Chapter 4 of Metagopolis

Chapter 4

It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darker interior of the store, where artificial white lights replaced the golden sunlight. He passed two workers, one a small, angular man with a razor-thin mustache and the other brown-haired and middle-aged, stress epitomized in his face and in his every movement. Each of these stood at the head of a long line of customers waiting to purchase their products. Like the atmosphere outside, the store was full and busy.

He was about to walk further into it when another hand suddenly gripped his arm and jerked him away. So sudden and fierce was the grip that Gregor thought it was Clooney again, but no, it was the stressed out man. This, as it said on his name badge, was Tom Basket himself.

“Hey look, it’s Gregor, everybody!” Tom announced to the line with a clearly and dutifully feigned cheeriness. “He’s going to be the one to help you now.” And then, in a subtle whisper laced with lethal aggravation, “When you get the lines down, come to my office. We need a word.”

Gregor stood there, frozen, as he took in the faces of the customers and the strained smile of Tom Basket. They were expecting him to take over the job Tom had just vacated. This is when Gregor realized in full force exactly who he was to these people and to this town — and it horrified him.

But just as Tom was pushing Gregor to where he had just been standing, a lucky thing happened. Tom Basket caught sight of another employee just a few aisles away, still within hearing range.

“Randolph!” he called out. The employee turned. “Come over here. I need you here.” And then to Gregor, in a low voice, “Let’s go back to the office right now.” And then, to the customers, with the cheerful grin: “Randolph’s actually gonna be the one to help you. Here he comes.”

As Randolph obeyed his boss, Tom began his walk to the back, Gregor right behind.

“How could a man with a name like ‘Tom Basket’ ever be so angry?” one customer whispered. “It’s such a cheerful name...”

Tom was already several steps ahead of Gregor, who found himself walking unusually fast to keep up. They soon arrived at the office in the back corner of the store; Tom sat behind a desk covered by papers and files and Gregor across from him.

In his mind right now Gregor was attempting to formulate his story of that morning, and in such a fashion as to be believed. But in this situation, he, too, was feeling overwhelmed by stress, not to mention nervousness, and he found that he was not terribly adept and thinking under so much pressure. And so he sat there, waiting for the lecture he assumed was coming, with no idea how to answer it or articulate his reasons for not doing whatever Tom Basket was expecting him to do and be.

Tom, upon sitting, leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his lap. But with the opening of his mouth came the opening of his hands, and all manner of gestures animated the words he was saying.

“What do I say? What can I say? Gregor, do you understand the stress of frustrated expectations? I don’t think you do. I don’t think you realize what we go through up here when we expect a certain situation to be the case, and then it isn’t. And what I mean by that is that you are paid to be here, and then you aren’t actually here. And then, as a result, our own plans fall apart and we have to improvise. And you know the thing about improvisation — the customers don’t understand, and they don’t care, and then they suffer in silence, and then that glare! When they look at you as if all these long lines and lack of customer service — and that’s the most important thing, Gregor, remember customer service, always remember customer service — they can’t have the impression that we don’t care, that we aren’t doing our best to serve them. Because I am doing my best to serve them! And so is everybody else out there, and I appreciate their time and skills, and that’s why I pay them. So whose fault is it that the customers aren’t getting the best possible service? The service, by the way, that they deserve, for shopping at Tom Basket’s. Because that is who and what they blame: Tom Basket. It’s my name they drag through the dirt when they tell their friends and neighbors not to shop at Tom Basket’s. My name, my own self. This little store is who I am, and it is what I do. So when they knock the store they knock me. And thus I do my absolute best to make every aspect of this store the best it can possibly be, and that includes my employees, and that then includes you. So when we expect you to be here, Gregor, and you aren’t, or at least not at the allotted hour...what was your schedule for today, anyway?”

Gregor shrugged in silent apology. Tom Basket frowned, put on a pair of reading glasses, and picked up a piece of paper from the corner of his desk.

“It says here...oh.”

He looked up from the paper, his eyes peering over the glasses.

“Oh,” he said again. “Um... well you aren’t scheduled for today. You requested this day off. Why are you here then?”

Again, a shrug. “I didn’t know where else to go...”

It was then that both Tom and Gregor discovered that the door had not been closed all the way, because it opened a few inches without a turn of the knob. Gregor’s cat walked in — totally silently, as cats are prone — and jumped onto his lap.

“Who’s this?”

The cat leaped up to Gregor’s shoulder — “Uh — oh, this is Macata” — and then onto Tom Basket’s desk, and was now rubbing up against the latter’s outstretched hand, which then went on to pet him.

“I like cats, Gregor. I’ll let you keep him around. Maybe he’ll cheer up the customers, too.” Macata was purring now. Tom was softening. He rubbed his forehead as he scratched the back of the cat’s neck. His face looked pained. “It’s just the stress. I’m sorry for my manner. It’s the biggest sale day of the year, and when my employees don’t — well, again, that’s not your fault. You weren’t even scheduled today, and then you came in anyway.”

Tom stood up and Macata leaped back onto the table and then all the way back up to Gregor’s shoulder in one continuous bound. Tom held out his hand to Gregor, and they shook across the table.

“So thanks, and I apologize,” Tom said, and went to the door to see Gregor out. “Now go out there and do your job.”

Gregor, after two hesitant steps out the door, stopped and turned around.

“Do you have any more questions, Gregor?” Tom said with a sigh.

“Yes,” Gregor answered.

“Fire away.”

“What exactly is my job?”

Tom looked at him blankly and let forth another heavy sigh as he shut the door on Gregor without another word.

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Gregor went home that night by the light of the moon, his cat at his feet and bird in the sky. He stared almost constantly at the black cloud in the sky. It hung there still, alone. No other clouds obscured the moonlight from illuminating the whole of the wide fields around him. When he entered his cottage he did not switch on the lamp, but instead withdrew his notebook from his satchel, flopped onto his bed next to the cat, and started writing by the moonlight pouring copiously through the strange window.

I’m a cashier. That’s who I am. I point a little orange scan gun at things people want to buy and take their money so they can leave with their products as honest people. That’s what I do. That’s all. And I wouldn’t even be qualified for that job if Daniel Clayton Clooney hadn’t told me about money.

It’s a job. It gets me money. Money so I can buy food and other things. Things that keep me alive. Alive so I can continue working as a cashier. So I continue to get more money.

I exist for a wise and glorious purpose. That’s what something in my head keeps telling me. Before it pounded. Now, after spending the whole day at the store, it’s just a whisper. I don’t understand its message. I feel very ordinary. I’m just a cashier. Just another cog that keeps the system running. I don’t change anything. I don’t make a difference. I have no special skills or talents or abilities. How could I have a wise and glorious purpose?

I still hear it, like a constant music in my mind, playing softly, very softly, and I wonder why. The words must be true, somehow. Or else I’m crazy. Then again, that could be it. Something made me lose my memory. Something made me forget everything. Maybe it was that same thing that makes me hear those words now.

I wonder if I could ever forget them. It’s them that really torture me, not just the job. If it were just the job then I could accept it. But I constantly feel like there’s something else. And all of today I just got little feelings that reinforced that. I felt it particularly powerful at the end of the day, when I saw the sunset through the entranceway of the store. It made me stop everything and just stare. The sky was hot pink. The sun was a bright, searing red. Blue clouds streaked across the sky, like from an artist’s brush. I felt something then, like the sun was calling to me. In that brief moment it confirmed to me the message of those words. But now that it’s over, it’s easy to doubt.

A cashier with a wise and glorious purpose. That’s what Gregor Townsend is, anyway. Am I Gregor Townsend? Everyone seems to think I am. Whatever, whoever, whyever I am, I’m not the Gregor Townsend that was employed at Tom Basket’s Hardware Emporium. This is not a life I’d choose to live.

He looked at the one-word questions he had written at the start of the day, and wrote some answers next to them.

Who? — Gregor Townsend, a cashier

Where? — Middleton, Tom Basket’s Hardware Emporium

Why? — to sleep and eat

After staring at them a while he scratched them out.

Those aren’t the real answers. I am not who I am right now. I want to know where I came from, the real me, and where I’m going, where I need to go. And above all, I want to know why. I want to know what that wise and glorious purpose is.

He glanced up from the notebook to the window. Then from the window to the wall with the lines of shadow. The tree outside his cottage hindered enough light to make them invisible. He made to turn on the lamp next to his bed —

And the new light illuminated something on his nightstand, something he had not noticed that morning. It was small and round like a ball, made of glass or some other transparent, light-refracting material. In its center floated a red orb, like an egg yolk. After examining it for another minute, he set it back down and stood to close the window shutters. Before shutting them all the way, however, he chanced to see Buzby, the little blue songbird, dancing in the tree.

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He woke up to his cat on his chest, its green eyes staring straight into his. He rolled his eyes to the right and found the glass ball. To his surprise the red orb had changed. Now encased in the ball were long, drooping petals of a red flower, the same color the orb had been, their ends touching and pointing in a single direction. He picked it up and found it warm to the touch. He also discovered something strange about it: no matter how he handled it — rolling it over and over in his hands, shaking it, tossing it gently onto the bed — the flower inside did not move; the petals remained fixed in their direction.

They pointed north.

When it was time, he took this ball with him to work. The whole time it continued to point him in the exact direction of Tom Basket’s Hardware Emporium. Once there, the flower swirled into the red yolk again. And when it was time to go home, it pointed him back. He did not know what to make of this.

He lived simple but tiring days. He came by every day and did it all over again. And again and again and again. And after a time he started to learn and remember names.

“Hello, Mrs. Nebeker. How are you doing today?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“Looks like we got some tape,” — BEEP — “some scissors,” — BEEP — “a couple of cleaning solutions,” — BEEP, BEEP — “and a bulb.” BEEP. “That’ll be all today?”

“Yes sir, it surely will.”

“There you go, and have a nice day.”

“Thanks, you too.”

“And here, looks like some sweet-smelling flowers for Mr. Williams’s garden. How are you today, Mr. Williams?”

“Fine, thanks.”

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

“That’ll be all?”

“Yep.”

“There you go, and have a nice afternoon.”

“Take it easy.”

“Will do, thanks. Just the two buckets of paint today, ma’am?”

“Yes...”

“Long day?”

“Oh yes. The final errand of the evening.”

BEEP. BEEP.

“Well there you go, and have a good one. Get some rest. Mr. Willer, a magdrill this late at night?” BEEP, ka-thunk. The sound of security deactivation. “Have a good night, sir.”

“Good night.”

He scanned hammers, he scanned wrenches, he scanned saws — bricks, wood, concrete, nails, screws, dowels, more hammers, more wrenches, more saws, drills, screwdrivers...

Days passed. Weeks passed. Maybe months. The days became indistinguishable. After a time he could not remember how long it had been since he had first awoken. The futility of his life wearied him, nagged him. He was alone in a cold and dreary world.

I am a stranger here. I do not belong. I’ve known this from the first day, and the feeling has never changed. But this all raises a question: do I want to belong? Do I want to be satisfied by this kind of life?

I was at a store meeting this morning. Everyone had to attend. Tom was giving out awards. I see these people laughing with each other, clapping for the winners. They know each other. They like each other. I want that. I want to have friends. I want to be recognized for the work I do. But do I? Do I want to be accepted as one of them? Do I want to be a part of something as common as this? I do want to find acceptance. But I feel so removed from this world. Like an outcast, but worse: someone nobody knows or notices. Not an outcast but a nothing. A zero. I want to get out. I want to leave. I want to be someone higher and do something better. Something that matters. Something that’s important. I feel so lonely that I want to be a part of these people, I want to have friends. My pets are my only companions.

I’ve seen families come into the store. What they have makes me desperately envious. There is something in that image that speaks to me, calls to me, makes me want to be a part. Today I saw two young people, a father and mother, a little older than I figure I must be, holding hands, with a little boy running around, and a little girl looking around at the world with large, innocent eyes. I want to have that someday. I want connection. I want family. I want love.

Macata the cat and Buzby the bird provided the only true emotional connection he had. While not always in his immediate vicinity (cats being curious folk, and birds liable to explore the sky), they always came back, and joined him in his daily journeys to and from town. They slept when he slept, and awoke when he awoke. They played together, as best a cat and bird can. Macata would try to catch Buzby with a surprise pounce, and Buzby had a great time pretending to be unaware until the last possible moment, only to flutter away, just out of reach.

The work remained ordinary, faceless, nameless. He was trapped in the small talk he was required to give. He greeted the people with pleasantries, and waved them off with valedictions, always the same, never varying in structure or tone. It wasn’t long before he was burned out. He considered quitting, but he knew next to nothing of the outside world, and didn’t know where he could find anything more.

And still he kept his faith in the glass ball.

I don’t know why I keep following it. I don’t know what it is, or why it changes directions, but every time I follow it I get a tiny inkling of peace, really tiny, infinitesimal. But it’s there. I take it as a confirmation that this is right. And that’s the reason I haven’t gone anywhere else. It tells me to stay here, to keep going to work, and to keep going home again.

It pointed me in a different direction today, though. This morning I woke up late, or so I thought, and ran all the way to work to be on time. This I did on instinct, without thinking at all. If I had thought about it I would have either realized I wasn’t scheduled that day, or I would have wondered why I would be running to go to a place where I feel so dead and empty.

When I found out it was my day off, I didn’t know what to do. So I brought out the ball, and it pointed up north. I followed it to the waterfront beaches. On an impulse I went for a swim, something I could not ever remember doing. It was a new experience for me, but I found it soothing and even therapeutic. I think I’ll do it more often. And I’ll keep on following where this ball tells me to go.

He was never met with any awkward situations regarding his memory. Conversations at Tom Basket’s were never very deep, nor very personal, and he got along with an instinctually quiet, almost shy demeanor as he absorbed everything he heard said. This must have been how his former self behaved, because nobody ever asked any questions.

One time he overheard a conversation about amnesia, and speculation about what it would be like. A co-worker said it would have been “a waste of the first thirty years of my life. I would have lived all that time for nothin’.” His fellow said jokingly, “Would there be a difference? You still ended up here.”

The listeners laughed, but Gregor was unnerved, for he was thinking almost the exact same thing, but not jokingly. Then he chided himself, berated himself, because those people had real relationships, families and friends, people in their lives that made it all worthwhile, and he didn’t, and that, that was the key. Or at least part of it.

One night he witnessed an embarrassed couple dragging a screaming child out of the store. The scene struck him, and that night he wrote down his thoughts in his journal.

I don’t know what the kid was screaming about. Probably something trivial. Something that didn’t actually matter very much. But to him, it was everything. He was screaming his head off. That’s a sign of real pain. He couldn’t have what he wanted, what he felt he needed. So it really must have been a kind of torture for him. He doesn’t know better. But — his parents know he’ll be perfectly fine without it. They know he’ll get over it. They know he’ll forget about it. They know the pain will pass. Perhaps even within a few minutes afterward. And in the long run he’ll be better off for it. It won’t matter anymore and he’ll have learned discipline, and he’ll have learned patience.

When going through hell, the greatest lesson one can learn is graceful endurance. With this perspective, hell’s fires will not hurt or harm, but rather purge and refine. Though Gregor himself would not understand until much, much later, this experience of seemingly endless waiting, of day after day of drudgery, was very much the same thing, very much necessary. Because from it, he learned patience, in a way he could not have learned anywhere else, doing anything else. It is only in the times we are given opportunity to put our principles into practice that we actually acquire them. Thus was this.

I learned Tom Basket’s real name today. It was only about ten years ago that he changed it. He was in a garden shop and saw the words “Tomato Basket” on a label, but the first word was shortened to just “Tom.” That was his real first name shortened, so he decided right then and there to make that his name if ever he started over, career-wise. His full name is “Tomalion Nisonechte Maceta.” He said he doesn’t use it because “Tom Basket” is so much more catchy and casual, and it speaks more to the common folk. It just simplifies everything.

Gregor would remember this bit of trivia for a long time to come. A unique name exchanged for a common one. Heritage for mediocrity. Splendor for insignificance. Majesty for mundanity.