Props

You know those mornings where every single detail in the world around you seems much more amplified than usual? Either it is amplified, or you are just paying much more attention to everything than you usually would. As if you knew that tomorrow the world around you would start to fade, so you felt you had to soak in all that you could. So you take notice of the little bubbles in the foam on top of your morning coffee. You notice today that all the stoplights you pass aren't just one big bulb, but a bunch of small bulbs in a circle. The homeless man you walk past everyday, you've never noticed that his "Will work for food" plea was written on the back of a family sized Cheerios box, but today you did. And you don't know why, exactly, you're doing this, but you are. Whether its a conscious or subconscious act, you can't really tell. Well, that was the kind of morning I was having.

My wife and I went for breakfast at a  little diner around the corner from the hotel we were put up in. It wasn't the nicest hotel, and, to be honest, it wasn't the nicest diner either, but its what we were provided. Plus, I had never seen Sioux Falls, so I guess I couldn't complain. We called these trips our "business trips", but they had nothing to do with work. I'm in a carpenter's union and my wife is a high school math teacher a couple towns away, so aside from the annual teacher's convention, neither of us really get to go away for work. But, still, these were our business trips. 

The diner, you could immediately tell, was the type of place that hordes its regulars. The host was real talkative, as if you'd known him your whole life, and with the type of morning I was having, I almost wondered if I had. We both ordered the same thing we get at every diner - her, the egg white omelette with wheat toast, and me, the eggs benedict. It's sort of a test we have, since we go to little hole-in-the-wall diners on these business trips so much, the best way to pin them all against each other is to always order the same thing, and see who makes it better. I mean, you can't compare a bacon cheeseburger in Atlanta to a classic reuben in Jersey, but you can always test the eggs benedict.

Usually at these types of places your waitress is always going to be a sassy, sarcastic older woman, cracking jokes that only baby boomers still find funny. Instead, we got a cute young waitress today, no older than 20. Of all the details I took note of this morning, she stood out to me most. Her hair was bouncing with brown curls down almost to her waist, and her eyes were almost as big and brown as her hair. She had on a white button-up shirt, the same as all the other waitresses, but her top two buttons were undone, showing the most appropriate amount of cleavage, probably to get some extra tips. I won't say that I didn't take a look or two when she bent over to refill my coffee. As she asked our order, her lips gave way to a dentist's dream of a smile, pearly whites all perfectly aligned. If I had to guess, our waitress, whose nameplate read Samantha, went to school around here and was trying to pay her way through. Maybe a mathematics major, something she could talk to my wife about, or maybe an environmental science major who wanted to save the planet. But, this is only if I had to guess. Just as I had felt drawn to every other detail this morning, I felt drawn to Samantha, and her innocence and beauty. I just felt so distraught knowing that she would have to die today.

Halfway through my first cup of coffee, a man walked in wearing ratty jeans, a denim jacket, and a shirt that read "F*ck Facebook". Aside from a scar across his right eye, he wasn't a peculiar looking man - his hair was well parted, his body had quite an athletic build, and his beard looked to have just been groomed. Had he just walked in to eat some breakfast, you would've never taken a second look at the man. But his appearance at the diner had nothing to do with food. Hanging by his waist, held in his left hand, was a black AR-15 firearm, and before anyone could scream at the sight, he began to fire it.

Now, in these moments, while most people are sitting in shock, we have to follow our given instructions. You want to stay at the scene, and soak in the disturbing sight. You want to look into the eyes of a victim, hoping that maybe just one look can give you some insight to what their life may have been like. You want to say goodbye to Samantha, you and your wife being the last people on this earth that she would say a word to. But you can't. We were given specific instructions on how to react, and we were to follow them. So, my wife and I, located at the table furthest from the door but nearest to the kitchen, crawled our way into the kitchen. The instructions specifically said to find the freezer, and go inside. Once inside, there was a second door to an even colder freezer, where they stored the food that needed to be preserved for more than just one day. It was in here that we would hide, and lock the first freezer door, as well as the second. The idea behind this was that the gunman would not be able to break into either door, but the bullets may have the power to go through the first door, and so our only chance at complete safety was to get ourselves into that second freezer. Now, the second freezer, as you would assume, was much colder than the first. Uncomfortably cold. But, they said that we'd be found within 30 minutes, and that was not enough time for the cold to effect our immune system in any way. So, we crawled our way in. Two people were already in the freezer waiting, two familiar faces, Doug and Karen. Our final instructions told us that neither door was to be closed until 6 people were piled in the freezer, and so we waited, and shut the door once our 6th had arrived.

Stuffed in the freezer, we were surrounded by a bunch of old friends - we called them business partners - and a girl who I had never seen before. The new girl, who later told us her name was Vicky, sat there shaking, and not because of the cold. Her eyes were peeled open, and she refused to look any of us in the face. Doug walked over to her, him always being the nicest guy around, and told her that we all felt this way our first time, and it would be over soon enough. As much as it may have reassured her, she simply gave him a smile, but continued to sit in silence. The rest of us took our short time together to get reacquainted. Doug and I talked about his son's baseball scholarship while Karen and my wife went on about how they never get together anymore. Chase lit up a cigarette. Donna fixed her makeup. 

Once the noise outside subsided, you realized the SWAT team probably arrived, and you were going to be out of this freezing cold cellar soon. It was only a total of twenty-some minutes in there, but being handed a blanket felt better than being handed a brick of gold. They walked us outside, but never through the actual crime scene. The bloody corpses of our over-friendly host and our beautiful waitress were not exactly the visuals they want you to have. Outside, there was a mob of news crews, all looking to get the scoop from us, the witnesses. They pleaded for our stories. They begged to know how we escaped the scene and hid in the 0 degree freezer. This was front page, rating-booster stuff right now. But all of us, we said we were too traumatized to talk, and we asked that they please respect our privacy. Vicky would volunteer to speak, and they would get the story from the waitress who lost not only coworkers, but friends. She wore the face that they needed - the shocked face, crying and traumatized. She told the stories they wanted. How Samantha, her best friend was in there, and she was so worried for her mother. How this was her Uncle's diner, his pride and joy, and it was now the scene of an awful attack. She was the star.

Hours later, after all questions were answered and medical tests we were given, we returned to our not-so-bad hotel. We ordered some room service, got ready to stay in for the night, and maybe rent a movie. My wife, in the bathroom tearing off her wig and wiping off the make-up on her face yelled out to me, "Vicky did pretty good for a new girl, don't ya think?"

"Yeah, I think she did. Much better than our first time. At least she didn't giggle on camera."

"You know I have nervous laugh!"

As soon as she was done in the bathroom, I used it to shave this itchy-a*s beard I was told to grow. As soon as I get home, I'm cutting this hippie hair, too.

Once our food arrived, and we found a movie on TV, we sat on the bed, exhausted and starving. My wife turned to me and kissed me on the cheek.

"Are you starting to hate this s**t as much as I am?" she asked me.

"I never liked it, but at least in the beginning it was interesting." I replied.

"I hate these stupid wigs. I hate this stupid make-up. I hate your ugly-a*s hair. I hate having to small talk with Karen and Doug every single time we do this. Every time we get new instructions in the mail, it just makes me want to throw up," she screamed to me, as she started to cry, "I just wish that they didn't know when these things were coming. I wish these psychopaths didn't call the God damn news stations every f*****g time."

I hugged my wife, and I told her that we wouldn't be doing this much longer. I told her to relax. There's nothing that we can do, and even if they didn't make the call, there are plenty of ways of knowing when things will happen, so the industry won't die. But, we'll be out soon. We're growing up, and we've already been seen at least 13 times. There's only so many disguises that they can give you to wear. Soon enough, the news stations are going to find new props. There are hundreds of thousands of couples out there that are just as average-looking as we are. I give it two more atrocities. Two more attacks. 

I looked at her, gave her a kiss on her wet lips, where all the tears had built up, and I reassured her, "Two more business trips, max, and then we're done."

Author's Note

Please review!!! Anything at all would help.

Reviews

[Christina McFarlane]

This is my first review…so here goes. 

I enjoyed your story. False flag conspiracies and staged terror events are so intriguing as they feed off our fears and vulnerabilities when it comes imagining the atrocities that our governments, or even large corporations, are capable of. Telling your story from the aspect of a paid crisis actor was an interesting twist on the concept.

As far as tips are concerned, I would really only offer a few. I would have liked to know more about who you were hired by…or at least a hint as to if it were the government or a corporate entity. Also, at the end when the wife breaks down, perhaps you can expand this section. Show her morphing from yelling into despair. The final tip I could offer would be along the lines of word choices. Try to incorporate industry terms. When mentioning the freezer, restaurants generally refer to the refrigerator portion as a walk-in, with the deep freeze being the freezer portion. At least, that’s been my experience.

All in all, it was a good read. Kudos!

[Liam James]

That helped a lot. I've been planning on editing/adding a bit to the story, and its always so much easier when I can see from another person's perspective. Thanks!