Afterwords Cafe
an excerpt

On Tuesday, June 6, 1995, Michael was exactly 18 years old and beginning what he believed to be the rest of his life. It was 10:33 in the morning as he embarked on his journey to the paper factory, where he would be joining others in their mission to create and deliver paper to the world. ("Okay," Michael said now, sitting in the cafe across from an old, interested man, "it wasn't all that great, but at the time it paid well and it was my first job outside of the local shopping mall.")

It was raining, as it usually does in Seattle, and Michael found himself with a bit of a skip in his step, hopping over puddles and tipping his hat to strangers. He felt pretty jolly, if that could ever be a word used to describe him; his ambitions were to save up and get out of that godforsaken city with the high suicide rate. He wasn't smiling, however; he almost never smiled at anything that wasn't worth smiling at. And there really wasn't a lot to smile at, Michael supposed, what with his entire world always being so dull and boring and full of colors like brown, grey, dark blue, and black, instead of the bright, beautiful colors he imagined existed outside his hometown - pink, red, green, and a yellow so bright it gave you the shivers. It was always raining in Seattle for Michael, even if it it really wasn't.

Today, however, on his birthday, at the start of a new life, he was going to break through those barriers he supposed were created for him, and show the world just who Michael McNaught was! He approached the paper factory with such enthusiasm that he thought he might burst.

Of course, no such excitement about work ever sticks, unless you are doing something that you really enjoy. Michael didn't particularly enjoy working with paper, because of all the papercuts and the dreary surroundings. He'd never actually worked with paper before that day, but he remembered using it at school and thinking how useless the assignments were, and therefore how useless the paper was. It was a great invention, though - or discovery? - as he learned in second grade with all his other classmates, who then made paper to be brought home to their parents. He put that on his job application as a very fond memory and an experience he really enjoyed, making paper, even though it was a complete lie. Apparently they were enthused about this prospective paper factory worker, because they gave him such a warm, individual welcome.

"Good morning, Mr. McNaught! I trust today is finding you well," said the man in the white coat who greeted Michael at the door.

"Yes, thank you." Michael found himself without words, in surprised awe of the layout of the factory. He never previously found himself particularly interested in architecture, but at this moment, he was fascinated. The entire building was made of glass and mirrors, except for the area where the paper working was actually conducted. That was covered in black, so that it looked as though there was a small black building surrounded by a larger clear building, a force-field, or a crystal holding a smoldering treasure inside. It was unlike anything Michael had seen before, and wondered why he didn't notice this from the outside.

The man in the white coat was very proper and polite to a point where Michael would almost have thought him British. It was a lifelong assumption of his that anyone who is very proper and polite must have been of British ancestry, because no way in Hell are any Americans he knew that proper and polite. They try very hard, but they end up sounding like blundering idiots, sort of how Michael did from time to time, especially when approaching girls. However, this particular man didn't have any accent aside from the unusual, subtle Seattle accent, which is only carried by those who have had generations live here. Most of the people in this city, including Michael and his family, are from other parts of the country, or even the world, and thus they don't have that small difference in some of their words. This man, however, did, and Michael noticed it right away.

He was talking about the history of the company and their mission statement. Michael followed him into an office room, also made entirely of glass, and wondered if he wasn't ever embarrassed to be exposed as such. The building only had one floor, though it was a very tall floor, and Michael guessed the reason it was so tall was because the inner black-coated building had several floors. It seemed very airy and dangerous to work under so much high-ceiling glass and he was thankful that most of his work would be done inside the core. He supposed he might develop a paranoid fear of this place, but he'd only have to conquer that fear twice a day to enter and exit, so it wasn't all that bad.

He watched the man's mouth move, but didn't hear everything he was saying. It came through to him in short spurts, words here and there, so that he grasped the meaning behind the speech but couldn't repeat it if asked. The mouth moved with the words, entirely, unlike some people who only moved their lips when they spoke. Michael hoped he was one of the latter, now seeing how unattractive it is when the mouth and jaw move while speaking. He saw when the man smiled and smiled back appreciatively, and laughed when he supposed the man was making a joke, based on the lines that formed around his eyes. His face spoke to Michael more than his voice did, although this was true for everyone.

So affixed on the face of the man in the white coat he was, so he didn't realize that he had stopped talking. He was at that moment concentrating on the lines and the curves and the pores in the man's cheek, while the man was staring at him expectantly, not realizing that Michael was deep in thought about the contours of his face. Any other person would have thought it strange, even rude, but the man in the white coat was so perfectly innocent that he didn't notice anything was amiss. He just sat and looked at Michael, thinking perhaps that the boy was deep in thought, trying to think of an acceptable answer, being so nervous about his new job and all.

Michael blinked and tilted his head slightly up and to the left. He felt as though he was coming back from a dream and smiled at the man who was clearly expecting something from him. Inside, he felt the panic rise from his stomach and settle in a big ball somewhere around his throat, ready to be thrown up and out of his system at any time. For the first time that day, he was nervous, thinking of all the things that could possibly go wrong at this moment which would keep him from the job and thus keep him in Seattle forever. ("It never occurred to me," Michael interrupted himself while he was talking to Jones, "that there might be other jobs that would pay as much or more, which would also help me along my way out of that awful city.")

"Well, in any case," the man in the white coat continued, apparently forgiving Michael of his inability to answer whatever the previous question was, "I'd like to give you the tour today if you don't mind. You won't start until tomorrow, of course, because we still have some paperwork to fill out. Ha! 'Paper work!'" The man felt this was terribly clever, and though Michael didn't really get it, he smiled anyway.

The man scooted out of his desk and walked towards the door; Michael followed suit. He was much more aware now than he had been before, and felt the previous incident with his staring intently at the man's face might have been a dream; surely he wasn't being rude to his new employer. They walked through the glass hallway and into another glass room, which looked like it might have been a break room, as it had a coffee maker and a refridgerator. Michael didn't quite grasp how the wires became invisible, as the walls themselves were mirrors, or for that matter, how the building stood up without any kind of support except... glass. (Mirrors are, of course, just glass.) This is when he began developing the aforementioned perceived to-be-developed fear of this building, but he didn't let it show lest the man in the white coat think him unworthy of the job.

It was very quiet outside the black building, with a paper rustle here or there and a phone ringing off in the distance, and it seemed rather empty alltogether to Michael. He imagined more secretaries and memos and much more of an office setting, and this deserted highway feeling was unsettling.

The contrast came at a blow. The man opened the large metal door to the black building, and there was nothing but noise coming from in there. It was loud and disorganized, paper, metal, ribbon, packaging, men shouting and bells ringing, things that Michael had imagined would fill the whole building, not just the inside. Maybe this was why the actual factory was sectioned off from the rest of the building, and the rest of the world. It was so loud and very uncomfortable. Before the door was shut and they were standing inside, Michael thought he heard the glass ringing and vibrating with the commotion, and this he felt was utterly terrifying.

He suddenly realized, standing there in the sound of paper-making, that while he was out in the silent glass castle, he couldn't hear the rain. He knew it was raining on his way over to the paper factory, but once he entered the rain all but ceased. It didn't even seem that he saw the rain hitting the glass, just that there was water running down the side of the building like a peaceful waterfall. It felt a little surreal to him at that moment, as if this really was just a crystal with a treasure core, sitting in a stream and floating along silently.

The noises of the factory workers drew him back to attention. The man didn't show him anything specific about the machines or the men using them; he merely pointed out what certain rooms were used for, and where he would go to clock in, and what he would do if there should ever be an emergency. Michael listened intently this time, as he couldn't imagine cutting off his finger and not knowing what to do about it.