Collateral Employee

My name was lost to me well before my death. It had been the case for he one before me, and the one after me, who I now observe. I don’t know if he had ever had a name. If he might have been a desperate vagrant or some other such person rejected for suffering a mental collapse. He might have been bred for this role, to be shackled with old, rust soaked chains in a man sized closet. Waiting.

I wouldn’t be able to tell you much about how this line of work came about, just that I was here well before me, but I do know what is done to the ones labeled as a ‘Collateral Employee.’

They buy you first, sometimes figuratively with promise of family benefits or something as simple as a roof over your head and three square meals. Others, the ones who are bred in tubes to take this role, are bought from the companies producing them. Conglomerates allying with sperm banks so the former would have first pick, while the latter would have more funding. Win-Win for everyone but the one I’m watching now, chained up where I was, drool muddied with dollops of blood from the latest in a long line of beatings.

It how the store keeps them docile. You hurt anything enough, keep it in the dark for long enough, it will, without fail, eventually go silent. It’s what happened to me. I’m not ashamed to admit I’m looking forward to their passing. I’m the only one of my ilk whose stuck around since my death, and I’m desperate to have some measure of company. You can imagine I’m overjoyed when the door swings open and, in place of the blue vested shelf stockers, there’s a much older man in a suit.

“It’s time.” He says.

Indeed it is.

The Collateral is unfastened from the wall and dragged by two of the larger employee, hands clasped under arms limp like noodles. They hustle their way right through me and I swiftly turn to follow them as they travel toward the Complaints Office. Initially, the procedure was to have the Collateral brought to wherever the disgruntled customer was, whether that be in the electronics section, the clothing isle, or right up to the checkout. Legislation was enacted that such acts would be done in a designated room, well away from the public eye. This was after Collateral was required in the toy isle, and the complainant vented their frustrations in front of a sizeable amount of young children. It was also, from what I remember, a real bitch to clean up.

So, now we have the Complaints Office, which contains the manager, the two employees who are still holding the Collateral, and the complainant, a woman who might be somebodies grandmother. The manager than presents her with a cart of tools. Knives. Hammers. Saws. Scalpels. Tweezers. Electronic devices of all stripes meant only to inflict pain on the recipient. It is everything a complainant needs to vent their frustration with shoddy service, and this one, a little old lady now holding a pair of scissors, seems quite pleased.

She starts by opening the scissors and, with a flourish that seems to such the other people in the room, jams both blades into the Collaterals eyes. This wretched, searing pain wakes them up enough that they begin struggling against the grip of the two shelf stockers. A dry, rasping noise falls out of his gaping mouth. A facsimile of a scream from vocal cords long since snapped.

The Complainant continues with the scissors, now trying to close them through the thick goop of the Collaterals ruined eyes, trying to cut through the socket bones and the cartilage of the nose. She fails and leaves them inside his head. She goes back to the cart and comes back with a buck knife. That is used in short order when she plunges it into the Collaterals stomach. He is dry heaving, coughing blood near the end, as she goes back to the cart and takes another knife, a smaller knife. She sticks that in up the hilt and goes back.

The Collateral is not trying to scream anymore. He is not trying to cry in the first place. These reactions are the natural, impulsive response to pain that is expected. For The Complaint, it is encouraged.

She has a thin switchblade, but she settles for taking one of The Collaterals limp arms and slicing widthwise, just deep enough to draw blood. She returns the knife to the cart instead of sticking up with it. That part surprises me, if only for a moment. I can see what she grabs next, and I am far less surprised. I remember those little metal tweezers, and I know what she is about to do with them.

She, of course, digs them into the new wound on the Collaterals arm. The instinctual thrashing starts up again as she pulls something long and thin from inside of his arm and out into the open air. It stretches taut above his arm, and that is when one of the shelf stockers, the one meant to hold that arm, flees from the room retching. The others remain, though they don’t look at the gruesome sight in front of them. The one that left must have been new. I’d give him a week or so before he calls it quits.

Her own enthusiasm seems to fade as she watches that little red vein snap in half between the tweezers, which she quickly drops onto the floor. The room is quiet now. No one moves. No one speaks. No one even breathes. The dripping blood of the Collateral Employee is the only sound.

“Ok.” Says The Complaiant. “I-I’m done now.”

What happens next is not procedure. The remaining shelf stocker drops the Collateral and quickly exits, likely to join his coworker in vomiting or crying or both. It’s what they did after me, though they weren’t the same two people. The Manager and The Complaint exchange a few words I don’t pay any mind to and she too leaves quickly, running from her mess. Putting the whole incident behind her so she can go back to being a grandmother. A good, churchgoing grandmother.

The Manager is the only one who remains. He is staring, stone faced, at what used to be a person lying on his floor. He lets out a big, exaggerate sigh before stepping around the growing pool of blood and leaving the room. He’ll put on his best customer service smile for the rest of the day. The shelf stockers will as well, because that is the way corporate instructs them. In a way, the Collateral is lucky; their purpose is much less emotionally taxing, at least in my mind.

I can watch the Collateral alone now, this glass eyed, drooling mess of a young man, and I allow myself to wonder if his mind will carry into the next life. If there is anything left to talk too. I sincerely hope so, but, if not, I won’t worry too much.

After all, I can always wait for the next one.