Chapter 1: Run of the Mill
They say Yellow City gives strength to the weak…but all I see is weakness.
Dan Delacor walked along the sidewalk that led down Arbor Boulevard, and the hypocrisy of the city’s motto echoed off the buildings like the sound of a tin can being kicked into the gutter. He walked past poor, frumpy women sitting on dilapidated and rusting balconies, teenagers with their hands stuffed so deeply into their pockets that it seemed they might touch their knees, and men whose skin left one guessing as to whether they were tanned or filthy. These people all looked upon Dan with tired eyes that conveyed a mixture of scorn and temerity. It was that common look that betrays the fact that one doesn’t know if they should feel superiority or shame, hatred or envy, so the subject chooses superiority and hatred for fear of revealing their own weakness. Dan looked back at them with eyes that were just as tired, but his eyes said nothing else. He held no ego over these people. He saw them as one sees the clouds in the sky.
Stray cats with patchy fur prowled clumsily for mice that were too starved to make for a decent meal. They played a game with one another that was more akin to two drunkards playing at a game of tag. As Dan walked he counted more boarded windows than panes of glass. He looked up at the dingy-yellow brick buildings, and every one of them featured unskilled graffiti. These inept paintings were the billboards of the weary, pleading in vain for the viewer to see culture and art in place of plight. Yet these eyesores were to culture what Dan’s yellow necktie was to fashion: the reminder of a self-imposed leash.
The rest of Yellow City ignored this side of Arbor Boulevard, and the harrowing blight that was Arbor Slum liked it that way. After all, what oppressor wants to hear the cries of those they trample underfoot, and conversely, why would the oppressed care to know the names of the ones holding the whips? However, Dan Delacor was of a different breed. For some strange reason, walking down Arbor Boulevard calmed him in ways that other people simply could not understand. He never saw himself as the oppressor. In his mind, they were all underneath the footfall. To Dan, this old slum held value.
Other business people like Dan would have taken the Tunnel Runner from the city’s office sector to its medical sector. They never would have chanced the affliction of conscience that Arbor Boulevard might have caused them, or the legitimate danger. However, Dan didn’t like taking the Tunnel Runner, and he had always felt uncomfortable when he had to. The walk from his office building to the medical sector wasn’t very far, and with so many people stuffed into the enclosed space of the Tunnel Runner, being throttled through time and space by the cold pairing of society and technology, he felt as if walking was the only sane choice. At least on Arbor Boulevard Dan could see the golden sun as it set and blanketed the perimeter wall of Yellow City in an orange glow.
Dan thought it looked pretty, as far as giant glass walls were concerned. However, the one that protected Yellow City from the Outer Reaches couldn’t prevent a man from feeling the weight of oppression that came from being penned in. It was a subtle feeling, like the way one notices the feel of a shirt against their skin. If you’re not paying attention to it, it is almost as if it’s not there, but in truth, it’s always there. As soon as you think about it, you can feel it. For Dan, the feeling was like a small fraction of the way he felt when he was crammed amid the crowds of the Tunnel Runner. However, over time, even a fraction can feel like an immeasurable weight.
Dan was willing to bear the truth of Arbor Boulevard because it provided a small relief from his feeling of oppression. Walking the slum was a far better fate than denial, apathy, and suffocation. At least Arbor Boulevard was honest. They would all support the weight together. Dan often thought the street held its own beauty in some gasping and vital way. Arbor Boulevard survived, whether you cared to notice or not, and its inhabitants were very real in a way that the people of Dan’s daily life were not. He could never explain why he felt the way he did, but he felt like the people surrounding him were wearing masks. He felt alone in his honesty. The slum was genuine, real, and wild. Dan was willing to brave the untamed.
Most of the denizens of Arbor Slum were not around during the day. They were either working in the sewers or in the fields, never being dismissed until the sun had disappeared, but that didn’t make the slum any less dangerous. It wasn’t the people with jobs you had to worry about. The real worry came from those who had nothing better to do with their time. The slum’s citizens usually lacked education. It was viewed as a waste of time. If you lived in Arbor Slum, you worked in the sewers, in the fields, or you made your money in any number of illegal and unseemly enterprises. Arbor Slum was a minefield of dangerous activity that Dan would never send a loved one through, but he knew how to avoid its trouble. He stayed on the boulevard, the outermost throughway, and kept to himself, even if that meant ignoring direct eye contact or sidestepping a direct threat.
“Hey, mister, you got money in those pockets? I know you got money; you look like you got a job. So, how about it? We can do this the hard way if you want.”
Dan knew to never stop walking when confronted by a potential mugger. He couldn’t give them time to think or get their feelings hurt that he hadn’t taken their threat seriously.
“I don’t have time for you, kid,” Dan said. “I’ve got somewhere to be.”
The teenager jumped off the stairs he had been perched on and walked out to the sidewalk, keeping a small distance behind Dan. Dan didn’t notice much about the teen, other than the fact that he was skinny, wearing dirty clothes, was pale as the moon, and alone.
“You know I can make you give me your money, right?”
“Kid, if you make me late for my appointment, I’ll beat your ass. Now get lost.”
“Man, whatever…I got a gun.”
“You don’t have a damn thing.”
“Man, whatever.”
And that was just how Dan had always done it. As long as you weren’t afraid of being mugged, you’d never get mugged. The truth was that the roving teenagers of Arbor Slum were too poor to be feared. They hadn’t eaten well enough that day to be stronger than Dan, and they couldn’t scrape enough money together to buy a box of bullets, let alone a gun. As long as he didn’t keep a consistent schedule of when he walked down Arbor Boulevard, Dan could get through just fine. The truly dangerous people operated further inside Arbor Slum and didn’t have time to bother with petty muggings.
Dan looked at the shabby buildings, with filthy stains on their faded, yellow bricks. “Gives strength to the weak,” he said to himself while shaking his head. “What a joke. This is a wasteland. It’s the byproduct of powerful people doing what they have to in order to keep their power. This place is just collateral damage. ”
Dan looked down an alley and saw a young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, playing with a small red dog. He stopped for a moment and stared at them. They were far enough down the alley and involved enough in their game that they didn’t notice him gawking at them.
A red dog? Dan wondered with a modicum of shock. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a dog that wasn’t a Golden Retriever. Not that Dan could remember much, but it was enough of an oddity that he couldn’t help staring at the girl and her dog. The dog was very small, probably somewhere around ten pounds, and the majority of its fur was red, with the exception of its white paws, some white in its tail, and an aged, white face. The brown-haired girl was on her hands and knees, slapping at the ground in front of it, mimicking the actions of a playful dog, and her pet was eating it up. It bounced from one side to the other, putting its chest on the ground and wagging its feathered tail in the air.
The old dog has spirit, Dan laughed to himself as the little dog gave a playful bark and ran three circles around the girl. It had large ears that stood straight up, and each one bore tufts of long red hair that caught the wind as it ran. Another five laps around the young girl, and the dog was winded. It stood panting, its big brown nose bobbing up and down, and the young girl smiled at it lovingly.
“Had enough?” she teased. The dog continued to pant with its mouth wide. It looked as if it were smiling. “Okay, let’s go home.” The girl scooped the little dog up in her arms, and it licked her face affectionately. “I love you, too.”
Dan smiled and turned to continue his walk to the medical sector, knowing he had made the right decision to forego the Tunnel Runner. There was something about Arbor Slum that always reminded Dan that life was worth it. No matter how short the feeling lasted and no matter how his mundane life ran him back and forth through the same rut over and over like logs through a mill, Arbor Slum gave him a feeling to be valued. He watched the sun as it continued to set and wished the moment could last.
As the minutes passed and the glow from the sunset became less intense, Dan found himself closing in on the Tunnel Runner station that was at the north end of the medical sector. A policeman saw Dan coming down the boulevard and quickly waddled over to him.
“Sir, are you okay?” the policeman asked. He looked over Dan as if expecting to find something wrong.
“I’m fine,” Dan answered, squinting his light-brown eyes and running his hand through the wave in his like-colored hair. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Well, nothing, I suppose. Where are you coming from?”
“I’m coming from Office Building Three Twenty-Three. I have an appointment at Medical Building Five.”
The policeman was confused. He took his yellow-checkered hat off and rubbed the brim against his forehead. He looked flustered and on the brink of breaking a sweat. It was hard to tell if his ample weight was causing his perspiration or his nerves.
“You know, people get mugged walking down in Arbor Slum.”
“I’ve heard.”
Dan straightened his yellow tie and walked away from the policeman. He didn’t want to be late for his appointment, and he realized that there wasn’t any good reason that he had been approached.
“Well, have a good night,” the policeman called, “and next time, I’d take the Tunnel Runner.”
Dan crossed the footbridge over Arbor Boulevard and moved past the masses of people at the Tunnel Runner station. Medical Building Five was just two blocks away now, and he was beginning to feel annoyed about his appointment. The streets were flooded with people and vehicles, all fighting to find their way home, and Dan wished he were doing the same. Instead, he was forced to fight his way through wave after wave of bodies and noise, just to reach a destination he never wanted to reach.
As he approached Medical Building Five, he pressed the yellow button beside the yellow door and waited to be admitted. He turned briefly to watch the sea of men and women he had just emerged from, wearing the same dull, yellow clothes that he wore, as they made their way home from a day of work at their dull, yellow jobs. That last part wasn’t necessarily fact, but it was how Dan felt, and so he counted it as a justified assumption. After all, Dan had never met anyone who wasn’t dull, and Yellow City rarely permitted colors that were not yellow, so why shouldn’t he believe it was true?
The Tunnel Runner left the station and created a burst of hot air that blew Dan’s shirt tight against him. He stood on the sidewalk, waiting to be admitted to Medical Building Five, and wiped a bit of sweat from his brow with his yellow tie. He looked at the tie after he used it and scoffed dismissively. Then he quickly undid the knot and angrily pulled the tie from his collar. Balling it up and stuffing it in his pocket, Dan somehow felt as if he had won a small victory. He didn’t like that the policeman didn’t think he could handle Arbor Boulevard. He hated to think that others might see him that way as well. Had his life truly become so monotonous and banal that he was exuding vulnerability? He involuntarily ran his fingers through his hair, the thought upsetting him enough to bring out his nervous habits.
A sharp electric buzzer broke Dan from thoughts of his tiny rebellion, and an annoying voice shot through the small speaker next to the yellow door.
“State your appointment,” the speaker commanded.
“Dan Delacor,” he said in a depressed tone. “Five thirty.”
“Which department?”
“Psychology,” Dan mumbled.
“You’ll have to speak up,” the speaker complained.
“Psy-chology,” Dan snapped.
The electric buzzer sounded again, and Dan pushed his way through the door into Medical Building Five.
The ground floor was empty. Most of the employees in the medical sector had been released from their jobs at five, just as Dan and the other employees in the office sector had been. They were obviously on their way home, as he usually was. It irked him fiercely that he had the obligation of this appointment. It was ridiculous, it was unnecessary, and it was a waste of his time.
Dan walked across the large, empty room with its polished granite floor, and the sound of his yellow loafers echoed across the space with each step. Dan was moving toward the LED screen at the far end of the room that he assumed would tell him how to get to the psychology department.
Psychology–Elevator Two was displayed in large letters, traveling right to left across the screen. Dan spun around to see the elevators located at the other end of the room, the same end where he had first entered Medical Building Five.
“Who was the idiot who built this place?” Dan asked aloud in frustration.
A nasally recording played over the loud speaker. “Medical Building Five was built in the year 10B, at the behest of Chancellor Elgrey Vinsidian…”
“The question was rhetorical,” Dan moaned, rubbing his palm against his temple as the speaker blathered unwanted information. One had to be careful what they asked for in Yellow City.
He hastened his pace and made a swift path toward elevator number two. When the elevator opened to reveal the psychology floor, Dan found himself at the end of a long hallway. He looked down to the other end and saw a woman sitting behind a reception desk. There was so much silence and space between Dan and the receptionist that he found it quite unsettling. He wondered if this was part of the psychological analysis. Was she watching him and waiting to see how he would react to the uncomfortable moments before he reached her desk? Was she watching to see how long it took to announce himself? Would he wait until he had walked right up to the large yellow desk or would his nerves cause him to blurt out a hello when he was still many paces away?
“Hi,” Dan said after he had reached the desk. “Pretty long hallway, huh?”
The woman flicked her golden hair behind her shoulder and raised one disinterested eyebrow at Dan’s attempt at small talk. She was obviously more accustomed to the hallway than he was.
“Last name?” she asked.
“Delacor.”
“Dr. Monday is waiting for you. Second room on the right.” The woman pointed one manicured fingernail down a hallway that was perpendicular to the one Dan had just come from.
Dan found the appropriate door and knocked. He heard someone ask him to please enter and he did so. As he opened the door to the office, Dr. Monday stood from a desk that faced the door. Behind him the wall was complete glass, and the light of the sunset rendered him a silhouette. Dan, blinded by the sun as it came pouring through the windows, shielded his eyes from the brightness.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dr. Monday apologized. “It’s so rare that I have patients here this late. I forget about the sunset.” He cleared his throat and said, “Opaque.”
Before Dan could blink, the wall of glass was replaced by a swirling mosaic of tiles, each a different tint of yellow. The wall looked like an abstract of the sun and its rays.
“I’m not a patient,” Dan said curtly. “I don’t need this. I’m being forced to do this.”
“I did look your file over, Mister—”
“Dan. My name is Dan Delacor.”
“If that’s what you’d like to be called—”
“It’s not what I’d like to be called. It’s my name.”
“Well, that’s not what your file says, Mister Delacor.”
“I know what the file says my name is, but that’s obviously just a joke my degenerate parents decided they’d leave me with before they disappeared. Just because those losers had that name put on my birth certificate doesn’t mean it’s my actual name. My name is Dan. Dan Delacor.”
Dr. Monday took off his yellow-rimmed glasses and rubbed his temples with one hand. Creases appeared in his dark-brown forehead, creases that let Dan know he wasn’t the only one who would rather be on their way home right now.
“Mister Delacor,” Dr. Monday began, setting his glasses back on his nose, “I understand that you are only here because of the incident that occurred at your place of work. I understand that your employer is forcing you to speak with me as a condition of your being allowed to continue working. So let’s do each other a favor and get through this without hostility. Please, have a seat.” Dr. Monday extended his arm toward a chair.
Dan walked to the chair. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled and sat down in the yellow leather chair. “I just really don’t like that name.”
“No apology necessary, Mister Delacor. Now, correct me if this is wrong, but it says in your file that you beat a man for taking your stapler.”
“It wasn’t the first time.”
“It wasn’t the first time you beat this man?”
“No. It wasn’t the first time he had taken the stapler. He never asks to take it. He just takes it, and he never returns it. I’ve asked him several times not to take my stapler. He’s got a listening problem. He doesn’t respect other people.”
“So you beat him?”
“I didn’t beat him. I just hit him…a couple times.”
“The file says you hit him repeatedly with the stapler.”
“Well, he wanted it so damn bad,” Dan replied, smirking.
“Mister Delacor, please tell me you understand that this is wrong. Please tell me you understand that what I report back to your employer will influence your job.”
“I do. I know it was wrong, and I’m sorry. I told the guy I was sorry. I just got a little angry. I’m not a psychopath. I’m not. I don’t do that kind of stuff.”
“Your file suggests this was a first offense. I assume that is why your employer saw fit to have you see me in lieu of terminating you, but this brings us to a more important issue, Mister Delacor.”
“Can you just call me Dan?”
“Dan, what made you lose your temper over a stapler? You don’t seem to have a record of anger issues in the past, so what’s going on that caused this? What stress are you under?”
“Nothing,” Dan answered. “There’s nothing.”
“The file says you live with your girlfriend. How is your relationship?”
“It’s fine. Same as it has ever been. I don’t know. I mean, we fight from time to time, but nothing normal people don’t do.”
“Do you have children?”
“No.”
“Are you and your girlfriend considering parenthood?”
“I don’t know. We have a cat. It’s hers…ours…whatever.”
“Whatever?” the doctor asked.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re looking for me to say. There’s no skeleton in my closet. There’s no red flag you’re going to discover. I’m just a normal guy. I got pissed off and made a mistake. A hundred things piss me off every day. People on the Tunnel Runner piss me off. My neighbors piss me off. My boss pisses me off. I made a mistake, and I’m not going to do it again. I just want to be finished with this appointment so I can get on with my stupid, normal life.”
“Do you like your job, Dan?”
Dan smiled sarcastically. “I schedule deliveries for freight trucks. Do you know a lot of people who would really enjoy doing something like that?”
“Are you in love with your girlfriend?”
“Am I in love with my girlfriend?” Dan echoed and laughed. “Sure. Sure I am, but I don’t see why any of this matters. Life is life. It is what it is. We’re all just running on the hamster wheel, right?”
“Don’t you want more for yourself, Dan? It doesn’t really sound like you’re okay with everything in your life.”
“I don’t know.” Dan rubbed the palm of his hand across the stubble on his face. “I mean, what’s the point? My job pays well enough. Some people don’t ever find anyone to share their lives with. What have I got to complain about?”
“It’s not about complaining, Dan. It’s about your happiness. It’s about living to your full potential and striving to be your best. It’s about valuing life and valuing yourself.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to be my best.”
“I think that is a cowardly way to look at things, Mister Delacor.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a hero.” Dan got up from the yellow chair. “Are we done here?”
“Just one more question,” Dr. Monday said. “How did you lose your right arm?”
Dan Delacor walked along the sidewalk that led down Arbor Boulevard, and the hypocrisy of the city’s motto echoed off the buildings like the sound of a tin can being kicked into the gutter. He walked past poor, frumpy women sitting on dilapidated and rusting balconies, teenagers with their hands stuffed so deeply into their pockets that it seemed they might touch their knees, and men whose skin left one guessing as to whether they were tanned or filthy. These people all looked upon Dan with tired eyes that conveyed a mixture of scorn and temerity. It was that common look that betrays the fact that one doesn’t know if they should feel superiority or shame, hatred or envy, so the subject chooses superiority and hatred for fear of revealing their own weakness. Dan looked back at them with eyes that were just as tired, but his eyes said nothing else. He held no ego over these people. He saw them as one sees the clouds in the sky.
Stray cats with patchy fur prowled clumsily for mice that were too starved to make for a decent meal. They played a game with one another that was more akin to two drunkards playing at a game of tag. As Dan walked he counted more boarded windows than panes of glass. He looked up at the dingy-yellow brick buildings, and every one of them featured unskilled graffiti. These inept paintings were the billboards of the weary, pleading in vain for the viewer to see culture and art in place of plight. Yet these eyesores were to culture what Dan’s yellow necktie was to fashion: the reminder of a self-imposed leash.
The rest of Yellow City ignored this side of Arbor Boulevard, and the harrowing blight that was Arbor Slum liked it that way. After all, what oppressor wants to hear the cries of those they trample underfoot, and conversely, why would the oppressed care to know the names of the ones holding the whips? However, Dan Delacor was of a different breed. For some strange reason, walking down Arbor Boulevard calmed him in ways that other people simply could not understand. He never saw himself as the oppressor. In his mind, they were all underneath the footfall. To Dan, this old slum held value.
Other business people like Dan would have taken the Tunnel Runner from the city’s office sector to its medical sector. They never would have chanced the affliction of conscience that Arbor Boulevard might have caused them, or the legitimate danger. However, Dan didn’t like taking the Tunnel Runner, and he had always felt uncomfortable when he had to. The walk from his office building to the medical sector wasn’t very far, and with so many people stuffed into the enclosed space of the Tunnel Runner, being throttled through time and space by the cold pairing of society and technology, he felt as if walking was the only sane choice. At least on Arbor Boulevard Dan could see the golden sun as it set and blanketed the perimeter wall of Yellow City in an orange glow.
Dan thought it looked pretty, as far as giant glass walls were concerned. However, the one that protected Yellow City from the Outer Reaches couldn’t prevent a man from feeling the weight of oppression that came from being penned in. It was a subtle feeling, like the way one notices the feel of a shirt against their skin. If you’re not paying attention to it, it is almost as if it’s not there, but in truth, it’s always there. As soon as you think about it, you can feel it. For Dan, the feeling was like a small fraction of the way he felt when he was crammed amid the crowds of the Tunnel Runner. However, over time, even a fraction can feel like an immeasurable weight.
Dan was willing to bear the truth of Arbor Boulevard because it provided a small relief from his feeling of oppression. Walking the slum was a far better fate than denial, apathy, and suffocation. At least Arbor Boulevard was honest. They would all support the weight together. Dan often thought the street held its own beauty in some gasping and vital way. Arbor Boulevard survived, whether you cared to notice or not, and its inhabitants were very real in a way that the people of Dan’s daily life were not. He could never explain why he felt the way he did, but he felt like the people surrounding him were wearing masks. He felt alone in his honesty. The slum was genuine, real, and wild. Dan was willing to brave the untamed.
Most of the denizens of Arbor Slum were not around during the day. They were either working in the sewers or in the fields, never being dismissed until the sun had disappeared, but that didn’t make the slum any less dangerous. It wasn’t the people with jobs you had to worry about. The real worry came from those who had nothing better to do with their time. The slum’s citizens usually lacked education. It was viewed as a waste of time. If you lived in Arbor Slum, you worked in the sewers, in the fields, or you made your money in any number of illegal and unseemly enterprises. Arbor Slum was a minefield of dangerous activity that Dan would never send a loved one through, but he knew how to avoid its trouble. He stayed on the boulevard, the outermost throughway, and kept to himself, even if that meant ignoring direct eye contact or sidestepping a direct threat.
“Hey, mister, you got money in those pockets? I know you got money; you look like you got a job. So, how about it? We can do this the hard way if you want.”
Dan knew to never stop walking when confronted by a potential mugger. He couldn’t give them time to think or get their feelings hurt that he hadn’t taken their threat seriously.
“I don’t have time for you, kid,” Dan said. “I’ve got somewhere to be.”
The teenager jumped off the stairs he had been perched on and walked out to the sidewalk, keeping a small distance behind Dan. Dan didn’t notice much about the teen, other than the fact that he was skinny, wearing dirty clothes, was pale as the moon, and alone.
“You know I can make you give me your money, right?”
“Kid, if you make me late for my appointment, I’ll beat your ass. Now get lost.”
“Man, whatever…I got a gun.”
“You don’t have a damn thing.”
“Man, whatever.”
And that was just how Dan had always done it. As long as you weren’t afraid of being mugged, you’d never get mugged. The truth was that the roving teenagers of Arbor Slum were too poor to be feared. They hadn’t eaten well enough that day to be stronger than Dan, and they couldn’t scrape enough money together to buy a box of bullets, let alone a gun. As long as he didn’t keep a consistent schedule of when he walked down Arbor Boulevard, Dan could get through just fine. The truly dangerous people operated further inside Arbor Slum and didn’t have time to bother with petty muggings.
Dan looked at the shabby buildings, with filthy stains on their faded, yellow bricks. “Gives strength to the weak,” he said to himself while shaking his head. “What a joke. This is a wasteland. It’s the byproduct of powerful people doing what they have to in order to keep their power. This place is just collateral damage. ”
Dan looked down an alley and saw a young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, playing with a small red dog. He stopped for a moment and stared at them. They were far enough down the alley and involved enough in their game that they didn’t notice him gawking at them.
A red dog? Dan wondered with a modicum of shock. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a dog that wasn’t a Golden Retriever. Not that Dan could remember much, but it was enough of an oddity that he couldn’t help staring at the girl and her dog. The dog was very small, probably somewhere around ten pounds, and the majority of its fur was red, with the exception of its white paws, some white in its tail, and an aged, white face. The brown-haired girl was on her hands and knees, slapping at the ground in front of it, mimicking the actions of a playful dog, and her pet was eating it up. It bounced from one side to the other, putting its chest on the ground and wagging its feathered tail in the air.
The old dog has spirit, Dan laughed to himself as the little dog gave a playful bark and ran three circles around the girl. It had large ears that stood straight up, and each one bore tufts of long red hair that caught the wind as it ran. Another five laps around the young girl, and the dog was winded. It stood panting, its big brown nose bobbing up and down, and the young girl smiled at it lovingly.
“Had enough?” she teased. The dog continued to pant with its mouth wide. It looked as if it were smiling. “Okay, let’s go home.” The girl scooped the little dog up in her arms, and it licked her face affectionately. “I love you, too.”
Dan smiled and turned to continue his walk to the medical sector, knowing he had made the right decision to forego the Tunnel Runner. There was something about Arbor Slum that always reminded Dan that life was worth it. No matter how short the feeling lasted and no matter how his mundane life ran him back and forth through the same rut over and over like logs through a mill, Arbor Slum gave him a feeling to be valued. He watched the sun as it continued to set and wished the moment could last.
As the minutes passed and the glow from the sunset became less intense, Dan found himself closing in on the Tunnel Runner station that was at the north end of the medical sector. A policeman saw Dan coming down the boulevard and quickly waddled over to him.
“Sir, are you okay?” the policeman asked. He looked over Dan as if expecting to find something wrong.
“I’m fine,” Dan answered, squinting his light-brown eyes and running his hand through the wave in his like-colored hair. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Well, nothing, I suppose. Where are you coming from?”
“I’m coming from Office Building Three Twenty-Three. I have an appointment at Medical Building Five.”
The policeman was confused. He took his yellow-checkered hat off and rubbed the brim against his forehead. He looked flustered and on the brink of breaking a sweat. It was hard to tell if his ample weight was causing his perspiration or his nerves.
“You know, people get mugged walking down in Arbor Slum.”
“I’ve heard.”
Dan straightened his yellow tie and walked away from the policeman. He didn’t want to be late for his appointment, and he realized that there wasn’t any good reason that he had been approached.
“Well, have a good night,” the policeman called, “and next time, I’d take the Tunnel Runner.”
Dan crossed the footbridge over Arbor Boulevard and moved past the masses of people at the Tunnel Runner station. Medical Building Five was just two blocks away now, and he was beginning to feel annoyed about his appointment. The streets were flooded with people and vehicles, all fighting to find their way home, and Dan wished he were doing the same. Instead, he was forced to fight his way through wave after wave of bodies and noise, just to reach a destination he never wanted to reach.
As he approached Medical Building Five, he pressed the yellow button beside the yellow door and waited to be admitted. He turned briefly to watch the sea of men and women he had just emerged from, wearing the same dull, yellow clothes that he wore, as they made their way home from a day of work at their dull, yellow jobs. That last part wasn’t necessarily fact, but it was how Dan felt, and so he counted it as a justified assumption. After all, Dan had never met anyone who wasn’t dull, and Yellow City rarely permitted colors that were not yellow, so why shouldn’t he believe it was true?
The Tunnel Runner left the station and created a burst of hot air that blew Dan’s shirt tight against him. He stood on the sidewalk, waiting to be admitted to Medical Building Five, and wiped a bit of sweat from his brow with his yellow tie. He looked at the tie after he used it and scoffed dismissively. Then he quickly undid the knot and angrily pulled the tie from his collar. Balling it up and stuffing it in his pocket, Dan somehow felt as if he had won a small victory. He didn’t like that the policeman didn’t think he could handle Arbor Boulevard. He hated to think that others might see him that way as well. Had his life truly become so monotonous and banal that he was exuding vulnerability? He involuntarily ran his fingers through his hair, the thought upsetting him enough to bring out his nervous habits.
A sharp electric buzzer broke Dan from thoughts of his tiny rebellion, and an annoying voice shot through the small speaker next to the yellow door.
“State your appointment,” the speaker commanded.
“Dan Delacor,” he said in a depressed tone. “Five thirty.”
“Which department?”
“Psychology,” Dan mumbled.
“You’ll have to speak up,” the speaker complained.
“Psy-chology,” Dan snapped.
The electric buzzer sounded again, and Dan pushed his way through the door into Medical Building Five.
The ground floor was empty. Most of the employees in the medical sector had been released from their jobs at five, just as Dan and the other employees in the office sector had been. They were obviously on their way home, as he usually was. It irked him fiercely that he had the obligation of this appointment. It was ridiculous, it was unnecessary, and it was a waste of his time.
Dan walked across the large, empty room with its polished granite floor, and the sound of his yellow loafers echoed across the space with each step. Dan was moving toward the LED screen at the far end of the room that he assumed would tell him how to get to the psychology department.
Psychology–Elevator Two was displayed in large letters, traveling right to left across the screen. Dan spun around to see the elevators located at the other end of the room, the same end where he had first entered Medical Building Five.
“Who was the idiot who built this place?” Dan asked aloud in frustration.
A nasally recording played over the loud speaker. “Medical Building Five was built in the year 10B, at the behest of Chancellor Elgrey Vinsidian…”
“The question was rhetorical,” Dan moaned, rubbing his palm against his temple as the speaker blathered unwanted information. One had to be careful what they asked for in Yellow City.
He hastened his pace and made a swift path toward elevator number two. When the elevator opened to reveal the psychology floor, Dan found himself at the end of a long hallway. He looked down to the other end and saw a woman sitting behind a reception desk. There was so much silence and space between Dan and the receptionist that he found it quite unsettling. He wondered if this was part of the psychological analysis. Was she watching him and waiting to see how he would react to the uncomfortable moments before he reached her desk? Was she watching to see how long it took to announce himself? Would he wait until he had walked right up to the large yellow desk or would his nerves cause him to blurt out a hello when he was still many paces away?
“Hi,” Dan said after he had reached the desk. “Pretty long hallway, huh?”
The woman flicked her golden hair behind her shoulder and raised one disinterested eyebrow at Dan’s attempt at small talk. She was obviously more accustomed to the hallway than he was.
“Last name?” she asked.
“Delacor.”
“Dr. Monday is waiting for you. Second room on the right.” The woman pointed one manicured fingernail down a hallway that was perpendicular to the one Dan had just come from.
Dan found the appropriate door and knocked. He heard someone ask him to please enter and he did so. As he opened the door to the office, Dr. Monday stood from a desk that faced the door. Behind him the wall was complete glass, and the light of the sunset rendered him a silhouette. Dan, blinded by the sun as it came pouring through the windows, shielded his eyes from the brightness.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dr. Monday apologized. “It’s so rare that I have patients here this late. I forget about the sunset.” He cleared his throat and said, “Opaque.”
Before Dan could blink, the wall of glass was replaced by a swirling mosaic of tiles, each a different tint of yellow. The wall looked like an abstract of the sun and its rays.
“I’m not a patient,” Dan said curtly. “I don’t need this. I’m being forced to do this.”
“I did look your file over, Mister—”
“Dan. My name is Dan Delacor.”
“If that’s what you’d like to be called—”
“It’s not what I’d like to be called. It’s my name.”
“Well, that’s not what your file says, Mister Delacor.”
“I know what the file says my name is, but that’s obviously just a joke my degenerate parents decided they’d leave me with before they disappeared. Just because those losers had that name put on my birth certificate doesn’t mean it’s my actual name. My name is Dan. Dan Delacor.”
Dr. Monday took off his yellow-rimmed glasses and rubbed his temples with one hand. Creases appeared in his dark-brown forehead, creases that let Dan know he wasn’t the only one who would rather be on their way home right now.
“Mister Delacor,” Dr. Monday began, setting his glasses back on his nose, “I understand that you are only here because of the incident that occurred at your place of work. I understand that your employer is forcing you to speak with me as a condition of your being allowed to continue working. So let’s do each other a favor and get through this without hostility. Please, have a seat.” Dr. Monday extended his arm toward a chair.
Dan walked to the chair. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled and sat down in the yellow leather chair. “I just really don’t like that name.”
“No apology necessary, Mister Delacor. Now, correct me if this is wrong, but it says in your file that you beat a man for taking your stapler.”
“It wasn’t the first time.”
“It wasn’t the first time you beat this man?”
“No. It wasn’t the first time he had taken the stapler. He never asks to take it. He just takes it, and he never returns it. I’ve asked him several times not to take my stapler. He’s got a listening problem. He doesn’t respect other people.”
“So you beat him?”
“I didn’t beat him. I just hit him…a couple times.”
“The file says you hit him repeatedly with the stapler.”
“Well, he wanted it so damn bad,” Dan replied, smirking.
“Mister Delacor, please tell me you understand that this is wrong. Please tell me you understand that what I report back to your employer will influence your job.”
“I do. I know it was wrong, and I’m sorry. I told the guy I was sorry. I just got a little angry. I’m not a psychopath. I’m not. I don’t do that kind of stuff.”
“Your file suggests this was a first offense. I assume that is why your employer saw fit to have you see me in lieu of terminating you, but this brings us to a more important issue, Mister Delacor.”
“Can you just call me Dan?”
“Dan, what made you lose your temper over a stapler? You don’t seem to have a record of anger issues in the past, so what’s going on that caused this? What stress are you under?”
“Nothing,” Dan answered. “There’s nothing.”
“The file says you live with your girlfriend. How is your relationship?”
“It’s fine. Same as it has ever been. I don’t know. I mean, we fight from time to time, but nothing normal people don’t do.”
“Do you have children?”
“No.”
“Are you and your girlfriend considering parenthood?”
“I don’t know. We have a cat. It’s hers…ours…whatever.”
“Whatever?” the doctor asked.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re looking for me to say. There’s no skeleton in my closet. There’s no red flag you’re going to discover. I’m just a normal guy. I got pissed off and made a mistake. A hundred things piss me off every day. People on the Tunnel Runner piss me off. My neighbors piss me off. My boss pisses me off. I made a mistake, and I’m not going to do it again. I just want to be finished with this appointment so I can get on with my stupid, normal life.”
“Do you like your job, Dan?”
Dan smiled sarcastically. “I schedule deliveries for freight trucks. Do you know a lot of people who would really enjoy doing something like that?”
“Are you in love with your girlfriend?”
“Am I in love with my girlfriend?” Dan echoed and laughed. “Sure. Sure I am, but I don’t see why any of this matters. Life is life. It is what it is. We’re all just running on the hamster wheel, right?”
“Don’t you want more for yourself, Dan? It doesn’t really sound like you’re okay with everything in your life.”
“I don’t know.” Dan rubbed the palm of his hand across the stubble on his face. “I mean, what’s the point? My job pays well enough. Some people don’t ever find anyone to share their lives with. What have I got to complain about?”
“It’s not about complaining, Dan. It’s about your happiness. It’s about living to your full potential and striving to be your best. It’s about valuing life and valuing yourself.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to be my best.”
“I think that is a cowardly way to look at things, Mister Delacor.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a hero.” Dan got up from the yellow chair. “Are we done here?”
“Just one more question,” Dr. Monday said. “How did you lose your right arm?”
