Another Miserable Monday

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

Ezra noticed the voice was strangely absent the next two days. He was leery about exiting the apartment to run errands and tend to business elsewhere. The last thing he wanted to do was face whatever had been lurking around near his home, yet each day he left, the thought of it lured heavy in his thoughts, whether it be in a shadow, behind a door, or concealed somewhere else. The "aah..." it called out still echoed across Ezra's worried mind in the 48 hours to follow, just loud enough for him to hear. "Ezra aah..." It spoke to him like it was whispering to a lover, intimate yet eerie.

He didn't hear the voice again until monday morning on his way to work. As he walked down the longhall to exit his apartment building the voice stopped him dead in his tracks. He looked around confusedly but nothing seemed different from usual, just that bizarre, almost prerecorded "aah... aah..." and the dreaded moment arose yet again when it said his name, exactly the same way as days before. "Ezra". Only this time there was an edge of panic and urgency added to the phrase which made him even more unsettled than normal. When it repeated his name once more, in an infernal way that commanded his attention. Ezra could hold back no longer and began briskly walking out towards his car. The voice seemed to follow after him for a moment, lingering callously in his ears. When he exited the apartment complex and walked by the reflecting pool out front, that's when he saw the thing. He caught a glimpse and it made him shutter and stop again. It stood in place of his reflection in the tranquil waters. It was him but in place of the flesh on his face and hands there was instead a skeleton. His bones were white, polished and smooth. Yet they appeared as lifeless as death itself. Then the skull opened it's mouth in place of Ezra's face. "aah..." The voice spoke once more, sounding oddly replenished despite it's ghastly appearance. Ezra stared at himself for a few seconds in awe, trying to piece together just what was happening and what it meant. The skullface seemed to peer into him and invoke his soul. The skeleton that stared back at him through these still waters didn't have the muscles to express emotions but it definitely had intent. There was a vacancy behind it's eye sockets, almost like madness or confusion, yet Ezra could tell that whatever resided within the pale visage knew he would eventually succumb to its will. "aah..." It called out again dropping it's own lower jaw despite Ezra not moving his. It was a reflection, it mirrored him eerily yet not exactly. Staring at the thing he saw didn't sit well. Ezra's heart began to race and he took weigher breathes. He felt like he was having a panic attack and in reply the skeleton in the pool remained composed.

"Ezra." It repeated.

He was exasperated. "Yes! What? Damn it!"

"I want you." The voice replied simply. The voice rang androgynous, at once deep, effeminate, and obscured. The words landed cold and hauntingly romantic.

"W-What do you mean?" Ezra asked down into the pool as he attempted to gain some control over his breath again. "I don't understand-" But then it said something else that caught him off guard. "Ezra... You are so beautiful."

The bizarre way it spoke caused his blood pressure to rise even higher, almost instantly. The words were calming but hit in precisely the wrong way. Ezra could hear the blood pushing through his veins. He'd never been so bewildered in his life. He had no idea what this thing was talking about or why he suddenly seemed important to it all of a sudden. His head swam with questions and fear and confusion, he tried to rationalize what was happening around him and couldn't come up with an answer. "What is going on? Who the hell are you?" Ezra demanded, still staring at the skeleton beneath him. The face within the water laughed hollowly.

"Ezra... Your beauty has touched me deeply. You have captured my attention. I wish to see it for myself." The voice told him in the most serene, sultry tone neither male nor female.

"Who are you?" Ezra interrogated.

"Consider me, a Replica."

The skull couldn't smile but Ezra could only imagine a grin on it's hard, pale bones after saying that. "A Replica? Is that like a clone? A robot?"

"No," came another reply from below the surface of the water and those unfeeling, empty eye-sockets. "I am not like any other being you've since witnessed. I am something else entirely..." It stared back at him with an intense nothing of a gaze which was both beautiful yet unsettling all at once. The skeleton moved subtly underneath Ezra's vision and almost seemed to let out a sigh. "Until next time..." It echoed longing and faded out before his eyes. Now Ezra was simply staring at his reflection again. It was as if nothing had been there in the first place. Before Ezra continued walking out to his car, he considered whether what he had seen was a hallucination or not. Only the quiet sounds of traffic passing by and the chirping of birds accompanied him now. Nothing more. He breathed deep, calmed down, and left for work with much to think about on his way to the factory.

***

Ezra arrived at work later than usual on that monday morning. The building was filled with workers who began preparing themselves for their day while others were already working away at the machinery around them. The mood around here was always one of extreme burn out. It wasn't strange to see people getting to work earlier than normal to avoid getting behind on production targets. "Good Morning, Ezra." His coworker, Alyx, greeted him upon entering the factory floor. They usually greeted each other but to Ezra it sounded more polite, even friendier today. Alyx was a sylphlike person who's build moved mechanistically as she walked or wrote things down. Her shoulder-length glossy black hair floated and fanned out just over her shoulders, almost concealing a set of purple earrings matching the paint on her perfectly manicured fingernails and piercing alien green eyes. She was a short slender woman. Her head rested at about the height of Ezra's chest. The company uniform hugged her body in the right places and dampened her otherwise outwardly more gothic aesthetic. It fit her conspicuously well. Ezra liked her but work and relationships often don't mix well. Plus, he had his sights set on another girl. She was plenty attractive though but today Ezra found himself looking at her a little differently after seeing the thing outside his apartment. In that moment she had seemed to mirror him like the odd skeleton creature from before. Or maybe that was just because her features resembled his so well, if only on a much shorter woman. But whatever the case, Ezra felt oddly uncomfortable when he noticed Alyx standing before him. He thought it may have been due to some kind of residual fear from the prior encounter, which made sense given what happened to him. He dismissed any notions of being afraid though, realizing the peculiar feeling couldn't be anything compared to what he saw in the pool earlier that same day.

"How are you doing?" Alyx asked as she noticed his shift in temperament and offered up another greeting as they passed by each other towards their respective work areas.

"Fine," Ezra replied simply. "But I had a weird experience on my way in today."

"Oh yeah, what happened?"

The question gave him an odd feeling in his gut. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"What gives?" Alyx asked curiously. "You see a ghost or something?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it that..."

"Well, We're behind schedule so try to make the best of today."

Ezra nodded politely again and proceeded into the plant proper where workers were already hard at work operating machines, packing goods onto pallets for shipment, cleaning equipment or parts for future repairs. The place was bustling, busy, and full of activity everywhere one turned, despite how early most people were already working.

The morning progressed quickly, the cogs turning on the clockwork of his life as he helped out wherever needed. He felt almost invisible to the rest of the employees as he worked along side them. In his mind, he was as efficient as he could possibly be while still moving as fast as he could. He had a purpose in this job after all, even if it wasn't always a happy one. But in time it became a familiar routine of going through the motions every day without complaint or objection until finally the factory shut down for lunch. His stomach began to grumble then. It sounded like it wanted some sustenance soon enough.

"Hey, Ezra," His co-worker, Jamie, provoked grabbing and sliding into a chair near Ezra. "You see the fight at the Atmos Burger over the weekend?"

Ezra looked up from his meal. "I haven't."

"Yeah, that video is wild." Alyx replied, from a table over.

"Yeah, some bystander caught it on camera. They started filming just in time too." Jamie said with a hint of laughter in his voice.

Ezra mouthed a few words between bites of his sandwich. "I didn't watch it though. You have it?"

Jamie pulled out his mobile phone from his pocket and diligently searched for the aforementioned clip. He showed the video to Ezra and a few coworkers who'd gathered around him now to it.

"Don't come back here!" An employee shouted to a customer who dipped behind the counter to grab some food.

"I've got to get my fries! Damn, it's been 10 minutes."

"Sir, I gonna have to ask you to leave."

"I will once I get my damn food!" The customer told her defiant as he walked back out to the dining area. He took two steps before he stopped suddenly and turned to face the woman behind the register again. "Try to stop me then! I just want my food." He yelled angrily. His face was pale white like snow, save for the angry flush in his cheeks and forehead. He looked more annoyed than threatening at this point however.

The clerk stared down at the table in response, unable to look up at him at all because of the gaze from other customers who were now staring, yet not intimidated in any way by his presence.

"Come on man," Another patron chimed in from another booth. "He can't help himself or something? Don't take it personally. You don't need to put your hands on anybody."

"It's not about that." They argued back firmly. "But we can't let our personal feelings dictate how we handle situations. We are paid professionals."

At that a man threw a napkin dispenser at the clerk who just couldn't manage to assuage the chaos. The metal box arrived at them directly in the stomach causing them to duck down beneath the counter. The man who threw the object briskly walked off camera and presumably left the store.

"Oh God!" One woman screamed as she saw what was happening. The clerk held their chest and continued gasping for air. There wasn't much else to be done save for possibly calling the police on the perpetrator. The people in the lobby seemed unsure of what to do now. Some remained frozen still, unwilling to go to help the fallen employee. A member of the kitchen staff crouched down to the floor to see if they were okay. They seemed more caught off guard than injured. The clerk was crying too. The pressures of serving a busy lobby of people for the nightly rush had perhaps proven to be too much. The video ended.

"That's crazy!" Jamie exclaimed as he watched the clip play out. "Did he really just throw a fucking thing?"

"It's interesting," Ezra replied. "The only thing about this I can't justify is the guy who threw the napkin dispenser at the clerk. That was a step too far but if I've been waiting 10 minutes for fries and they're sitting right there, I can see why he went back to just take them."

"He just wanted his fries and didn't want to wait."

"Yeah," Ezra said. "Before the dispenser was thrown, I could understand both sides of the conflict."

"I see what you mean." Jamie chimed in. "They have to deal with these types of customers all the time. It's like dealing with little kids sometimes... but at the same time if you had to wait so long for your food, of course you're gonna be upset."

"The best way to deal with fast food workers is to just get in, get whatever you need, and get out. You're not there to pick fights or contribute to any drama. That's a wild video though. Crazy to think it happened around here."

"Yes," Jamie replied before heading out. "Enjoy the rest of your shift, man." Ezra watched Jamie was he walked away. He still wasn't exactly sure how to feel about him. He seemed nice enough in person. They never got into serious conversations much however. He was tall, over 6 foot and bulkier than Ezra. Jamie moved very deliberately, like a body-builder posing for photographs, showing off his strength, intentionally or not. He assumed he lifted weights too. Jamie was bisexual and his escapades were renowned among those who knew of him. Ezra occasionally heard about his exploits from rumors around the factory. Apparently while he was dating a girl, she went through his phone and found thousands of pictures of the Russian turned South Korean Social Media influencer and internet personality, Dasha Taran. This was made all the more bizarre because Dasha didn't even do porn. So he just had thousands of safe-for-work pictures of a girl he didn't even know from a foreign country. It might've been less revolting if she'd actually found pornography. The girl broke up with Jamie promptly after. Now only the story remained. He didn't know which stories about him to believe or disbelieve. They had a tendency to border on absurdities that only ever really happened in fiction. The details varied wildly but most of them centered around his fascination for sex toys, vibrators, strap-ons, butt plugs, dildos, and other more outlandish contraptions. All the rumors about his effeminate tastes seemed all the more weird to Ezra considering he saw him as Manly with a capital M. Jamie's sexuality would've been something seen by most people as a contradiction in terms. He wanted to be pegged by a leather clad dominatrix with a strap-on but, at the same time, Ezra figured he could also beat most everyone he knew in a fight. But no matter what else he did or whom he fucked, none of it seemed to ever worsen his reputation. If anything it made things better for him. He was perceived as masculine, but everyone around the water cooler, including Alyx, wanted to hear what wild stunt he'd commit to get his rocks off next. He was more open minded when it came to sex but Ezra did maintain a quiet fascination with him.

Ezra spent several hours working alongside his coworkers without further incident that day. He worked for a company that manufactured toothbrushes. It wasn't exactly an interesting job. It was the kind of long grueling enterprise that people threw their lives into just to barely make ends meet and get to the next day where they would do it all over again. People don't choose these types of jobs because they're glamorous but once it's all said and done, they end up here to make toothbrushes and the plastic for floss and the tubes of toothpaste. The factory ran on three shifts: night shift, afternoon, and morning shift, which meant each shift was responsible for leaving the plant clean for the employees who would come in after them. People rarely did this properly but Ezra tried to leave the place in good shape whenever he left so coworkers wouldn't harass him about it the next day. He took pride in doing well enough with everything he had at hand even if he never got to see much return on his efforts. He wondered how many other workers felt the same way as him? Probably most people.

The afternoon dragged along painfully as work began wrapping up. Ezra packed his things away quickly and quietly, wishing not to attract any more attention than was absolutely necessary, especially since he didn't feel like making small talk before the day was over. He just wanted get out of this place. Most of his co-workers were now ready to clock out for the day as well but some remained behind finishing off a few tasks before heading home themselves. On Ezra's way out he was stopped by Alyx.

"Oh," She mentioned. "I thought I'd tell you before you left. Me and some other employees are thinking of starting a union."

Ezra had proletarian aims himself but saw the prospect as pretty dismal. This sort of thing seemed unlikely to go the way he and other employees had wanted. If it could work out however, he would certainly want to be involved. "You're going to need someone with legal knowledge to help with that. Is there anyone who's willing to put in time for it?" He asked.

She nodded her head. "That's exactly what we figured. We're hoping to have enough volunteers soon. The bigger our numbers the more clout we'll have against management and the higher chances of getting something accomplished. So far though, no one wants to get their hands dirty and do anything more than talking about it. It's all just words right now."

"Okay, Thanks for the heads up."

"Sure."

Ezra walked down onto the street away from the factory towards his car. They all had different motives for it but they were all ultimately in the same boat really: they were all working in shitty jobs they hated without any hope for improvement or change anytime soon. "This is why they call this class struggle," He muttered aloud to himself before slipping into the driver's seat of that old black volkswagen and driving away. Perhaps together they could fight for a better life, Ezra had thought. He wanted to see working people come out on top too in the end; to make things work out where people weren't at the whim of the corporate system which owned and lorded over them. He had yet to see an example of this happening in his time. In fact, he couldn't even begin to imagine such a situation ever coming to pass for the humble wage-earner such as himself. But he wouldn't let this stop him. Members of his ilk might be forced to work slavishly, get lost to drugs, alcoholism, suicide, or whatever else took hold but he would always believe in humanity's capacity for greatness if only given half a chance.

He thought about driving straight home that afternoon but thought better of it. He knew exactly where to go. It was a place that never got old to him despite how many times he went in and it was the perfect place to take his mind off of the tribulations of the working day. No one would care much about what he did with himself as long as he kept making good money, made his boss happy, and fulfilled the expectations set forth for him. What more could the world want of him? This was all just living... but Ezra enjoyed this sort of thing, especially when there were no other responsibilities weighing upon him.

He drove to Night Owl Records, a local record store near downtown. He loved visiting there because they usually had something interesting available at any moment. They had everything from rare oldies to new releases from small labels or independent bands you didn't hear anywhere else save for maybe the internet. Their stock varied greatly from genre to genre and from month to month so every visit usually offered something new and different to listen to and peruse through. As usual on most days, the shop was busy with customers who wandered around looking for anything that interested them and trying to find some music that spoke to them that particular week.

Ezra went in for two reasons. 1. Being that they cycled their stock every week and this meant fresh vinyl for Ezra to check out and see if he wanted. And 2. There was a particular woman behind the

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net