The Typical Insanity

L I T T L E B O X E S

Where am I? It's dark now, how long have I been sitting here? I feel like I've just been woken from a blank dream. I glance around, noting the dim streetlights and the street in front of me, and realise that there's someone sitting beside me. It's a hooded person, probably a guy judging from his body. I blink and look down at my feet. There's a plastic bag next to them with three bottles and a small box inside. I realise upon closer inspection that the box is a box of matches. I turn back to the hooded figure.

"How long have I been here?"

He lifts his hand to inspect an invisible watch.

"About 5 minutes, I'd say. We'd best get going if we want to follow the schedule."

"Schedule? Where are we going? Do I know you? Who are you?" I sound panicky, not entirely sure if I am panicking, though.

"You ask way too many questions when all you should be doing is remembering. It would be such a load off my back if you could just start remembering, you know?"

"Remembering? What would I remember? I've never met you before. We have never encountered each other before this moment." Maybe I am panicking.

He sighs loudly. "Just close your eyes and do that senseless meditation stuff, it should help jog your hopeless memory."

I don't believe a word he says but I close my eyes nonetheless. I don't see anything, well, what should I expect to see? Sudden flashbacks of the past in cinematic distortion? I hoped that would happen but it didn't. I tried to remember how I got here and recalled a name.

"Rien?"

He stands. "Good enough, let's go, shall we?"

I nod and stand despite the massive confusion floating in my head. I take the plastic bag in my hand not because I think it's mine but rather because it feels like I'm being told to. I feel like I'm making no sense.

We're walking and slowly, everything begins to dull. The colours started to fade and the buildings started to dissolve and drip down onto the swirling concrete path. It felt like an Salvador Dali/Edvard Munch painting without the screaming person and drooping clocks. As greyscale lights turned black, my feet didn't change their pace and droned on forward, left right left right left right left right left right and nothing.

I crack open my eyes and see the interior of the building I've spent at least half my life in. It's funny how much I hate this office. I hate the way the hallways always smell like lemon disinfectant and spilled coffee, I despise how the air conditioning is always cranked up to maximum, and most of all, I hate the little cubicles lined row by column from one side to the other. I hate all of it.

I see that hooded guy from earlier, his name could be Rien, running around the floor with a trail of liquid flowing behind him.

"What're you doing?"

He comes to the center and squeezes the rest of the liquid out of the bottle from earlier.

"What does it look like I'm doing? Obviously, I'm just trying to make it hell for the janitors." He finishes it off with an exaggerated and sarcastic 'Duh'. He takes out another bottle out from the plastic bag and begins running around the office wildly. I wonder how his hood still manages to stay on.

I find my attention diverted when I spot the window on the other side of the room. It's the only source of light for the room which sounds picturesque enough until you realize that it's not moonlight flowing through the wall wide window but commercial lights of the building directly opposite to ours. I lean against the glass and observe the lit floors, late night white-collar workers tapping away at their little laptops in their little cubicles. It looks like little boxes filled single lightbulbs, illuminating the cramped space for no reason other than the need for a purpose. Sometimes I wish I could live in those little boxes forever because you can't think inside little boxes, you don't need to. All you need to do is press the buttons they tell you to. It's so simple.

"Are you just going to stand there and dawdle or are you going to help out a bit?" The hooded guy, I should start calling him Rien, yells from across the room.

I wanted to ask him what he was doing that I should help with but I didn't. Instead, I wandered over to Stanley 'Just call me Stan' Parable's office, I don't know why, I tell myself it's just for the hell of it. I've been inside here multiple times even though no one really realizes it. It's a four walled room with one of the walls covered with a colossal television set, probably some high end brand too. I remember how everytime I entered Stanley 'Just call me Stan' Parable's office, there would always be some mindless reality show going on. As I walk over to his desk, I thought about this one kid I met a long time ago in the Subway. His name was Ben, he had cancer and he hated those idiotic celebrities so much that he would occasionally joke that watching them gave him Cancer. I hope Ben's doing okay, I think as I yank the keyboard from the desk, I hope he'll overcome his illness. I feel like I'm doing Ben a favor everytime the keyboard collides into the LED screen of the television, like this is my gift to him. God bless you, Ben.

Eventually I stop when both the keyboard and the television are on the floor in pieces. I walk out of the office and notice the hooded guy standing at the center, presumably waiting for me.

He lifts his arm to me, matchstick box at hand. "I figured that you would want to do the honors."

It's only now that I notice the strong odor of gasoline in the air. I join him at the center and take the box, removing a single matchstick. I'm about to light it before I decide to do ask something first.

"Why are you always under the hood?"

"I thought I was being mysterious and cool with hood."

"No, you look like those stereotypes from movies."

I can't see his face but I get the feeling that he's mildly annoyed. "Fine. I'll get rid of it."

The hoodie suddenly disappears and he's wearing a military type jacket, I guess I should really start calling him Rien now. But rather than leaving a face in place of a shadow, there's a mask. It's actually quite beautiful in a twisted sort of way, if you find jeweled masks that vaguely look evil beautiful, sure.

"Better?"

"If you're wearing a mask, how is your voice not muffled? I can hear you so clearly, it doesn't make any sense."

In that instant, I could swear he was right in front of me, face to face but no, he's standing beside me next to the large puddle of gasoline.

"That's because my voice isn't the vibration of the particles between you and me, it's not the bouncing of sound waves off atoms." I suddenly feel very cold. "It's because my voice is a fabric of your imagination, it's bouncing off the walls of your thick little head."

I'm staring at him. I shivering through the thin sweater covering me and of course, the only logical thing to do is warm up the place. The match's head strikes across the side of the box creating a wisp of fire and when the match starts falling into the puddle below, I realize that I know everything and nothing about what is going here. When the puddle flares up, the scene dulls once again and I succumb to the black.

The next time I blink I would be on the rooftop of the building I was observing earlier. It's cold but not as cold as the last time, wait, last time? What last time?

"I thought you might want the best seats to the show."

Rien's sitting next to me. We're both sitting on the ledge and oh look, he brought popcorn. I guess I should enjoy the burning office in front of me. I didn't realize it but Rien manage to pour the gasoline down the sides of building too, he's really a go-getter, isn't he? Oh wow, there's –

"Fireworks?" I ask.

"Oh yeah, it took a while but it's worth it, isn't it? I mean, look at those babies fly."

It was worth it because they lit up the sky beautifully, like glittery bombs exploding in the sky with a foreground of blazing flames and wisps of black smoke. What made it even more beautiful was what it was destroying. It was perfect.

Absolutely perfect in every way.