Secrets of the Universe, Inc.
What secrets could you offer?
SCWOOP!
Arthur fell through the tube in the ceiling to the office chair below. He found he was in a cubicle. He looked around the office and saw similar cubicles and tubes, some empty chairs filling with falling people.
“What the actual — ”
“ — ity you are facing is that you are in the office of S.O.U,” said the woman sitting on the chair opposite the desk between them, that had a clunky old computer.
She had slick black hair and glasses and wore a suit. She smiled.
Amy saw him sitting there across from him, wearing dirty trousers and a jumper. Gormless. And ratty too.
Torture shall be a breeze.
“Do you know why you are here, Mr….” Amy typed on her computer. “Rhinestone?”
“Hmm… no…err… how did I…?”
“You died.”
Arthur’s mouth fell open.
“Or rather, you were about to,” Amy waved her hand. “It’s complicated. AND BORING. I won’t weigh you down by the details.”
Amy watched Arthur nod. Like an idiot, she thought, smirking.
“What you do need to know, is that you have been brought here by the secrets of the universe incorporated to tell us, well, me, well,” Amy smiled, light glinting off her glasses and cracked her fingers. “Everything. All your secrets.“
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, in Secrets of the Universe Inc. we pluck people from their existence and mine their unique secrets. Although to be honest with you sweetheart, nothing much seems new,” She smiled at him, and he looked blankly back, “So Mr Rinestone, please tell me what in your pretty little head you deem to be uniquely yours.”
“Light reflected on stones are nice.”
“Excuse me?”
“And rainbows in puddles. perfectly pleasant. Not to mention catching the sun, as it seems to fade, dancing on your hand.”
Now it was Amy’s turn for her mouth to fall, and her face froze in that position resembling a gorm being, for all intents and purposes, less.
“And your eyes.”
“Oh, please.”
“The way they look so sad.”
Amy frowned.
“You must have been through so much pain in your life to be so sad. I’m sorry.”
And that was that. It didn’t seem to take much, but a knife of warm butter seem to cut through the frost in Amy’s heart.
“This is what I’m going to do,” Amy said, leaning close as she put a hand on Arthur’s arm, “soon you are meant to go through those doors at the back and meet the ascended sages. They will want to interrogate you about the same thing. But harder. Tell them this….”
And then Amy told him. She told him why Atlantis fell. Why good people die young. Why anyone dies at all. Why injustice. Why pain. Why hope is good for the insane.
She told him secrets to all the big things because he spared them for those so little. And he made her feel like someone cared, even if just for the pain in her eyes.
“Arthur Rhinestone, make your way to the ascended sages,” said a voice in the cubicle from the computer as it shook ominously.
Amy squeezed his arm. And then let go. “You can go now.”
He got up and walked to the doors at the back of the room. They were big and grey, with black smoke curling from the bottom.
“Hey,” she said to him, and he turned.
“Of course, those were all lies.”
“What-?”
“Tell it to them anyway.” she grinned, then giggled.
He nodded, looking like all the world was pulling him south, and went through the doors into the darkness.
Amy typed on her computer. Not long now to the next. She stopped her clacking of the keys and sighed.
It just took one soul to care.
She wondered why she lied to him about lying. Well, you’ve got to have some fun before you are eventually fired from this terrible but cushy job, right?
