Keith

What if God was named Keith? What if he was working as a tech support assistant in Brighton? What if he had no idea? What if one day, he took a sick day?

Here’s how you do it.

You close your eyes, and you take four deep breaths.

One for mornings, which twist your eyes into salt-stained crescents, when black coffee and grey sunrises and orange coloured thoughts swirl together in a mix of ache and pain and tired.

Two for the afternoons, when the sun felt like half of the day had already spilt down your back and the rain felt like the sky was crying with you because you were in a place where you couldn’t be excited for the day and you couldn’t be relieved it was over, you were just floating in the interim.

Three for the evenings, when the haze of finally  settled down in between the clouds and the sunset, and everything hung in a perfect honey-soaked moment, which disappeared as soon as it arrived.

Four for the midnights, when everything is quiet and everything is still like someone covered the world with air-shaped cotton balls, and there’s nothing but you breathing next to the rest of the planet, drifting in lukewarm violets and burgundies.

At least, that’s how Keith did it.

Keith, who was just trying to make tomorrow half an inch more worthwhile than today.

Keith, who had the world’s most cliche poster of a cat advising him to Hang in there!  adhered to his door.

Keith, who was a tech support assistant at that one phone company that everyone knows the name of but no one really uses.

Keith slept in a bed meant for two people but he filled it just fine on his own. He woke up at 7:35 each morning, because that was just the right amount of time for him to spend five minutes lying in bed, brush his teeth, wash his face, and take a shower in fifteen minutes, spend ten minutes eating breakfast, then be out the door to make it to work ten minutes later at 8:15, giving him fifteen minutes of casual office chit chat and time to grab a coffee before the doors opened.

Keith was the type of guy who planned things out like that.

That morning, Keith did not wake up at 7:35. He didn’t shower, he didn’t have breakfast, he didn’t have his allotted fifteen minutes of coffee and chit chat, and he most certainly did not go to work. That morning, Keith was sick.

This would not be such a big deal if Keith regularly took one of his sick days and spent the day with a cup of noodle soup perched on his stomach, watching Friends reruns and blowing his nose into the already growing pile of tissues next to him.

Keith did not do this. In fact, Keith had never taken a sick day, not in the entirety of human history. Wars had come and gone, the stock market did whatever the stock market does, dictators rose and fell, and still, Keith was always behind his desk, fielding phone calls through it all. Keith had a certain there-ness that other people seemed to lack, that other people found comforting.

But that morning, the unholy morning when the entire world was to change, that was the morning Keith decided to take a sick day. He just didn’t feel up to it that day. People had grown rude and tired, asking for solutions he couldn’t give them. No one ever bothered to ask how are you today, Keith? You’re looking mighty fine. Is that a new haircut? It was, actually. It was new a few years ago, that is, but it was quite different and he was really hoping somebody would notice it, but no one seemed to care what was new with Keith’s head, unless it was directly correlated to solving other people’s problems.

That morning, Keith had had enough. He took four deep breaths. Then four more. Then four more until his lungs turned inside out from breathing too much, which never seemed like it would be a problem until  it was. No matter how many deep breaths he took, he simply couldn’t will himself to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. So, he decided, he simply had to take a sick day on the account of how his lungs had turned inside out from his trying to go to work.

He made the appropriate calls, begged the appropriate apologies, and shrugged himself into an old hoodie that smelled comfortingly like his mother’s house and the way he felt ten years ago.

He made himself a bowl of macaroni and cheese - the radioactively orange kind that everyone knew tasted the best, even though it might rot you from the inside out - and a cup of earl grey tea. Then, he crawled back into bed, picked up that one book he’d been meaning to read forever, and took a few deep breaths. He felt so much better.

One sick day after all the work he’d done; that wasn’t asking too much, was it?

Meanwhile,  the world was ending.

Well, not ending, per se. Not ending in the apocalyptic sense of red skies and gnashing teeth and buildings falling over for absolutely no reason. There were no asteroids headed our way, scientists were just milling about doing their own thing, and banks stayed open. But, other than that, for all intents and purposes, the world was ending.

The Pope had clocked out for the day, claiming that God just wasn’t there. The call to prayer in Saudi shouted into a void, echoing off the hollows of every building, every sanddune, ricocheting into oblivion. Dreidels stopped spinning.

The sky had shed its clouds, yet the sun was hiding behind a patch of blue somewhere above. Christmas trees’ stars fell over, menorahs stopped burning.

This was not how the holidays were supposed to be.

Choirs who normally echoed angels in their flutey ballads found themselves unable to find pitch. Preachers, rabbis, and sikhs alike felt a gaping hole in their stomach where their faith was meant to be.

People putzed around, confused, feeling empty but not knowing why. This was a new empty, stronger than hunger, but not a painful empty. A confusing empty, like taking a sip of your tea and realizing you actually finished it a half hour ago.

Prayers were met with a sulky silence, as though the universe was throwing a tantrum and was sulking in the corner.

Which, really, he was.

It wasn’t Keith’s fault his bed was in a corner, to be fair. And he wasn’t really throwing a tantrum as much as he was politely protesting the notion of going to work that day. It was the holidays, after all. People think that tech support assistants shouldn’t get the  holidays off, because everyone always needs support with their technology, whatever the time of year.

So? Keith couldn’t help but think, growing pouty as his mind lingered on the subject. They give bakers the holidays off. People always need baked goods, whatever the time of year. Becoming aware that comparing himself to a danish probably wouldn’t raise his self esteem very much, Keith heaved himself out of bed to go scrounge in the kitchen for anything baked and bready.

As he sat down on his floor, ripping chunks off a roll he had brought home from an office party last week, Keith thought about his job.

It was a pretty s****y job, honestly. He had a small, grey desk, with no photos on it, because he had no one to take a photo of. He work a small, grey headset that made him look like one of the boring characters from Star Trek, and listened to people’s problems all day.

And then he fixed them.

It was always an easy fix, really. Turn it off and on again, wait a bit then try again later, be careful with it in the future, take care of it. But people seemed genuinely shocked at the answer.

He couldn’t blame them, really. Tech support was really something only tech support assistants really think about.

And, well, it was sort of nice. You could always hear the smile in people’s voice afterwards, like you just saved their lives. They said thank you in such an earnest way, it hit Keith somewhere in his chest, between his lungs and his heart.

It made him feel special.  

Maybe Keith didn’t really spend the holidays with anyone. Maybe he was supposed to be at work, in his tiny little desk, fixing other people’s problems. Maybe it was a s****y life. But he didn’t mind it.

He spent the holidays helping other people call their families, or take a picture to show their grandchildren. Maybe no one noticed his new haircut, or asked him how he was doing, but maybe that was because he was always doing okay.

Keith wasn’t all that important, not to most people. No one saw him, no one really talked to him unless they needed something. But he was there. Through thick, and thin, and every other density of trouble that happened to come the way of the world, there was Keith, sitting at this desk, ready to field the world’s calls.

Reviews

[Sesame]

Hello Keith,

Thanks for entering the competition. Alas not a winner this time. I do not have the time to provide a detailed critique on all the submissions, but a few remarks:

- No dialogue, which would be just the thing to bring Keith to life. For example a customer calling for something and being rude, or one coming in and not noticing his hair cut
- One crooked paragraph "Keith did not do this... people found comforting.", The events you describe are unrelated to Keith being there, it does not make sense. Examples that could influence Keith being there: pandemics, floods, public transport failing, family dying, breaking legs, etc..
- the lone sentence "which really he was" what does it refer to?
- to my knowledge "Saudi" is not a language, Arabic is
- "he work a small grey headset" -> typo here

Hope it helps.


Regards,

Sesame

@followsesame on Twitter

www.themagiccave.com

[D.S. Dirck]

"The Pope had clocked out for the day, claiming that God just wasn’t there." Love this line. Great writing.