Thump, thump

Thump, thump

Thump, thump

I bounced my stress ball against the wall of my cubicle.

Thump, thump

Thump, thump

It was a desperate grab at sanity.

Thump, thump

Angela raised her head over the cubicle wall, her eyes screaming curses. I could practically hear her hiss.

“Sorry…” I muttered.

I put my headset back on and subjected myself to another couple of hours of service calls, each one more mind numbing than the last.

“Travis?”

I scrambled to close out of solitaire.

“Ah, yes. Hello.” I fussed at the wrinkles in my slacks after seeing my manager looming at the entrance of my cubicle.

“It’s time.” She whispered.

“Again already? Wow. I’d only just recovered from the last time. Maybe Angela could…”

Angela shook her head furiously, shooting daggers with her eyes.

“No Travis, it’s your turn. Come on, we all do our part here.”

“I know, but…”

The hesitation was futile, I knew there was no delaying it.

You see at the beginning of every week it needed to be fed. This allowed it to create product, and product made people happy, which in turn made the company money. The upside was, you got a couple of days off after it fed, the downside was you spent those days weak and feeble, recovering.

Tiffany led me out across the production floor. Employees on the packaging line hung their heads in sympathy as I passed. We arrived at the enormous holding tank against the south wall in Department 33.

I could see it writhe around in anticipation, its gelatinous body pressing against the plexiglass. Rolls of fat covered in mucus pulsed in green and yellow hues.

She led me to the chair at the front of the tank. I sat down as instructed and fought back the urge to flee as she fastened the iron clamps over my wrists and ankles. I could hear her slide open the 12×12 inch grate just behind my head.

I shuddered as I felt the large probiscis probing the back of my head, searching for the perfect entry point.

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as I felt it stop, pausing over the base of my skull.

Suddenly there was a sharp pain, a pinch that made me cry out, but then nothing. I was numb, my vision swam. I could hear my manager saying everything was fine somewhere far, far away.

Blackness…

I came to as the factory safety team began to wheel me away on a cart. I could see it wriggling in the tank, secreting gallons of fluids that we would package and sell to the masses. The assembly line of empty aluminum Sprite cans were already set, ready to receive the liquid ingredients that it produced.