Alex Compton was no different from any other worker drone in the city, barely hanging on to a mid-level position that could easily be filled by any one of a thousand applicants waiting in the wings. Accountant and financial journeyman, his days were spent in abstract math and the fundamentals of profit and loss. Dollars were tallied in volumes most people could barely comprehend. His savvy with numbers defied explanation when contrasted against his social ineptness. Effectively outcast and alone, most nights were spent cocooned in the latest combat game seeking his equal in the online world. Competence for killing cyber foes was matched only by his fiscal prowess. Over the past month, Alex had taken up shooting at the local firing range. He purchased a TEC-9 machine gun from a black-market dealer. It fit nicely into his briefcase.
Each day started like the one before it. The six blocks walk to the Seven-Eleven, the seven-fifteen train to city center, elevator up to the fourteenth floor, and eight hours of crunching numbers. This day was different. Three blocks away from his apartment, walking past the Sugar and Spice Bakery, a crack in the time-space continuum opened immediately in his path. Momentum carried him into the rift, propelled by an unseen inertia. Suddenly, he was falling through the vast expanse of space. Not falling in the context of plunging from a rooftop to thud on the ground below, but falling like an oak leaf caught in an afternoon breeze. Stars whizzed past with the illusion of great speed; explosions of sight and sound pushed his senses into overdrive.
And then he was here, sitting on a cold colorless floor — shirtless and afraid. Random thoughts careened through his consciousness like meteors flashing past in the evening sky. Where am I? Why am I? What am I doing here? Who is watching me? His body ached with each breath of chilled air along his pale white skin. He shivered in response to the silent probing of thought and telepathy from the unknown being curiously watching from the edge of the chamber. He folded into a fetal position on the floor seeking relief from the frigid surroundings and screamed, “Why is it so cold?”
Alex slowly turned to look at the imposing being blurred by the translucent material separating them. He felt unfamiliar thoughts entangling themselves in the deepest part of his mind. They connected in thought and began to converse.
“Who are you?” Alex asked.
“I am you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am your pain.”
Alex mentally indexed through each event that brought him to this moment. The abuse he and his mother endured at the hands of his alcoholic father that ended when he took his own life. The mental torture inflicted by his older brother and the succession of one bully after another as he fought his way through the public school system; the women who shunned him and the men who held him back, badgered him since he joined the firm, all played a part in his path to this place.
“You were there?”
“Always.”
“Will you protect me?”
“Yes.”
Alex smiled, “I think I am going to like it here.”
***
Lieutenant Travis slid under the crime scene tape surrounding the maze of cubicles on the fourteenth floor. He watched as a parade of gurneys carried the dead to the freight elevator for the journey to the morgue. The smell of burnt gunpowder hung in the air and the hallway leading from the elevators to the cubicle farm was littered with spent brass cartridges and empty magazines. Thirteen dead and twenty six more critically wounded from the methodical advance of an accountant… go figure.
He looked over at Alex Compton sitting cross-legged on the floor, his arms pulled behind him and bound with cold steel cuffs. Officer Teddy Mangrum stood guard over the suspect.
“Has he said anything?” Travis asked.
“Not much,” Mangrum replied and delicately handed the detective the small machine gun used in the slaughter. “He shouted something about being cold and then a minute ago he asked if I would protect him.”
The Lieutenant looked down and asked, “Mister Compton, why did you do this?”
The accountant slowly turned his head and looked Travis directly in the eyes and said, “I think I am going to like it here.”
Mickey Mills has been writing over twenty years as a motor-sports freelancer. His recently completed first novel, HAUNTING INJUSTICE, a fast-paced paranormal suspense/ghost story, was published at CreateSpace and is available on Amazon. Currently, he is elbow deep in the second book of the series. He hosts a writer’s group at Multiply.com. When not writing, Mickey can be found exploring the country on PEARL, his Harley Davidson Electra-glide, or researching his next project. An engineer by education – a writer by passion.
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25 Responses to “THE ACCOUNTANT • by Mickey Mills”
Comments
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February 20th, 2010 at 2:02 am
This story held my attention, but had far too much ‘tell’.
February 20th, 2010 at 2:33 am
I agree. Fine story, too much “tell”
February 20th, 2010 at 5:40 am
Pulled me in.
February 20th, 2010 at 5:43 am
While I cringe that this story may be the idea most “ban violent video games” people think up, I can’t deny it’s a nicely crafted little scene. The Crack In Spacetime is a bit odd, but I’ll give you an extra star for never having seen that phrase used to illustrate a mental breakdown before. Adding the paragraph of Reasons, though, I agree was too much tell. It would have worked much better as a discussion with his “pain” to mention one or two things instead of just lump them all together. Good stuff!
February 20th, 2010 at 8:31 am
Well written. Once again a mental genius is brought down my an inability to socialize with his fellow humans. Moral: It’s better to be affable than smart.
Many would envy him his position, but no. He sees only the negatives, as do most people. Three stars. People are always fascinated with the psychotic mind. Literature seeks to explain, but sometimes in really life there is no answer to why.
February 20th, 2010 at 8:34 am
At the beginning of the reading, I enjoyed the story as it moved me along with it’s well written text. “The crack in the time-space continuum” was a surprise which delighted me, but after the phrase, “I don’t understand” I no longer understood.
Christopher B – Which or where is the paragraph of reasons? I would like to read it since the story seems unresolved to me.
February 20th, 2010 at 8:43 am
Alex Compton broke my heart a little – so damaged, so alone. When imaginary characters can elicit real emotion, the writer has done a great job of storytelling, IMO. Excellent!
February 20th, 2010 at 9:16 am
I only had issue with this one segment: “propelled by an unseen inertia.” While I realize that the surreal nature of this paragraph trumps the need to be accurate, this one line just doesn’t make sense. However, this is just me nitpicking I suppose.
5 stars.
February 20th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Although it seems less like a break in space-time than a break in space – being hurled from Wilshire Boulevard in California through the unknown to the masonry of the East.
February 20th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Good point Matt – Momentum and inertia are the continuance of his own self. Horrible that his own continuance should result in murderousness.
February 20th, 2010 at 9:38 am
Has his mental melding with the thoughts of his new acquaintance, the personification of his pain, made him a murderer?
February 20th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Roberta SchulbergGoro: What I meant was that inertia cannot propel anything because it is a property of mass and not a force. As an engineer this just bothered me. I understand what he was trying to say there though. A good story with an unexpected ending.
February 20th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
another good one. Go man. Good for three big ones.
February 20th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Not sure what to say on this one.
February 20th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
There seems to be an inconsistency with the character in the first paragraph. Initially we learn Alex is rather average and his job
“could easily be filled by any one of a thousand applicants waiting in the wings”.
But later
“His savvy with numbers defied explanation when contrasted against his social ineptness” and “Competence for killing cyber foes was matched only by his fiscal prowess”
So is he a replaceable cog in the machine or are his still superlative?
The rest of the story I liked. The most difficult part, which I think Mr. Mills pulled off, was plunging the character into madness without an apparent catalyst. By making it briefly seem like a sci-fi jaunt, the reader doesn’t realize this is all in Alex’s head until the memories of his torments come to light.
Favorite nugget: “cubicle farm”. Sometimes a paring of words says so much more than an entire descriptive paragraph.
–John
February 20th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
When there’s only ‘telling’ me without showing me I’m left unable to empathize. Without empathy I’m unable to feel anything for Bob. There’s a cool idea here, dig deep.
February 21st, 2010 at 1:13 am
“Once again a mental genius is brought down [b]y an inability to socialize with his fellow humans. Moral: It’s better to be affable than smart.”
No, he wasn’t brought down by any such inability but by the people who blocked him unless he paid that toll – but he seems to have paid a little on account day in and day out, and then been broken by that. You should look up some of the sites in which people with Asperger’s Syndrome describe their own connection with their condition. A lot of them can be affable, at least if they can structure what gets thrown at them, and some make the effort – but for people to whom it doesn’t come naturally it is indeed an effort, a huge and draining one that never lets up because it only encourages other people to do more interaction, so making the effort can be just as damaging and stressful as being the odd man out. It’s usually a poor coping strategy, although some people can use it with the help of alcohol (which only works because, as well as insulating the user from others’ no doubt unintended psychic battering, alcohol is socially acceptable, so gaffes under its influence are not punished as hard as standing aloof).
No, it’s not being affable that can save you, it’s not having to pay a price for it – being someone who is energised rather than drained by human association. (Anyone who denies that their reaching out can ever be a burden is just the kind of person who makes the most burden to carry.)
February 21st, 2010 at 6:02 am
Hun? I know I got dis-ed, but the slap went over my head;so,on-with-the-show.
And just to say it, ‘I think all the writers on EDF are of a higher caliber than most writing sights, including Mr. Mills.’
February 21st, 2010 at 6:03 am
er, sites, not sights
February 21st, 2010 at 6:05 am
Matt – Exactly what I thought you meant. But there is also psychological “inertia,” a metaphor which fits the story – a property of the being istself/himself.
Alvin – I think in this story the emphasis is not on “feeling” something fot the protaganist but for what the whole civilization is becoming for everyone in it. The writing of a story or poem is seldom impelled by a writer’s wish to make people sorry for the M.C.
J.C. – As I read it, I had no reason to believe that this is all in Alex’s head.
I think the protaganist was described as somewhat of a “cog in the machine” to bring the reader to the eventual understanding that “cogs” wake up to a situation. They wake up, but then what?
P.M. – “Mental genius” is seldom “unsocial.” It’s just that their work often demands seclusion, their minds fully aware that the society “the social aspect” is of prime importance regarding their work. But the protaganist was described as a drone, not a genius, the two kinds of characteristics being almost the opposite.
Just a social-minded mention – alcohol is used as a physical cure and/or preventative of diseases of various kinds, seldom for psychological reasons.
February 21st, 2010 at 9:52 am
Good morning all…
Thank you for the comments about this story. It’s one that I felt had many dimensions to the main character. I would like to amplify my use of the word “inertia” since it seemed to throw some of you. It’s a discussion I had with one of my test-readers when I was closing the books on this story.
I also have an engineering background, so to me the word seemed like the perfect fit. If you look at the dictionary definition of the word:
1- Physics – The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force.
It felt like the a good choice of word when applied to the mental state driving his behavior. He was reacting to a force he couldn’t control nor resist. The motion was purely in his mind. I knew this was the kind of piece that would garner some questions because it deals with the inner mechanisms of the mind.
Roberta.. I didn’t understand your Wilshire Boulevard comment. I’m assume you might be referring to a Sweet and Spice bakery that might be located there? If it is, that is not the one my main character was walking past.
Anyway, thank you for reading. I always enjoy the dialog generated by my work. Sorry for not getting back yesterday. I was at my first book signing event.
February 21st, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Too much ‘tell’ and then some. I can’t believe a character is crippled because of a series of stock abuse’ are listed in a a row. And I can’t accept a character who is ‘no different from any other worker drone in the city’ one moment and then so superior to every one else the next;
‘seeking his equal in the online world.’
‘matched only by his fiscal prowess.’
Sorry. I did like the way the dialogue worked in both scenes but the rest of the piece needed more hard work.
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:38 am
This one really turned me off: too much telling, too many contradictions, and too many other “inside the mind of a killer/crazy person” stories on EDF lately made this one trite and boring. Sorry.
February 22nd, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Mickey –
I was thinking of the AM/PM, not very far from El Pollo Loco, but I didn’t think anyone would concern themselves with the particular picture I had in my mind. I have no acquaintence with the Sugar and Spice Bakery, but it’s been over ten years since I’ve been in California and my memory of that street, Wilshire, which I lived near during that time is not meticulous.
February 24th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
The first part of the story was going OK, but then he hit the “crack in the space-time continuum” and lost me completely. Having used such a gimmick before, I took it as a sci-fi time or dimension travel, the idea of it being insanity didn’t hit me until way later in the story, and I had to completely rethink everything. The ending just barely managed to pull things together. This one doesn’t get more than about two stars from me.