The 168th Greatest Story in the Universe - A Tribute
Created | Updated Jan 5, 2004
Part Four
A sinister man in a dark and equally sinister room peered down over his dark glasses at an array of monitors, attempting to take in what was going on. He failed miserably, of course.
This was partly because there happened to be over a dozen screens, but mostly because he had a massive headache. The reason for this was because he had a hangover. And as most vaguely humanoid creatures know, hangovers are caused by drinking too much alcohol, typically the night
before. Being in charge of everything that went on on those monitors gave the sinister man a huge sense of power. Of course this didn't stop him being incredibly depressed. Being the boss made him feel isolated.
Which was why Norman liked to give those who came in rather nasty tasks. He would normally explain it away as just a clerical error, but really he just liked to be cruel to people. And he hated being called Norman. He didn't feel it was a name that suited his position. Norman wanted to be called Mr Big, or something suitably powerful, but unfortunately no one took to calling him Mr Big, as everyone rather hated him. Especially his employers.
Though he had never been sure who his employers were. They just seemed to hand out tasks by mailing them, and even on the rare occasions he did see them they wore hoods so he would never recognise them. But he was not in a hurry to find out who they were. This was because every time they did appear they would take over, and he would lose all his power. Which made him even more depressed than normal, which in turn made him want to give out even crueller tasks.
So when last night one of them showed up telling him personally to give a man by the name of Terry Horowitz, the stupidly simple task of saying his name, he was particularly depressed. The said Terry Horowitz was now walking down the corridor of number eight monitor with Gospot. A man he thoroughly hated because he had the audacity to be a Victorian, walking about in his fancy clothes and his stiff upper lip-ness. And why, he thought to himself, did this Terry Horowitz seem to have no interest at all in being here? All the other people who completed their tasks were virtually zombies who craved to hear the story, so why wasn't he?
Norman didn't like this, it felt like he was losing control. And being in control was the only thing that made him happy. That and setting cruel tasks. For the first time that day he smirked. He looked at the monitor of the activity hall, and zoomed in at some of the tasks he had set. He took great pride in the bizarre missions he had set these people on, particularly the one involving the mountain of oranges. He remembered being particularly pleased with that idea,
especially since the woman he gave the task to had been a model when they dragged her in. Those were the moments he lived for.
His smile quickly disappeared, and his headache returned. He remembered Terry Horowitz. What was so important about him? Norman had a horrible feeling that this man could mean the end of all his lovely power.
In his more thoughtful moments, Norman wondered why his employers had given him so much control. He liked to think that they thought he was so good at his job that they could give him a free reign of the place. But as much as he tried, not even he was arrogant enough to believe that. He had a horrible feeling that they were just playing around with the place, but Norman's ego would never let him believe he had all this power for nothing.
On the monitor Norman saw that Terry and Gospot where nearing the waiting room. He turned up the volume so that he could hear the conversation:
'...look, I still don't get it. What does a story have to do with me being able to fall through things?' said Terry, frustrated.
'I must say I prefer the quiet ones. You are the most annoying man I have ever met. Its painfully simple –' Gospot began.
'The twelfth sector of the Zenoph galaxy is dragging on the electromagnetic static emanating from the eighteenth dimension of the sixth universe, causing the pull of gravity of certain deoxyribonucleic acid strands to polarise and de-polarise at random intervals at root points 8, 65, 5, 11, and 52 along the vector of the sub-multi-universal frequency graph. However, as these random polarisations increase they are pulled to the nearest tarrelistic positive body. Which is why you are here. Now if that is not a simple enough explanation I don’t know what is!'
Terry just looked at him and blinked. His brain tried to make some sense of the words that Gospot had just said, and turn them in to some sort of sentence. Unfortunately this had the same effect of putting an English exam paper through a shredder and trying to stick the pieces back together with cellotape while blindfolded. In short he didn't have a clue what Gospot was on about. But decided that he might as well accept it, nod his head and smile. Which is exactly what he did.
Somehow this seemed to convince Gospot, who looked quite satisfied with a job well done. They walked on like a couple of mutes for a few more minutes until they got close to their destination.
'We're nearly there now.'
'We're nearly where?' asked Terry.
'The waiting room, of course. From there you'll be escorted to the room of the Story Tellers.'
Terry was about to ask who the Story Tellers where, but remembered the conversation he had had with Mandy, and didn't want to go through that again. Less than enthusiastically Terry replied, 'Erm... great.'
Gospot gave Terry a quizzical look, 'You give the impression of a man who doesn't really want to be here.'
'Weird, that, isn't it?' said Terry sarcastically.
Gospot eyed Terry suspiciously for a moment then seemed to forget about it as he spied the room he was looking for. He silently signalled to Terry that this was the door, and walked through, holding it open while he ushered Terry in. Terry briefly thought about running away,
but was even less happy about being lost in this place than having to listen to some story, so he went in.
He found himself in a smallish grey room with a smattering of equally grey doors, a row of black chairs against one wall and a heavy white desk against the other. At the desk was a man that wouldn't have looked out of place as a security guard with his cap and uniform. The only other person in the room was a man in a suit, sitting at the end of the row of black chairs rocking backwards and forwards clutching his briefcase, and for some reason covered in flour.
'Tommy,' Gospot addressed the man at the desk, 'this is Terry.' Tommy gave a nod which suggested that he would have still nodded if someone had told him, 'this is a fish.'
Gospot, deliberately keeping the conversation short, continued. 'I'll leave him with you. Can I trust you?' Tommy nodded.
Gospot eyed him for a moment and then turned to Terry. 'Take a seat and you'll be called when they're ready for you.' With that Gospot walked out, looking almost relieved, and locked the door behind him. Terry after a few minutes checked the door to see if it would open. It
wouldn't. In any case Tommy was getting a bit nervous and was making moves for some sort of weapon.
He decided he probably would have to do something, but first Terry decided to sit down. He tried to start up a conversation with the businessman at the end of the row, but all he got out of him was a vague 'Hmm?'
All of a sudden Terry realised he hadn't been to the toilet since he had walked through his bathroom door this morning. Suddenly all he could think about was rushing water.
Tommy was still nervously looking at him. Like a kid in school Terry nervously put up his hand. 'Erm... can I use the toilet? Please?'
Tommy was not at all comfortable about this. 'How badly do you need to go?'
'Erm... very.'
Tommy was obviously having some sort of internal conflict. In the end he seemed to come to a decision, as he motioned Terry to come with him. Tommy opened the main door, and lead Terry out.
'Alright, take the 27th door on your left, and you’ll find the toilet. But come straight back, okay?' Terry nodded.
A few minutes later all the alarms started going off. Gospot rushed into the waiting room and demanded to know where Terry had gone. Tommy explained to him he’d gone to the toilet.
'No he hasn’t you idiot. He hasn't at all! He’s gone in to one of the twelve traveller doors, and he's gone!’
Tommy shifted his feet a little nervously. 'Should someone tell Norman?'
...at which point Norman turned the volume off. He knew this was going to be a bad day. All the signs were that this meant he would actually have to some work, another of his many pet hates. It was on the list on his notice board at number 1. He made a mental note to add Terry Horowitz to it when he got round to getting up.
He sighed, pushed his glasses back up his nose, leaned back and fell off his chair.
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