“The dolphin can wait,” Matt says.
Jeremy comes back with everyone.
They all go into Matt’s office.
There is not enough space.
Some people stand on Matt’s desk.
Someone closes the door.
It’s very crowded.
Someone turns off the light.
The only window is blocked by someone’s body.
Andrew can’t see anything or move.
It’s very hot and dark.
“Whoever just elbowed my face,” Matt says. “You’re fired.”
“Whoever did it,” someone says in an affected voice, “just don’t say anything.”
“But move away from Matt,” says a different voice. “When the lights go on. So he won’t see. If we ever leave, I mean.”
“This is Matt and I’s office,” Jeremy says. “Everyone calls it ‘Matt’s office.’ It’s both of ours.”
“The sad manager,” Andrew says.
“Andrew?” Jeremy says.
“I’m scared,” someone says.
“I’m bored,” Andrew says. “I’m sweating.”
“Is Rachel here?” someone else says.
“No,” someone says.
Half a minute passes.
“What were you going to say about me?” Rachel says.
“I don’t know,” someone says.
“I’m confused,” someone says.
“Someone open the door,” Matt says.
Someone opens the door.
“Now what,” someone says.
“I don’t know,” someone else says.
“Andrew,” Jeremy says.
“Everyone should go back to work,” Matt says.
“Are you sure?” someone says. “Maybe we should go back to something else. I don’t know — just something else.”
But everyone has already gone back to work.
Andrew is at his car.
He gives the dolphin seven dollars.
The dolphin goes, “EEEEE EEE EEEE.”
Andrew drives toward his house.
At the first stoplight the dolphin says, “Drop me off at Kmart.”
“What Kmart? Where’s a Kmart?”
“By the diamond store,” the dolphin says.
“That’s Target.”
“Drop me off at Target,” the dolphin says.
“That’s far.”
“So?” the dolphin says.
“Are you buying drugs?”
“Why did you ask me if I’m buying drugs?” the dolphin says. “You’re being stupid.”
Andrew drives to Target, parks, gets out of the car.
“You don’t have to walk me in,” the dolphin says.
“I need toilet paper,” Andrew says.
The dolphin walks faster than Andrew, then slows a little.
Andrew walks in a different direction a little.
The dolphin sees and walks in an angle away from Andrew.
When they get to the entrance they get there together.
“Don’t be stupid and awkward,” the dolphin says. “You want to walk together or not?”
“Fine,” Andrew says. “Wait. Are you going to …”
The dolphin stares at Andrew. “Forget it,” the dolphin says.
“No, wait,” Andrew says. “What are you buying?”
“Get away from me,” the dolphin says. “You were going to say if I was going to go ‘Eeeee eee eeee.’ You are a stupid piece of shit. Go away from me.” The dolphin looks at Andrew.
“Wait,” Andrew says.
The dolphin goes into the center of a circular clothing rack and quietly cries.
Andrew looks around.
He goes home.
The dolphin cries a while then buys a steak knife.
The dolphin goes home.
It looks in the mirror.
It puts the tip of the steak knife perpendicular to its neck and grips the handle hard.
It stares in the mirror.
It puts on a jacket, takes a plane to Hollywood, and finds Elijah Wood.
“Come somewhere with me,” the dolphin says.
“Can I get a river ride?” Elijah says.
“Hold onto my flippers.”
Elijah climbs the dolphin’s back.
“You are fucking stupid. Hold on when we get to the river,” the dolphin says. “Not in the fucking parking lot.”
Elijah laughs.
“You are an idiot,” the dolphin says.
They take Elijah’s car to the ocean.
On the beach the dolphin lies in the water.
Elijah climbs on the dolphin.
The dolphin swims.
“Yeah!” Elijah says.
The dolphin swims to an island.
“I need to get something,” the dolphin says.
The dolphin leaves and returns with a heavy branch behind its back.
“You know The Ice Storm?” Elijah Wood says. “At the end of the book the guy sees a superhero or something. That was strange. They didn’t have it in the movie. Christina Ricci was in the movie.”
The dolphin clubs Elijah Wood’s head.
Elijah Wood runs away and falls.
The dolphin clubs Elijah’s body and legs.
Elijah screams.
The dolphin drags Elijah’s corpse into a cave and sits on it.
The cave is very quiet and dark.
The dolphin feels bad.
It feels very calm and a little bad.
A bear drags in Sean Penn’s corpse.
The dolphin pushes Elijah’s corpse into a hole and there is a loud coconut sound.
The bear pauses then quickly drags Sean Penn’s corpse out of the cave.
Sean Penn’s skull makes little coconut sounds against the cave floor.
At home Andrew showers and eats a banana. He takes his dogs for a walk. The dogs are tiny. Living with two dogs in an enormous house in a gated community. Andrew’s neighbors think he is strange. ‘Eccentric.’ Andrew is afraid of his neighbors. The gate has a secret pass code. Sara has a secret pass code. She should. Andrew would stand there for years trying combinations. He wouldn’t keep track or develop a strategy but just continue trying different combinations and then Kafka would rise from the grave and write a novel about him. He feeds his dogs. There is more dog shit in the piano room. Leave it. Sell the house. Suitcase full of cash. He goes to the back porch. He thinks about jumping into the pool, swimming twenty laps at lightning-speed. Drowning. Putt-putt, he thinks. He goes in the living room. He lies on the sofa. Not waving but drowning. No future. The future is now. Meaningless. Wave of the future. Everything is clichéd and melodramatic. He should eat. He used to think things like, This organic soymilk will make me healthy and that’ll make my brain work better and that’ll improve my writing. Also things like, The less I eat and the less money I spend on publicly owned companies the less pain and suffering will exist in the world. Now he thinks things like, It is impossible to be happy. Why would anyone think that? Things like, Godsford Park is the worst movie ever. Gosford? Godsford?
“Godsford,” Andrew says out loud. “Gosford.”
“What is happening right now is a depressing waste of time,” he says.
He finds his dogs and follows them. “Dogs,” he says. Chihuahuas. They have names. Waste of time? No, the dogs are good. They’re old. Andrew feels sorry for them. Pretend they are Sara. “Sara,” he says. He touches the dogs. They run away. His house is enormous. He’ll never find his dogs. He’ll find them and crush them. Mass grave. The Earth is just a massive grave. Andrew needs to stop thinking about the things he always thinks about. He needs to sell his house. He needs to clean the dog shit in the piano room. He goes to the piano room with toilet paper. Play a song for Sara. She will sense it. He badly plays fantasie-impromptu. Sounds clichéd and melodramatic. Too loud. Turn it off. He stops playing. Thank you, he thinks. Clean the dog shit later. Never clean the dog shit. Sell the house. Don’t look there, it’s just a piano. Don’t step there. Don’t step on my abstract art. Sara, The tree in the front yard doubles as a garage. Suitcase full of cash. High-fives in the side yard. Ellen, sitting in darkness in the living room. Sara Tealsden. Why is Andrew obsessed with Sara today? Is it like this every day? He can’t remember. Don’t think about it. Death. Think about death. The binary nature of the universe. Andrew’s mom in Germany, staring at a ceiling thinking about death. The mother squirrel flying by, confused. Sara, I feel like flying squirrels need to stop screwing around and get day jobs. You win, you lose. The man with the face. Three wishes. Sara. Andrew will scream, sexily. Killing rampage in a tree fort. Andrew is about to murder someone. He goes upstairs into his room, puts on a depressing CD, lies on the floor on his back; pulls his blanket off his bed, covers himself on the floor. Sara.