404 Documents: Full Circle

Bradley picked up the phone attached to the grimy wall of a bullet-proof glass shield. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. I sat on the other side, feeling fractured. A flash of sudden sympathy seemed to twinkle in his eye and disappeared just as quickly.
“It had to be you. Nothing personal,” he said. “Do you know how many Agent 888’s there are in the world?”

I felt the confines of my reality drawn and quartered. “Fuck you, man. Jesus. Fuck you. Why did you do it?”

“A sacrifice had to be made. You understand ritual, don’t you?”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“We need the chaos to instigate change,” he said. Like that explained anything. “As in surgery, an action should be done clearly, directly, and with lucidity. Ordo ab Chao, order through chaos.”

“That made me deserve this?” I asked.

“No one deserves anything. We don’t deserve to get sucked off or shot or starve, we didn’t deserve to get born. It fucking happened. Deal with it. But, if you want to pin yourself with some, oh I don’t know? ...complicity, then here you go: every t-shirt you ever bought, every collect-able lunchbox or bobble-head or piece of memorabilia. Every porno you ever watched since the time you first learned to masturbate. Every raunchy microwave burrito you purchased from the 7/11. You willingly participated in this deception, and for that you are guilty. That is why you now stand where you stand. You willingly allowed yourself to be deceived. So before you judge me for what I chose to do, please realize that your shtick was ineffective and banal. I am productive and effective. I’m sorry that it leaves you on that side of the glass, and me on this side. But that’s how it is, and how it will always be.”

And then he hung up the phone and walked. Out of my life, forever.

--

The phone rang.

“One last op,” the voice on the other end said.

I reached for a mentholated cigarette from the pocket on the vest of my t-shirt. “Bradley, listen. I told you. You’re spun. None of this is even real, man. It’s in your head. I think you should probably stop entertaining your paranoid delusions and try to actually get help,” I said.

He laughed. “Don’t you remember? Don’t you see? You’ve been one of us, all along.”

He took a deep breath and sighed, insinuating his displeasure.

“One last op, and you’re done,” he said before tossing his phone in the trash as he strolled past.