
After a while, he stopped crawling and sitting up. He became tiny, and his lovely skin was the envy of all ladies of documented aristocratic pedigree. Unfortunately, he also began to spit out his cream of wheat and throwing the spoon while being fed mashed celery, which should not happen to an adult man from a good family. This, as well as the fact that he peed during the night and had to wear disposable nappies, was a source of profound grief for his family.
“Ah, it’s not so bad. Grandpa Thaddeus had the same condition, and that was back in the days of cloth diapers,” Bennicito’s father tried to cheer himself up.
After a while, during an event for the Polish diaspora in America, little Benidicticino-baby-boo began to latch onto his mother’s breast, and that was simply appalling.
Maybe out of shame the infant began to curl up with his legs touching his chin.
After a few weeks he fell out of even the smallest disposable diaper for newborns.
A day after that, he disappeared, or rather ceased to be visible. He became an embryo. A little embryo of a grown man in the midst of his midlife crisis.
An inquisition-style massage
The greatest hit of the new health season turned out to be an innovative type of a relaxing massage, incorporating, of course to a lesser extent, certain methods of tortures used on religious heretics in medieval times. The creator of this unusually successful way of reducing stress was one Antoni Elkbellows, a man possessing a long and confirmed by genetic studies lineage, according to which he was a direct descendent of a respectable family of magnates from nearby Pila – the Oxbellows. The Oxbellows were known for their deep faith, which they changed frequently, because they were open to new things. During their time at the royal court, they had introduced the so-called preparatory tortures, which were to sensitize the prisoners suspected of heresy, to the relativity of questions about faith, asked during the torture sessions proper, which few of the prisoners had survived, in any case.
Using such a rich family experience, Dr Elkbellows developed a 42 minute Inquisition-style set (that was the time an average prisoner-heretic could survive), containing among other things: wrist stretching, hanging by the fingers, 78 degree elbow twisting, dislocation of the spine, intensive ribcage massage, whole-body stretching using the Oxbellows-Aearial table, centrifugal thigh bending, circular manipulation of the neck, deep massage of the pelvis, hammering of the extremities, pulling under the Oxbellows Up-Down table, buttock slapping, and the trademark Elkbellows massage – stoning of stress-tensed muscles.
In the first ever in Poland inquisitional massage spa located on Saint Street, this motto was hung outside: “Even if you have no stress in your life, you will still get rid of it.” This was a creative interpretation of a famous, and reflecting the spirit of those times, maxim of Bożydar Oxbellows, who had told each and every one of his prisoners “Even if you are not practicing heresy, you will still die for it.”
Soon, the spa experienced a flood of clients eager for new sensations. One of them was Simon Klepacki, the boss of a trendy new disco “Metrosexual Shelter” and several other nightclubs providing pleasures of the whole body, and who in the last few months experienced a mental burnout from trying to procure Lola Thigh – as a singer for the club and as a woman for himself.
Simon’s appointment was scheduled for 3:18PM. Of course he was late, but only by 3 minutes, for which he received a harsh reprimanding look from an elegant receptionist dressed up as Princess Zabobona. When he entered treatment room number 3, called the Chamber of Absolution, he saw the masseuse wearing a uniform designed to look like burlap rags.
“Please sit down and be quiet,” the masseuse, who Simon already named her Dobrava, said tersely. “You will now watch an instructional film to see just what kind of stress the people in medieval ages had to deal with.”
A set of stone doors in the wall slid to the side to reveal a screen on which various torture scenes began to appear. When the Chamber of Absolution filled with the cries of tortured heretics, Simon closed his eyes in fear, and Dobrava got to work.
First, through rapid wrist crushing she removed Simon’s stress caused by doubts about the honest intentions of the accountant at “Metrosexual Shelter”. That stress tried to fight to be noticed by hanging itself on the stone wall to the left of the torture table, but soon disappeared without a trace.
Using a deep ribcage massage, the alluring masseuse freed Simon’s body from the frustration caused by the inability to drive his motorcycle at the maximum speed listed on the speedometer, a failure which undermined his feelings of pride. With fast nearspine motions, accompanied by groans from the tv speakers and Simon’s vocal cords, she got out of him and threw by the wall the anxiety caused by the professional attractiveness of Lola Thigh. Lola Thigh sang and preformed nightly at a venue of Klepacki’s major competitor, also a Klepacki (don’t confuse these two, the fact that both had the same last name was purely coincidental, and besides, the other one had a different first name – Jacek). The stress caused by Lola Thigh – the singer, left Simon’s tired body permanently, but not without some effort on the part of the inquisitorial masseuse. Likewise with the sadness after the loss of the best girls from the Night Fusion club, who went to further their careers in Deutcheczland at a resort in Karlsbad Vary. Tiffany was really great, and maybe even loved him. Now, the stress connected with her was rambling by the wall trying to find a way to re-enter Simon, who was fighting with the images on the tv screen and his growing interest in Dobrava.
Dobrava very skillfully moved on to pulling under the table. Never before had Simon experienced something like this. He wanted to join the cries of the medieval people on tv who were getting their toes chopped off, but he valiantly held back. A pity, because he was supposed to show his pain. It would have been much easier for Dobrava to pull out of him the angst caused by his shrinking, for four years already, member. Simon, when he saw on the floor the tension caused by his phallus, couldn’t believe its huge size.
It was time for the most important part of the massage – the stoning. Stone after stone, with the greatest dedication the inquisitorial masseuse in the Chamber of Absolution on Saint Street, dragged out of Simon all dirty and lewd thought about Lola Thigh (name on the ID card – Janina Chubby). Soon the whole cell was filled with a stuffy erotically-physiological atmosphere, and a single, abstract frustration about L.T. was trying to fight for survival outside the body of its former carrier.
“Stoning was a form of death sentence for those who did not deserve a beheading,” the voiceover on the torture film said at the very momement when Dobrava began to stone the sternum, where a scandalously large number of sex scenes with L.T., which had never happened, gathered.
After the stoning, there was a brief break during which Simon realized that sex with L.T. was worthless to him now. He felt freed from all sin and stress, and the only thing on his mind was a quick physical romance with his so effective inquisitress, who after 39 minutes he could imagine now totally naked.
But even this newly forming stress was noticed by Dobrava, and through a circular twisting of the neck, cast out of Simon with a nearly super-human speed.
The timer hidden in a showpiece resembling a toe-breaking device went off.
The session came to a happy end, and the voice on tv concluded:
“No actors were harmed during the making of this film, only four stuntmen suffered accidents with various degrees of complications.”
Simon planned to visit his club after the session, to relax a little with a drink and a girl. Now he didn’t feel like it at all.
He thought that he could visit, and for quite a long while, but somewhere totally different.
Kefir on a very bad day
Waldemar Szary, a food technician at the OSM “Paziocha”, was having a very bad day – the kind of a very bad day, which normally comes after one of those very good days. A day, when nothing works, and when life kicks you in the ass harder than your friends at work. A day when you remember your innocent childhood and would like to return to those times, when there were no very bad days coming after very good days. A day, when you look in the mirror and realize that you’re not sure you know the person staring impudently back at you with blood-shot eyes. A day, when you’d seriously consider separating your mind from your body. Separating, at least until when the body stops causing you grief.
In other words, Waldemar Szary had a massive hangover.
And when he had a hangover everything was always falling from his hands, which in his case could have serious repercussions. That’s why the chief food technician in the leading dairy cooperative in the country was reclining behind a giant mixing vat and desperately wanted to forget about the negative stimuli on his nerve cells caused by the 83 kilograms of his body.
“Szary to the manager!” The sore specialist for new flavor development heard as if through a heavy acoustic fog.
“Szary, you will make me a new product. Gotta be new and winning, not like those earlier super sweet yogurts, total crap. A French sourmilky delegation is arriving today, and I need to have something in an hour. Now get to work, time is running out. And it’s your time, not mine,” the production manager was half-shouting, which was typical of him during very bad days coming after very good days.
The last very good day for both of them was spent at Miss Elwira’s, the accountant, name day party. Every year she was throwing a party and everybody would always come, because if they didn’t, she’d forget to transfer salaries to their bank accounts. So both the manager and the technician got drunk on the same vodka, from the same bottle even, in each other’s arms, about which they didn’t want to be reminded.
“New product, new product in one hour… last time I had three,” Szary complained and with certain difficulty opened the ingredient storage cabinet. A week ago he received a shipment of new flavors from the French Colonies. A row of shining new cans tempted him with labels and optimism: fruit a la mango, exotic fruit with bacon, fruity mushroom, vegetable-carrot cellulose, natural flavor of home made yogurt, eccentric raspberry flavored orange and many others.
Time was running out and Szary slowly began to work, knowing that the last 45 minutes he had to spend on testing the new flavor, an activity which always ended up in the bathroom. He was convinced that the manager gave him this task today simply to make his life totally miserable after the shindig at Elwira’s. But what could he do? Into a small vat he poured with a shaking hand some fresh yogurt from two weeks ago. For his experiments, he used exclusively this yogurt, it didn’t provoke any unexpected gastric sensations like the natural ones, without those stabilizing E-numbers (E298, E301, E980). He poured some more, because he had spilled before, and now he spilled again, and then he had enough and went behind the mixing vat to recline for a while and forget about his 83 kilograms.
He was stirred to life by the drone of the secretary’s voice:
“Szary to the manager!”
The technician, wanting to escape into tomorrow, regained consciousness and jumped on his feet, which were not all that stable. He flung himself from the cabinet to the equipment table. He poured some kefir into himself, and then by mistake into the vat. He was shaking as he frantically opened cans with flavors, he knew he had two minutes, because then, the whole company would hear through the speakers:
“Szary on the carpet to the CEO!”
He added one flavor and mixed it in, and then another, but he spilled it. He didn’t check the label on the third one, but added it, too. From experience, he knew that the less defined the flavor, the better the manager liked it.
“Maybe it’s not such a bad idea with this kefir. The manager has a hangover, too,” he briefly thought when he was pouring in additional ingredients.
He added more kefir and home-made kefir flavor, but not too much, because his hands were shaking, then he still had to mix it and add a few E-numbers. That went quick, he already had a tried and true mix of additives, preservatives, and stabilizers ready, which had always worked just fine.
“Szary on the carpet to the CEO!”
And the technician from the OSM “Paziocha” ran to the office, where the production manager was already waiting for him.
He took a deep breath:
“Kefir with a multi-fruit and multi-vegetable yogurt flavor,” he said with gloomy enthusiasm and leaned against the wall awaiting the “if looks could kill” firing squad.
“Gimme a spoon,” the CEO said, and like a true connoisseur began to sniff the mixture first. Then he tried it and asked the manager to do the same.
“So,” he said after a while, which in most cases meant it was OK.
“Yeah, you did good this time, Szary. This is good, right?” The manager half-whispered to the CEO, as he always did on his very bad days.
“So, yeah. I like. And the Frenchies will too. And when are they coming, those frat-eaters?”
“Oh yes, only the day after after after tomorrow, and maybe even after,” the manager replied and began to eat quickly to change the subject, “hmm… good, those multi-flavor ones.”
“Good. Now we gotta make some yogurt with a natural kefir flavor with pieces of fresh fruit, you know, those from that delivery from three years back, that’s been sitting all this time, because it was too sweet,” the CEO announced and Szary now knew for sure that the day would only be one of those very bad ones. As opposed to very, very, very bad.
The robotic intelligence test
Anna was afraid like never before. Another employee evaluation day was coming up. The most important part of it was a test of a robotic intelligence RQ, determining the level of robotization of a human mind regarding reliability in performing standard tasks, speed of work performed, error ratio, length of work performed without the need to restart, and the number of tasks performed simultaneously.
In the last test Anna barely managed to stay within the limit, but right now she had problems with her father in law who’s been luring her husband into alcohol, and with her husband who’s been luring the father in law into drugs.
“Don’t worry Anna, it’ll be alright. Lately they fired only twenty, and they supposedly lowered the RQ bottom line, otherwise they’d be no one left,” Rajmund tried to cheer her up.
She did a dry run. Scored 145. Five points short.
“I’m scared,” Anna said quietly.
“You’ll see, you’ll come back in a few minutes and it will all be over,” Rajmund was telling her in a confident voice.
“Easy for you to say. You scored 190, and besides, you’re not as old as I am.”
“Don’t be so negative. Twenty three years is… not that old,” confidence left Rajmund’s voice. She was right, most individual telemarketers were below twenty. And supposedly each year reduced the RQ by five or ten points.
Four infinite minutes went by.
Anna came out and breathed a sigh of relief mixed with a resolution to once and for all get done with marihuash-flavored alcohol.
“So? Did it go OK?” Rajmundo looked happy, because Daria sitting next to him had exactly the opposite intentions.
“I think so…” Anna barely began to answer when she was called to the verification office.
“I’m sorry to say that you have not reached the lower limit.”
“How come? I wrote about 160 individual SMSs of 20 characters each in one minute?”
“That’s correct. 166 exactly. With no mistakes, at that. But since last week the RQ standard has been set at 170. It was posted there outside… I’m sorry. Your pink slip is waiting at the reception. Thank you. Next!”
An impulse purchase
I Write Like says it’s Douglas Adams style. The story is included in a free collection Password Incorrect.
Balbina Wachowiakowa was doing shopping with her husband and son at the veryhypermarket. Their cart was already half-filled, and they only just reached the food section.
“Mom! Mom! Look! Cubicar! Cubicar!” Rafik shouted while looking at a meter-long model of a Formula Zero car with all kinds of bells and whistles, whose three-volume user’s manual fitted nicely into a small 20-liter trunk in the rear of the bolide.
“No Rafcio, we can’t afford it, we still need to buy enough laundry detergent to last us three months, because at our local hypermarket it costs 25 groszy more per package.”
“Mother is right,” father said matter-of-factly.
“OK,” Rafik changed tone from childish to adult, “I take the white-green one and we’re out of here.”
“Rafik. No! We have other things to buy!”
“Mother is right,” father said and suddenly turned with the cart into an isle with home improvement equipment.
“Balbi, look. Ecological multi-drillo-screwdriver!” Felicjan, the father, said suddenly when he saw a promotional kit with a set of “three lifetimes guarantee” drill bits.
“No, Felik.”
“But I must tighten that screw in the cupboard. You know, that in the upper right corner, in our second storage room.”
“Felik. End of discussion. We have expenses. Don’t you remember? Today we’re going to auntie Basia’s birthday party.”
“I remember, but…”
“Mother is right,” Rafik interrupted matter-of-factly.
When they got to register number 221 with their fork-lift cart with a trailer, three hours and 59 minutes had passed since they first entered through the gate of hall number 3.
“Not bad. Only three hours today,” father said matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, because mom spent the whole hour picking out a gift for aunt Basia.”
“Not aunt, but auntie,” mother said.
She picked out, in the end, a totally useless 300-piece dinner set. The aunt had already two of them, and she lived alone, after her third husband and seventh live-in boyfriend had left her.
“Is that all?” The cashier asked after scanning all the items, and before Balbina could answer, began to recite from memory:
“And maybe I could interest you in a five-passenger car in an ecological matt color, with seven cushions, four-climate zone AC, engine ready for the installation of an organic propulsion drive, and with twenty additional options in a standard version.”
“Only twenty,” disappointed Rafik asked.
“Thank you, we can’t afford it,” father said matter-of-factly.
“And the trunk? Is it big?” Balbina asked.
“Err, maybe…” the cashier answered and continued with her memorized speech:
“We’re offering a convenient purchase option in installments of 20 zloty a month, or every other month. The available colors are: Bahama spruce, Roman birch doublemat, grassy glamour with the upholstery in either mountain moss, or exotic beach.”
“And the trunk? Big?” Mother asked again to keep up appearances.
“Err… I don’t know.”
“OK, we’ll take. You see, we’ve bought quite a lot today. Grassy glamour, exotic beach, monthly payments.”
“Great, here are the keys and the registration. Insurance in the dashboard compartment. The car is parked in the back on the left. The license plates will activate five minutes after the engine is turned on. Happy driving.”
“Thank you,” Balbina answered and a moment later added:
“Oh yes, I’d like a lighter, please.”
The cashier wrinkled her nose and began to query her computerized register system.
“Lighter, lighter… Unfortunately, we do not carry this product.”
Happiness in a four-pack
I Write Like says I wrote this story in David Foster Wallace’s style. It’s included in a free collection Password Incorrect.
A leading world corporation in the field of extremely rapidly degradable products, Hipsi Co. decided to introduce onto the Polish market a new, revolutionary product – ingestible energizing happiness, under the brand name Happi. Expecting a huge marketing success, the company also made a decision to simultaneously release it in all possible variations: as an energy bar, diet chips, effervescent tablets and a carbonated beverage. This last variant, as the main representative product, was to be sold in a four-pack.
Happiness Happi appeared on store shelves accompanied by the largest in history advertising campaign starring numerous Polish and foreign celebrities. For the first time, the TV stations reached the state when commercials were shown 24 hours a day. When changing channels, it as impossible not to stumble upon, for example, a two-minute ad starring the actress Gabriela Starszalowska, who was convincing the viewers that it wasn’t nude film roles, but Happi beverages, that brought her real happiness.
It was a marketing hit. The Hipsi company riding on the wave of success decided to promote a couple of new versions: a magic tongue-coating powder and multi-flavor bullion cube. The general manager of Hipsi was immediately promoted to the position of the CEO for the regions of Central Europe and Afroasia.
After three months the sales fell rapidly – almost reaching zero in the month of M4+.
A series of consumer market studies was conducted. The main conclusion was: customers don’t want to be happy. They are much more effectively motivated by misfortune.
The Hipsi company decided to develop a new product, with a working name O’Sorry’Mio.
At the same time, a small firm from Kolatkowo began selling regionally boxes of chocolates called “That’s Sad” in dark unsweetened chocolate, and “That’s Sad” – economy pack. This was nothing else than unhappiness packaged as multi-flavor chocolates produced locally from natural domestic ingredients.
After two months, the unhappiness from Kolatkowo caught interest of several major hypermarket chains and the chocolates began to be produced under license. Their popularity surpassed the wildest expectations of the company’s owner from Kolatkowo, who in a fit of happiness, threw himself off a bridge.
The sales grew even without any advertising.
Soon the “That’s Sad” chocolates became the most popular birthday, name day and holiday gift in Poland.
Coma longer than expected
According to I Write Like this story has the style of William Gibson. Get it for free with Password Incorrect collection.
It was on a Wednesday evening, during the seventh episode of “The Murderers from a Residential Cell”, when a handsome man from the early-reanimation unit fell into a coma, that is, he couldn’t be woken up after the surgery using the usual methods, and a couple of unusual ones, as well. Nurse Janina wanted to call his family but a cell phone in the patient’s locker was turned off and nobody knew the code. The patient slept sweetly, and no one could have suspected that it wasn’t a normal sleep full of wet dreams, but a dangerous coma, which would last longer than expected.
“The patient surely maybe will wake up…” Dr Kaliszewski began to say during the morning rounds three days later, “…in about three days to three years.”
Everyone sighed emphatically sharing the pain.
The head of the ward looked at a young doctor and told him sternly:
“Watch him, so he won’t go into shock when he wakes up.”
“But will he really wake up?” A patient from the bed by the window asked aggressively in a tone of voice full of purposeful grudge towards the health system, because for three months it hasn’t been able to cure him from a simple case of la Boiusset’s flu.
The handsome patient, the whole ward knew his name was Mieczyslaw, slept like a baby, longer and longer, and as everyone knew time worked to his disadvantage. The people felt sorry for the man. They talked about him when they were at home and on call. Such odd times, that the one who slept, had it the worst. They thought about how he would react when he returned to the world of the awake.
“He may not survive,” said the Patient by the Window, who knew The Sleeper a little, because he had been sharing the room with him for the already mentioned three months. “His life wasn’t going too well. His girlfriend had dumped him, he got fired, his bank card was cancelled and he was evicted. And now they here put him in a coma.”
“Who?” asked the normally silent Patient on the Specialized Life Support System.
The Sleeper woke up during one of the following episodes of “The Murderers”.
“The Murderers?” He asked with a sweetly sleepy voice for which all the women at the New Diseases Hospital would gladly have given an ovum.
Nurse Janina came running first. With the heart pounding in her chest, and a big smile on her face, she put another self-sticking IV in Mieczyslaw’s arm. She didn’t have the courage to look him straight in the eye.
“Nurse, you seem to have gotten younger since yesterday?” No Longer Sleeping remarked.
“Ah yes, I had a little plastic surgery on my forehead, so it would wrinkle to the left, such is a trend this season, I can’t help it.”
“But it looks great on you. And all this since yesterday?” Mieczyslaw was honestly surprised. He looked around and noticed that the patients in other beds wouldn’t look him in the eye, either.
“And also an intracheek scar correction, but that’s just purely cosmetic,” Janina added, wanting to talk about herself for as long as possible, or rather, to not talk about That.
“Lukasz,” Mieczyslaw said towards the window, “is there something I should know?”
“I know nothing, I’m only here with the flu, I don’t know, others can answer, I’m just lying here nicely and watching TV right now,” the Patient by the Window barked under his nose.
“And what’s the date today?” No Longer Sleeping asked suspiciously.
The situation was saved by the young doctor – Kaliszewski. He entered the room happy as a lark, which normally accompanied him when he was happy as one. Now the lark was somewhat tense and you could feel it in the air.
“Hello Mieczyslaw? And how are we feeling today? Good, I suppose, because sleep’s the best medicine, as the old saying goes, and who cares that it’s banned. Ha! And happy as a lark, I see!”
“And how am I supposed to feel? Good is right. And thank you for your kind words. But… excuse me, if I may make a comment, but I thought you were a dark haired guy, and not a baldie.”
“What can I say, time does that to people. Unfortunately, I’m a victim of a panenergetic diet.”
“I haven’t heard.”
“A totally new thing. And so it happens that I am one of those, coming once in a hundred years, who suffers from side effects. But I’m glad it’s not finger dwarfism, like it happened to one of my doctor friends. But Mieczyslaw, there is one thing I’d like to talk to you about.”
“I see that you’d like, and I think I know what this is going to be about. I slept longer than I should have.”
Nurse Janina began to silently weep and an invisible tear ran down her corrected intracheek, and a nurse’s aid walking down the corridor with a diffusion vacuum bedpan froze in her steps.
“Something like that,” replied bald Dr Kaliszewski.
No Longer Sleeping took out his cell phone and entered the code.
“Not going to work. The numbers changed to a seventeen-digit code and two phone companies had merged, and everyone’s got new PINs with four symbols, of which two must be letters from “g” to “r” entered in an AZ-Max mode.”
“Aha,” Mieczyslaw said quietly and the nurse’s aid would have let herself be transferred to an avian disease ward in return for being able to wipe away all the sorrow she saw in No Longer Sleeping’s eyes. “And did anyone asked for me, sent mail, left a contact number?”
“This we unfortunately don’t know. A while ago we changed the internet-phone PBX system to comply with WebTel 4.0.5, because, you know, no sane person would stay with the ancient Web 3.0.”
“Aha,” Mieczyslaw said quietly, and Janina squeezed his hand, and then stroked it gently without realizing what she was doing, simply because she needed to connect with this poor man.
“I also need to tell you about the mandatory change of ID documents, which you were not able to do before the deadline. It was done to unify both the real and virtual identity, so you could pay taxes either here or there. I’m afraid you will have to pay the administrative penalties. Your cards probably don’t work either, because the size of the reader has changed. And if you had a car, you don’t have a car, because now the fuel comes from the power of the energy circle,” bald Klimaszewski was gaining speed.
“Ah, what the heck, let me finish with it. There are no wheat rolls anymore, because they’re banned, and that newspaper which you still have on your side table, is no longer published, and all other paper ones are gone too. Now it’s only news on screen. And the world of coffee came to an end, because now there is coffee-flavored liquid-like synflex. And the DVD format is gone, too. Only VDV now, and I won’t be able to watch my beloved ‘Long Time Ago on Earth’ anymore.”
Klimaszewski began to cry and other patients, too, and when the head of the ward came and realized what had happened, he just waved his hand with dwarfed fingers.
“So, I woke up in a different world, is that what you want to suggest?” Mieczyslaw said. Nurse Janina sobbed now openly and from the hallway came the sound of loud and uncontrollable crying of the aide’s and several other nurses.
At that moment, a male voice on the TV interrupted:
“You’ve just watched the twenty seventh episode of The Murderers from a Residential Cell.”
“Twenty weeks?” Mieczyslaw couldn’t believe it, and his brown eyes got so big the room went half-dark.
“Two,” the Patient on the Specialized Life Support System answered.
“They show them ten at a time,” Lukasz added full of sorrow.
Mieczyslaw took Janina’s hand and looked her warmly in the eyes, so warmly that quasi-liquid synflex wanted to become real coffee.
“Then we’ll start all over again,” he said and the room got a little bit brighter.
Recently updated Polish tech-absurdist and mobile fiction writer 3.0 beta. Addicted to ebooks and technology. Guest writer at 
Loading ...
