‘Little Red Lamp’ (flash fiction competition)

Did not win this week in the flash fiction competition, but did get an honourable mention for a creative take on the prompt, which was “include technical instructions for a job, any job”. Story below.

851 words

Little Red Lamp

IF WARNING LAMP IS LIT: The operator, upon confirming aurally that growth is not abating or likely to abate in the enclosure, shall perform the following actions:

1. Depress the plunger and hold.
2. Wait.
3. Release the plunger when warning lamp extinguishes.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

It was just the two of them in a room designed for one, and a somewhat modest person at that. Raz rather regretted bringing his fish supper to the orientation session, as it would be his colleague who would have to put up with the smell. Zaq’s mood, already seething, would suffer.

“That’s outrageous!” Zaq blurted out, waving the single page of instructions in one hand, his slender fingers threatening to crush it. “An essential role, they called it! ‘Impossible to automate’! You could train an ape to do this!”

“Dignity, please,” Raz said around a mouthful of barbel, gesturing at Zaq with a little wooden fork. “You know if the boss could have automated it, he would’ve done. It really is an essential part of our work.”

Zaq slumped in the institutional chair he would be graced with for this post, mouthing something obscene and potentially seditious to the side wall. Metal wheels scraped across the crystal floor, friction sending up sparks and licks of green flame. In the cramped surroundings, his knees stroked against Raz’s, and the two of them awkwardly looked off to the side, taking a renewed interest in each individual muon set into the starfield-pattern table.

“It feels like I’m being punished for wanting my job back. Or set up to fail. There must be something more comprehensive than this rubbish.”

“That rubbish took an age to write.” Raz scooped up more of his meal, keeping his eyes down on the schools of fish coalescing into solid, cooked flesh on the infinite lake shore around his chips. “I was on the committee that wrote it, do you know just how agitated the boss can get about the difference between ‘will’ and ‘shall’?”

Zaq shot him a look, then reached over and snapped close the takeaway box. Both it and its contents blinked out of existence in a shattering explosion: fish, chips, miniature lakes and mountains all collapsing into nothing. The space between the two filled with tiny flashes of atomic fire.

“Rude.” Bereft of his meal, Raz pouted and waved a hand to dismiss the lingering ozone scent. “Anyway, it’s not a punishment. And there really isn’t any need for the manual to be any longer.” He reached into a gaping wound in the tabletop and brought forth a thrashing carp, twisting it around his hands like a balloon as he spoke, eyes locked on his underling.

“The point of the system is that we don’t have to go down and speak to the poor wretches and make a judgment. The system does that for us, but only we can bring the curtain down.” The carp took on a glassy quality until it formed an identical takeaway container, this time as though carved from obsidian, full to the brim with spiced fish and chunky chips. “If you think it lacks gravitas, call the plunger a trumpet. Have a little fun with it.”

Raz set the fresh meal on the table as a peace offering, though it went unacknowledged. Slumped in defeat, Zaq turned towards the infinite compartments set against the wall, each one topped by a dull red glow ready to burst into flame.

“I’ll leave you to your work,” Raz said cheerily, beginning to phase out of the room. “It looks like you have your first customer. And do try the food, there’s plenty of it!”

A red beacon was flickering to life above one of the compartments, demanding Zaq’s attention. Shooting daggers at Raziel’s coy smile as he disappeared, the younger Watcher drew the container towards him, the stars within growing to fill his field of vision. He placed his ear to the translucent barrier, and the cries of a million trillion souls rose through the twisted thicket of folded space-time between the universe and the world of the angels. With each passing moment the cries grew more numerous, growth unending. A clear requirement for action.

“Goodness, I wonder if I can remember what the ops manual told me to do,” muttered Zaq bitterly, tapping on the divide with a finger to dissuade one of the more errant galaxies inside from colliding with the universal limit.

Depressing the plunger set above the compartment, the angel named Zaqiel barely glanced towards the countless stars in countless galaxies, instead turning his attention to the gift of a fish supper left for him. The sentients within the doomed creation would have subjective millennia to see their universe collapse in on itself, and yet in all that time would be incapable of perceiving what lay beyond.

And yet, if by some freak accident of circumstance one of them were to pierce the veil, they would see neither malice nor disdain in their deliverance, but the crushing boredom of one waiting for a little red lamp to go out.