Science Fiction Multi-Feature Picture Show

The Interview: (1)Lewis

Lewis King hoped like hell the pot was out of his system.

The call came in late Saturday evening, balls deep in a weekend bender to end all benders. Through the haze of smoke and five beers, he realized the Ozzy song playing was actually his ring tone. He stopped belting out the lyrics and answered it.

"Your interview is at the Prime Building, 24 Beach Street. Room 314, Monday at 9 A.M. Don't be late." The voice on the other end was the sort of cultured snobby prat he'd generally avoided at the Ivy League his father muscled him into. He was a King after all, a legacy. When had he put in a resume anyway? More likely his father did so, another subtle prod for his wastrel of a son to get up and make a 'real man' out of himself.

He should go to the interview just to shut the old man up.

That morning he spent an inordinate amount of time staring at the collection of sketches on the wall, stirring the soggy mush of his corn flakes. Could he really live the life of a office shlub? Nine to five, locked in a cubicle, doing paperwork for some big wig in the hopes of inching forward, year after year, while the colors of his mind leeched to office wall gray.

Lewis preferred the world in riots of color. The creative spark burned bright and his art hung in half the bars and diners of the city. He'd sold a few, enough to pay rent here and there, bartending at night at the hipster dive on the corner to make up the difference. A less than glamorous life, one his father sneered at.

Lewis straightened his tie in the mirror. Go to the interview, shut up the old man, come home and paint your darlings. The mantra spun over and over in his thoughts. He touched a sketch on his way out the door, leaving a smudge of charcoal on the side of his hand. He refused to rub it off.

The Prime building was the peacock among the pigeons, a shard of steel and glass that dropped out of the sky in the middle of Beach Street's meat packing plants. Lewis actually wasn't sure what kind of business ran out of the Prime building, but they did well for themselves if the chinzy lobby was anything to go by. Business aesthetic, all sleek black marble tiles, and a slab of it on the front desk. A bored looking receptionist with a messy bun and a smudge on the lens of her glasses, scanned his driver's license and directed him to the elevator with a purple glazed nail.

Lewis made for the elevator, until a flash of color caught his eye. He nearly tripped over his own feet as he followed it. On the wall, shortly before the silver faced elevators, hung an odd painting, a desert scene of dun sands and cerulean blue sky. Over the sands ran a creature, an amalgamation of claws and teeth, of cobbled together thing, encased in flesh like worn chewing gum.

It drew the eye on that austere black wall, that wild impossible animal racing across this sands. He could almost feel grains trickling through his veins. The elevator dinged.

Lewis scurried inside, feeling a strange sense of relief to be away from the painting. He felt the familiar lurch in his stomach as the box rose, coming to a halt at the third floor. The elevator spat him out into a rather dim all, the offices leading up to 314 sealed up and dark. It kept the strange sensation he felt in the lobby from leaving his system. His heart was pounding in his chest when he rapped his knuckles on the painted black door.

"Come in," said a man's voice.

Lewis took a calming breath and opened the door. He blinked. Was he being punked? The 'office' was a large open conference room, completely empty but for a straight back metal chair, a single metal desk, and the singular man seated behind it. The man was all angles, even his gleaming bald head seemed to have a few corners. His shoulders seemed squared off in his fitted pinstripe suit, and his elbows came to points. Lewis wondered if his neatly folded hands sported square fingernails. A proud pointed nose hung on his face like the prow of a sailing ship. Two large dark eyes watched Lewis approach and when the man smile, it felt too wide, full of too many teeth. A metal nameplate on his desk read Mr. Argyle. It was the only thing on his desk.