Two minutes ago
‘Nothing. Rien. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Nichts. Ing-en-ting. NOTHING. No. Thing,’ the guy in the booth repeats emphatically.
‘Your balance is nothing.’
I wriggle in the plush red armchair. It’s less comfortable than it looks.
‘That can’t be right,’ I say. ‘Can I see the manager?’
The guy in the booth smiles. His eyes infinity-pool blue. The word ‘beatific’ springs to mind.
One minute ago
Blue-Eyes hits a button on the keypad; the Perspex wall of his booth becomes a screen.
I watch a large white cat with marmalade tabby markings perform a languid 180°, lingering to display its ham cheerio a fraction too long before turning to face the camera with a savage, demonstrative hiss. Finally, it yawns, sits with one back leg splayed in the air, and begins to lap noisily at its arsehole.
Twenty? minutes ago
The woman ahead of me: been in the wars – smashed nose, side of her head stove in, and that right leg, oof: not a promising angle. Should get that seen to. While there’s still an NHS.
Hang on – her uniform’s familiar. Reminds me of the pilot who flew me out. She sees me staring, nods. Looks almost apologetic. When Blue-Eyes gives her the thumbs-up, she goes through the massive reinforced-steel security door to an ordinary-looking family sitting room.
And that’s when the penny drops. This isn’t good. This is really, really Not Good.
An hour? ago
I’ve never been treated so badly. This place is worse than the refugee detention centre I opened the other month. The queue, for a start. Complete shambles. No VIP lane, either. [Note to self: blacklist this whole outfit from government contracts when I get out].
It’s vast in here. Hangar-like. I can’t see the back wall, or the sides, or the ceiling. Just the floor: trendy polished concrete. Smooth, colourless, pointless. Unfurnished except for the armchair in front of the booth. The chair I’m in.
And the ambience totally sucks. Coldplay and Ed Sheeran piped on endless repeat the whole time I’ve been here, and there’s a pervading fragrance of raspberry bubble-gum, that was kind of ok at first but by now is just nauseating. Uniformed officials in long white robes zooming about on segways, occasionally swooping in to interact with someone in the queue. They remind me of kids dressed up for a nativity play, or airport immigration officials in some or other Gulf state we flogged weapons to.
There’s just the one door out. No handle. I know it opens inwards; when Blue-Eyes gave a nod to the old bat three ahead of me, she clapped her hands, jumped off her gurney, and practically samba-ed her way through. I got a glimpse of a space like the inside of the Bake Off tent. Nightmare. Daft bint.
The next guy, it looked different. Wembley I think – but the old Wembley. He punched the air, started singing ‘Three Lions’, before somersaulting out of his wheelchair and cartwheeling through.
Ten? minutes ago
Blue-Eyes beckons me forward. Pokes at my chest, pulls out something tiny, dark, shrivelled. Foul-smelling. I feel suddenly heavier. As if my blood’s been replaced by mercury.
He puts the thing on a set of scales. The number soars; up and up and up and up. Just when I think it’s not going to stop, it displays a symbol: ∞ .
Blue-Eyes peers at me. Hits a button on the keyboard. An official whizzes over and I notice wings, neatly folded on his back. I try to look at his face but it’s too bright; blindingly bright, like looking at a quasar. The word terrible comes to mind; terrible in the biblical sense.
Quasar-Face touches my temple. His touch is icy cold, but I smell singed hair.
‘Nothing.’ His voice is glockenspiels and Tibetan kangling flutes.
Blue-Eyes shakes his head. Quasar-Face whirls a casual 360° on his segway.
‘Your balance is empty.’
‘Look,’ I try appealing to Blue-Eyes.
‘Pete – can I call you Pete? or Pedro, or Pierre, or whatever. Sir, Mister, Saint. I dunno. Look, I’ve done good things. I’ve contributed. Why do you think I became an MP? I care. I really care. I mean, I’ve even promised to donate my fees from the jungle thing to charity. After expenses, of course. Most of – some of – what’s left. And you can’t blame me for the global pandemic, that happened everywhere, that’s literally what global means…’
He clears his throat. My eyes start to prickle, and realise I’m digging my nails into my palms.
‘No point appealing to me. Not my decision. We just weigh the good and the bad you’ve done,” he starts, in a soft Irish brogue; and it dawns who he reminds me of – Graham Norton. [Note to self – google Graham Norton’s eye colour when I get home. I could swear they’re brown].
‘But that’s just for us.’ He goes on, ‘You know how on Strictly, the judges’ scores are just indicative, the final decision goes on public opinion? It’s the same here. And for you, when the chopper went down, people really didn’t think – the majority this is, not just the ‘sheeple’ who vote on reality shows – they didn’t think you’d made an overall positive contribution. In fact, most people weren’t convinced you’d made any positive contribution. At all. In your entire life.’
‘But people voted to keep me in the jungle. I almost won. Some must have liked me…’ The cold sweat trickling down my neck is worse than anything I had to deal with on the show.
‘Well, the scales don’t lie. Your balance is nothing. Rien. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Nichts. Ing-en-ting. NOTHING.’
‘No, no, no, no, no…’ I stammer. I’m starting to realise there are worse things even than being papped by the Mail for a minor snog. The roil in my gut, for instance, as I lose control of my sphincter.
‘Aww come on now, it’s not all bad,’ Blue-Eyes twinkles at me. ‘At least there’s no dance-off in here.’
Not in front of Graham, I think, as the tears start to roll. I summon the last shreds of my authority, force them into my voice:
‘This can’t be right. This absolutely can’t be right. I demand to see the manager.’
Five seconds ago
The image on the screen fades, leaving the booth transparent Perspex again.
‘There,’ says Blue-Eyes. ‘No error. The Almighty’s confirmed the public decision.’
‘Gabe (he indicates Quasar-Face) will update your Wikipedia, look after your socials till you’re forgotten. Which is usually quicker than you’d think. Except for insta and Facebook – they go downstairs to Zuckerberg. So you could try having a word with him…’
Blue-Eyes pulls a lever in the side of the booth. A square opens in the polished concrete, and the chair tips me down, down, down…
Jo Clark is a genre-fluid writer from the North of England who begrudgingly co-habits with a passive-aggressive domestic micropanther. Jo left behind a trail of abandoned work-in-progress novels in 2021 when she discovered flash fiction, but continues to harbour an unrealistic intention to return to longer form fiction. Proud to have words in a range of places including voidspace, Splonk, Daily Drunk, Cutbow Quarterly, Free Flash Fiction, and Ram Eye press, she tweets at @the_joclark
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