“MEDS!” The cry rings out like a shot. Weeping, tired sacks of flesh pull themselves forth, into the hallways. Criminal nurses sort their pills by type of poison, cackling at the defecating masses.
A girl with bulging veins steps to the cart, a cough rattling her bronchial tubes, with brown lipstick smeared on her mouth. “Kill yourself,” she says to the dead-faced nurse, before kicking back a fistful of tablets and retreating to her damp and darkened room.
The next sufferer slinks out of the shadows and mutters something about the State. He mouths off about Suboxone, and laughs at a joke no one else can hear. He, too, slinks back into his lair.
Misery runs thickly under this roof. Dusty air vents keep the employees coughing up grey sludge. Nobody complains.
The clinking and clattering of patients, in and out, make a sorrowful cacophony filling the corridors. It’s haunted and cold, with no place for improvement.
Sanity is a rarity by the end of every day, and yet employees come back for more the next. If there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, there is no ethical employment. Politics and gripes are aired at staff meetings, where we all grow more tired by ineffective, bureaucratic policies. “We are suffering. Patients are suffering,” we pray. “They are not getting better.”
“Quiet,” rumbles the State in his pointy wizard hat. “You do as you’re told to, not as you reason to.”
And so we do. And we do some more. And more die, and die, and die. And we fold our hands. And. And. And.
A sleep-walking catatonic comes to the desk. “A separate agency sent me here. To monitor you all.” He coughs and rubs the underside of his running nose. We stare. He is a delusional basketcase, a pity. How did he become this way? Did his mother care? Was she alive? Did she know where he was? Was she no mother, but a woman with a sex drive?
He refuses to answer. He holds a hand up and blinks. “The CEO is here. Undercover. Good luck guessing who he is.” He turns on his heel, pulls his pants higher, and goes into the community area.
What do we do? This is a man of wisdom, right? He runs us. He is why we have this job. We stop what we’re doing, and go into The Prayer Room. We light six candles, turn around three times, and ask the State for forgiveness.
“Go fuck yourselves,” the State says. And so we do. One by one, we singlefile into the bathroom area where the dildos are hanging neatly in a line. This is what happened last time a patient told us we were shit. We fuck ourselves.
We are not allowed lube, and it hurts. But we make do, because we have to. It’s our jobs. We serve. We have to do our damn jobs. Before Human, we are Professionals. Before Professionals, we are Bitches. Bitches to the State. Bitches to the Patients.
After the Fucking, an attempt to sit and rest is made by all; an attempt that fails. As soon as our assholes cease to ache, an alarm goes off and the lights cut out. We shit ourselves in fear.
“No…. No!”
Oh, but yes! The Media is here! And only that is what the State answers to.
The Media unbuckles her belt and smirks. “I heard what you said to Order 312!” She swivels her head to a shrinking man. He has himself pinned against the wall, sweating and shaking and shitting. “W-What???”
“You told Order 312 that you would not jerk them off!”
The man pales. “But… But… I can’t! It’s against the law, and I don’t want to jerk off anyone!”
“TOO BAD!”
Media takes a swipe for the mans chest, ripping his shirt clear off his body. She lunges to him, drool hanging from her ample jaw. “You didn’t ask what their pronouns were!”
“But I’m genderqueer!”
“Then you should go Fuck Yourself!”
The State fidgets quietly. “He already did today, ma’am. It’s been handled.”
The Media gives zero fucks. “Then he will be subjected to the paperworms.”
Time stops for approximately ten blinks of an eye. The clocks start to melt, and a roar of laughter can be heard from all around the employees. It’s the patients.
“Paperworms! Paperworms! Paperworms!” The patients chant with frothing mouth holes. Their eyes rolling and bleeding, they continue the call. “Paperworms! Paperworms!”
The employees are stunned into silence. Even the man who was cursed into the Paperworms Treatment. A new hire looks up from her feet. “What are paperworms?” She inquires. “They didn’t cover that in orientation.”
Media’s head floats off her neck and her tongue lolls out of her mouth. “You’ll sssseeee.”
“Oh, okay.” She pulls a notepad out of her bag and starts to jot notes. “What’s the date?”
“There is no time in Hell.” The cursed man responds.
“Is he correct?”
The State nods silently as the Media grows irritated. “This is Heaven! You know nothing of what you speak!”
With that, fire shoots from her mouth and lands on the cursed man’s forehead. He shrieked and fell to his knees, grabbing his head with white knuckles and cussing.
