Mr. Krebs sets the product down. “And this is going to, you said, revolutionize sleep? How do you mean?”
“Well,” Neil begins, thinking, I mean it’s hyperbole, like we all shovel back and forth to each other all goddamn day like anything actually does anything, “what I mean by that is that… the purpose of sleep is to renew the user. What we’re trying to emphasize is the fact that perfect sleep is the way to personal betterment.”
“Mmm, yes. And what do you mean, ‘perfect’ sleep? What does this,” he holds up the puffy blindfold, “have to do with that?”
This used to be easy, the pitch. Something is blocking his flow, like a plug in the dam. He visualizes water flowing and takes a deep breath, which comes out too loud when he releases it, like a grunt. He swallows.
“Would you like to try it out? Just slip it on and press the button by your right ear.”
Mr. Krebs complies, and Neil watches his slack, unsmiling mouth and folded arms. Fuck you too, moneybags. These thoughts keep butting in.
“What do you think?” he finally says.
“Okay, I’ve got it,” Mr. Krebs says, slipping the blindfold off and pushing it across the table.
“And, what did you think?”
“Listen, Mr. Finch. It’s a perfectly solid product; I won’t try to argue otherwise. But it’s very much like a product we already carry, which is already very much like a lot of products on the market.”
“I see,” Neil says, looking intently at the CEO’s pursed little mouth.
“I mean,” the CEO continues, “if you could convey to me what makes this different, well, then we might have something.”
“What makes it different. It’s, well, it’s meant to be transformational, sir. The sounds have been meticulously designed to… lull the user, in, in a— maybe you’d like to take the product home? Try it out for a night. I guarantee you’ll see what makes this a must-have item. Tell me, do you have trouble sleeping?”
“I sleep fine.”
“If you don’t want to take it now, I could have it delivered to your home?”
“No, no that won’t be necessary.”
A long silence sits like a boulder on the table while Neil tries to situate himself in the room and the conversation. He can barely remember anything he’s said. He looks around the room, the shiny brown table and matte brown walls everything brown, brown, brown, like this guy’s opinion holds any more weight than anybody else’s, like this guy’s some kind of taste-maker with his finger on the pulse of the all-important market. All he can think of to say is what he’s actually thinking, always a no-no.
“Why did you want to meet with me, Mr. Krebs?” he asks, too pointedly.
He shrugs defensively, “I thought it might be interesting, but it turns out it isn’t.”
“What would’ve been interesting?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Finch?”
“Is there something you’re able to imagine that this product could’ve been, some imaginary product to whose image this actual product doesn’t measure up?”
Mr. Krebs looks at Neil, hard, and cocks his head to one side as though something has just come to his attention.
“I think we’re done here,” he says.
Mr. Krebs then gives Neil an admonishing look that momentarily enrages him, but he collects himself, unsure suddenly what he’s said versus what he’s thought.
“Good, good,” he says, standing. He shakes Mr. Krebs’s hand across the table and shoves the blindfold into his briefcase. “Good to meet you, great,” he says, without making any eye contact, and leaves the room.
Neil takes the stairs down to the building’s garage, too impatient to wait for the elevator. He forgot to get his parking pass validated, so he’ll have to pay for it out of pocket, seven dollars for not a goddamn thing. His anger returns for a moment, as he climbs into his rented silver Nissan, making him heave himself into the car and slam the door hard, but it subsides as he sits behind the wheel for a moment, key poised at the ignition.
He realizes he doesn’t care. Of course he doesn’t care. When has he ever cared? He pretends to care so much that he almost fools himself into believing he really does. Almost.
He stows the key in the ignition but doesn’t turn it, instead pulling the blindfold out of his briefcase. He slips it onto his face, leans back, and presses the button. After a couple of seconds, a soft rattle starts up, followed by a low whoosh, then slowly another little rattle. He’s disoriented at first, trying to put an image to the noise, until it becomes clear to him that he’s listening to a rain stick tipping back and forth. He pictures the stick turning slowly against a hazy black backdrop. He spaces out to the image, but before long, he’s picturing the stick in someone’s hand, some intern in a gray studio, holding the stick up to a grungy microphone, and he starts laughing.
He keeps laughing, blindfolded in his car, in the vast, echoing garage, under the hulking twenty-story office building.
Revolutionary, he thinks, a revolution in personal regeneration and success. This makes him laugh even harder, until tears are rolling out from under the velvety fabric of the blindfold.
THE PATTERN
Iris climbs into her car in the dark garage and turns the ignition. It sputters as though out of habit or not up to the task after being abandoned for a weekend she spent holed up, hermit-like. She tries again and it starts with a coughing rumble.
She parks at the office, happily a whole fifteen minutes early, the traffic having been oddly light. She uses the time to grab a latte and a blueberry muffin down the street. Walking back to the office, the coffee cup warm in her hand and white paper bag clutched in her fingers, she is glad to be out. In these moments, out in the world, when it is obvious to anyone who she is — a worker, a working girl, a commuter, a morning person blending in seamlessly in line at the café— she relaxes. Everything has been decided, in these moments. It is easy to be in these places. It is so easy to walk the streets in the bright, cool morning sun, with rush hour traffic whizzing by and a destination straight ahead.
As she fiddles with the lock of the office door, she can’t help glancing at 2B. She noticed that the white van was in the same spot in the parking lot, collecting more and more debris from various flora, carried by the thick breeze. He hasn’t gone anywhere, not yet. She gets the door unlocked and the alarm shrieks until she punches in the code by touch, out of habit, her gaze still floating toward the other door. Unless he’s abandoned the car, she thinks. It could stay there forever, sink roots into the pavement, its owner long gone, and she would be the only one to notice.
Finally, she disengages from the door and puts her muffin and coffee down on her desk. She sets the office alight, the long fluorescent tubes activating behind grates across the ceiling, one to the next like dominoes falling, until the last one at the far end of the hall doesn’t light up, but flickers briefly and dies.
She sits behind her desk and pulls the muffin out of its crinkling paper while her computer turns on. Once again, there are no phone messages, but she is not too perturbed. It is just one less thing for her to bother with. No email either. A long line of one less things. She takes a slow sip of her coffee and rests her eyes on the desk in front of her. She reaches out her pinkie finger and tries to wipe dust from the grooves of her telephone key pad with the edge of her nail, but she can’t get in there. There are things that can’t be cleaned, things that stick around, untouchable and untouched. She eats her breakfast slowly, wholly contained in the bubble surrounding her neat and orderly desk, a shield of wood and snaking gray wires between herself and anything beyond.