Labor Orientation Department
The sun rose—what a beautiful sight! A glorious day! The city bathed in joy and hope for better times! Hahaha, its a lie. There's no sun here, only this fuck up weather in a fucked city where its citizens lived a fucking cyclical routine. And speaking of some fuckers, let's talk about: JAMES FUCKING THOMPSON.
Poor James stood there, having returned from his depressing workday. He was practically on the verge of soiling himself, and the only thing preventing that was James's determination not to dirty the only pants he had for work.
The draft notebook was in the exact same position as the day before, James desperately tried to get rid of it by tossing it out the window. And the best part? The draft notebook didn't even seem wet.
"Oh my God!" exclaimed a distraught James. "What kind of madness is this? This… This thing! How did this thing come back here?" That terrifying moment sent adrenaline coursing through James's body, and the little energy he had left was rapidly consumed.
James collapsed onto his knees in an exaggerated display of horror. Poor, poor James… He momentarily forgot about his knee joint issues. As James's knee hit the floor, sharp, intense pain signals raced through his nervous system, exploding into his cerebral cortex.
"Aaaahhhh!" James screamed, clutching his left knee and writhing in a semi-fetal position.
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It's already three in the morning, and James can't sleep. Once again, he's sitting on his bed, wrapped in sheets, staring fixedly at the yellow draft notebook. James's mind is too tired to entertain rational thoughts, and his fatigued body is practically functioning like a TV in standby mode.
After what felt like an eternity, the sound of the alarm clock echoed in James's small room. Our hero, however, seemed oblivious to the rising sun and the alarm clamoring for attention.
James slowly got up from the bed, his eyes glazed and red. He had practically spent the entire night without blinking properly, fearing that something might emerge from the yellow draft notebook and attack him.
Despite the shock and fear, and the need to change his slightly soiled underwear, James was still compelled by muscle memory to carry out basic tasks. He took a shower, got dressed, finished the reheated frozen food he had prepared a few days ago, and set off for work.
Poor, poor James. While his body operated almost on autopilot, his mind was still churning over the events. In fact, James was so absorbed in those happenings that he didn't even notice the suspicious old man who was taking advantage of the crowded public transport to position himself right behind poor James while doing some strange movements.
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A click, a photo, a biometric scan, and James's entry were registered on that workday. Miraculously, James wasn't late—probably due to traffic or because his body performed the morning routines at an above-average speed, desperate to escape the presence of the Draft Notebook. Well, there he was: James Thompson, our hero who hadn't missed a day of work in over 13 years.
James's day proceeded relatively normally—hard work here, humiliations there, idiotic pranks—all within the usual range. Well, the only thing unusual was the dead fish expression plastered on James's pale face. His coworkers noticed the abnormality, and some decided to keep their distance from James. He was strange enough on regular days; now, with that weird look… Who knows if it's some contagious disease?
During the shift change, James's behavior persisted, and the supervisor of the second shift of the workday closely monitored James's movements and reactions. Two hours before the shift ended, James was summoned to the Department of Labor Guidance, also known as the "place where they annoy your ass for the rest of the day."
Indeed, James was subjected to a repugnant, repetitive, and poorly made sermon by the Work Psychologists, in fact, it was he second-shift supervisor who where reading that fucking text. The only vivid thing there was the man's excitement at having the chance to dump all that boring content on his poor victim, James Thompson.
At the end of the speech, the supervisor handed James several sheets of paper for a self-reflection exercise. Here's the deal: James had a stack of 10 sheets, and he had to fill them completely with the thoughts occupying his mind which were distracting him from his tasks, and consequently slowing down his production rate and interfering with the company's daily goals.
The first three sheets were easy to fill out for James. He poured out what was bothering his mind, but he did so subtly. He narrated some sort of movie he had seen, changing the character names, the location, and the final outcome for the three victims. James did this just in case there were cameras recording what he was writing on those sheets. Were there really cameras? Or was it that the lives and existential purpose of low-class workers were so worthless that the megacorporation refused to spend even a penny on personal safety and monitoring equipment in that industrial sector? Who knows… who knows…
After completing a sheet, James was supposed to stand up, throw the sheet into one of the mini incinerators on the side of the room, watch the paper burn to ashes, and repeat to himself: "My personal worries here at work turn to ashes in the face of my obligation to meet the goal" He had to repeat this nonsense five times before returning to his chair and writing again about everything that had happened that day.
By the fourth and fifth sheets, James was already fed up, and who could blame him? Repetitive and boring tasks could dampen anyone's mood, let alone James's already shaken mood. After mindlessly repeating the illogical mantra four times, James unconsciously started altering the sentence: "My shitty personal worries here in this fucking job turn itself into a dick in my ass and I am not giving a shit about of my goddamn obligation to meet the cursed goal."
Of course, our poor hero would never voice such lowly and callous thoughts. While James's mouth repeated the original mantra flawlessly, in his head, everything was twisted.
James sat back down, ready to fill out the cursed sixth sheet, but he decided to vent some of his frustrations on it, so he wrote. "Larry, you miserable bastard, I wish you'd stop using those slippery hands to steal things from your coworkers—a.k.a my stuffs." James read and reread that sentence, then looked around.
No one was nearby, no sign of the supervisor, and apparently, there were no cameras in that ridiculous small room. James decided to stand up and tiptoed to the room's only door. After checking if anyone was close, James turned away from his chair, still refusing to take his eyes off the entrance to ensure that no one would witness his "ACT OF REBELLION" by burning a sheet without fully filling it out.
James, with his back to the chair where he had been sitting, felt for the edge of the sheet. Upon touching it, he pulled it out as if he were about to sprint to the incinerator.
Haha, poor James. His plan was actually quite good: burn a sheet, skip that time-wasting task, sit back down, and continue filling out the other four sheets normally. After all, he had already vented his anger and frustrations and could now focus on the task without making any mistakes. However, there was a small problem between James's "rebellious" plan and its execution.
In James's hand, contrary to what he expected, there wasn't just a loose sheet; in fact, the sheet was part of a set. And God knows, that single sheet was attached to a Yellow Draft Notebook.
Poor, poor James…