That's What They Say

1. An unusual meeting

In a small outdoor café, two friends were chatting aimlessly. They had the look of the idle rich about them. The nails clutching the hideously overpriced lattes wre manicured, the white running shoes expensive; even their painfully high ponytails were layered and well-dyed.They looked as though they had been jogging; they were wearing designer exercise clothes that were slightly more expensive than a car.
One of them, a short blonde, was animatedly describing an incident when she was late for work. As she spoke, she absently fiddled with the corner of her no-calorie, no-carb, and no-taste sugar packet. “…So anyway, I didn’t even have time to dry my hair! I just jumped in the car and drove! Seemed like—"
The other woman interrupted her friend.
“You know, you’ll catch a cold if you go outside with wet hair.”
“Really?” Her companion sipped her coffee reflectively, and added more "sugar."
“Well, you know…that’s what they say.”
“Huh. So, anyway…”
At the table next to them, a skinny figure huddled in a large coat smiled contentedly and wrote something in a small notebook. Then he walked away, disappearing into the hustle and bustle of the gray, sooty city.

Henry Dawson was one of Them. It was an interesting job, it paid well, and he got to see the world. At least, that’s what he told himself. In truth, he had a feeling that something dark and evil was underlying what seemed like a harmless occupation. But Henry ignored it, because there are some things that a lowly Totaler should not inquire about, and that was certainly one of them.
Henry was twenty-five. He was the last person you would expect to be a figure of Mystery or Intrigue; he was tall, skinny, blue-eyed, and had a mop of wild chestnut hair that was cut to make it look as though it was trying to escape the confines of his scalp. He wore glasses, the design of which he had not changed since he was nine years old. They tended to slide down his nose, and he had developed a nervous habit of pushing them back up with one finger. His face was utterly unexciting: not ugly, but not very interesting either. In short, Henry's appearance completely failed to thrill or shock in the slightest.
Currently, he was waiting nervously in the lobby of Their main center of operations. He had been summoned for a progress report. Hopefully, his high tallies would mean a promotion to Spreader. Spreading was good money, or at least some money, and it would be nice to be able to pay his rent on time for once.
Henry’s eyes took in the lobby fearfully. There were several lethal-looking metal chairs arranged in an orderly fashion around a table piled high with magazines. The carpet was Generic Lobby Carpet: hard, lumpy, and gray. All the chairs were bolted to the floor, and Henry absently wondered if anyone had ever tried to steal one.
A receptionist was ensconced in a little glass booth in the corner. She had her feet up in front of her, and was using some poor idiot’s paperwork as a handy ashtray. Henry snickered (Fortunately, he didn’t look too closely. He would have been rather miffed to find out that is was, in fact, his paperwork). The secretary’s magazine said, in bold red letters, Modern Wiccan.
The setup was strongly reminiscent of a dentist’s office, and Henry half expected to hear the whirr of a drill coming from one of the offices adjacent to the atrium. There was even the same smell in the air. Henry now realized that this must be the smell of fear.
He walked up to the receptionist, who pretended not to notice him.
"Um. Hello?"
An immediate answer was not forthcoming. At all.
"Hi, I'm Henry Dawson…hello? Lady?"
The receptionist finally looked up, and surveyed Henry . She rolled her eyes, and kept reading.
"I…have an appointment…" Henry said hopefully.
The receptionist said without looking up, "Sit down, then."
"Oh. Okay. Uh… nothing else?"
"Sit," came the response, still apparently addressed to the magazine.
Henry obediently sat down in one of the chairs, making a small “gngh!” noise as his bare skin touched the freezing metal supports.
He picked up a magazine and flicked it open, not really paying attention to what it was. He looked around the room, noticing that the receptionist in the Booth of Terror was staring at him in an odd way from underneath her many layers of green eye shadow. Her gaze was directed towards his hands, and he realized suddenly that he was reading a magazine intended for six-year-olds. Henry blushed furiously, but tried to appear as though he was immersed in the “Super Tricky Halloween Find-It!” puzzle.
Henry had managed to find the ghost and the pumpkin when a woman dressed in a black pantsuit came into the lobby. She was about forty, with close-cropped gray hair and piercing brown eyes. The various large wooden necklaces draped about her neck made hollow noises as she moved. They sounded to Henry like clanking chains draped around a damned soul. She looked at Henry, and her scowl made it apparent that she didn’t like what she was seeing. “The Speaker will see you now,” she intoned. “Come this way.” These sentences somehow managed to hold all the gravity of a death announcement, and Henry rather hoped that it was not his own.
He followed her down a hallway carpeted in an unfortunate shade of green, and stopped at the big intimidating door at the end.
If there was such a thing as the epitome of imposing doors, this was it. This was a door that clearly stated you were not fit to be ground underneath its polished walnut panels. This door could have been the Door from whence all doors came. On it, the word SPEAKER was engraved in a little metal plaque, which Henry felt rather detracted from things. The Door should not be blemished.
The woman left, and Henry knocked tentatively at the Door.
“Enter,” a thin voice trilled. Henry swung open the Door and took in the newly redecorated office. Sadly, the greenish carpet was still present in here. The walls were painted nearly the shame shade, but with enough of a difference in color so that your eyes watered when you looked at it for too long. In other words, normal office décor. However, Henry liked it better than the old brown wallpaper/carpet combo, which had given off the impression that the occupant had entered a freshly dug grave. Henry was a bit claustrophobic, since he had been shoved into his own locker at school innumerable times.
The thin little man behind the desk motioned for Henry to sit. “So, Henry,” he croaked, “what are your latest results?”
The Speaker was the sort of old man who looked as though he was only alive out of pure spite. He resembled a wizened skeleton, and the knobby hands clenched to the armrests of his chair reminded Henry strongly of the talons of a predatory bird. The tiny man also had a permanent glower affixed to his face, and he regarded Henry with a malevolent glare as the young man sat down.
“Very good, sir. If I do say so myself. Which I do. Uh, say so myself, I mean.” A little voice in his head was screaming shutupshutupshutup! and he gladly obeyed.
Henry fidgeted in the rickety wooden chair he had been offered. He couldn’t help noticing that the Speaker’s chair was a plush, cushioned affair, with ergonomic armrests.
“Well, then, let me see,” the Speaker hissed in a voice that must have been stolen from some sort of reptile. Almost definitely a snake.
Henry obediently held out his notebook and winced involuntarily when the Speaker’s withered, claw like hand touched his.
“Hmmm. Quite a few for “wrestling is faked,” I see. And “There are aliens at Roswell” is rather popular too.” He smiled thinly. Henry was always rather shocked to see that his face could move without cracking open. “Very good, Henry. I think that you deserve a little something for such excellent scores, don’t you? Let’s see…” He pulled out Henry’s file. “Yes, good, wonderful…I think, Henry, that you deserve a promotion. Now, I won’t galliard with you. How does Spreader sound, my dear caitiff?”
Henry had encountered the Speaker many times before. Although the octogenarian was infuriating in many ways, the worst was the way he talked. He must have read the dictionary several times through. He used words like mandamus, oriel, and propinquity. Henry could recall a certain conversation that had taken place at his last interview. The Speaker had ushered him in, and then asked energetically, “So, what do you think of my new jalousies, eh?”
Henry had stared blankly at him.
“Oh, come on, out with it, you dastard! Don’t be shy.”
“Um. They’re very…becoming, Sir,” he had hazarded. “They…have a splendid fit. Very jaunty.”
The Speaker had looked at him oddly, but then returned with “Well, my good yapok, let’s get to business!”
Later, Henry had learned that a jalousie was a type of slatted blind. Oddly enough, a yapok was defined as a “small aquatic opossum.”


Henry jolted back to the present. “Fantastic, Sir. Thank you.” It was what he had been expecting, really, but a little groveling never hurt. “I’m honored, sir, really I am.”
“Oh, no trouble, Henry. Here’s a list of your duties. I shall expect you to be ready to start Monday. Don’t be an apteryx about it, though.”
“Certainly. Oh, definitely. Of course. No abteryxing at all.” Henry accepted the list, not even bothering to wonder why he had just been told not to be a kiwi. All his work had finally paid off. A Spreader! That was only a step down from Issuer, and then it was Writer! He had a great future ahead of him. Henry allowed himself a burst of pride that only a year ago, he had been a just a Monitor, recording progress in a stuffy little office.
The Speaker’s glare narrowed, giving Henry the feeling that the old man was trying to slowly roast him with his eyes. It was a glare that said quite plainly, Shut up and get out.
Henry obliged. Being in that office had been rather like being buried in an ancient mausoleum. And he was not entirely sure that the Speaker was what you would technically call “alive.” Or “sane,” for that matter. Him and his jalousies both.
As Henry walked out into the lobby again, he could not suppress the slightly creepy feeling that came over him, as though ants were merrily crawling on his neck. Having little ant picnics, maybe. And parades. And presidential inaugurations…
Henry tore himself away from this rather disturbing train of thought and mustered a smile at the receptionist. She scowled darkly at him, and raised her magazine to cover her face.
“Nice seeing you too,” Henry muttered as he closed the door grandly behind him, attempting to appear confident and worldly. However, his dramatic exit was somewhat marred when the rug caught in the door, and he spent several seconds wrestling with the “Bee Happy” doormat while the receptionist looked on, a sneer on her heavily-made-up face.
Henry righted the doormat and shot a glare at the receptionist, who smirked and returned to her magazine. Then he left, this time unhindered by any doormat-type obstacles (although his shoelace did come untied in the elevator).