His feet carried him on, seemingly without any input from his brain. Mentation had ceased, as various mental klaxons continued to sound their distress. It was like he’d just plowed into a mental iceberg, and watertight doors were sealing throughout his head to try and contain the damage. The fact that such mental gymnastics were entirely pointless made no difference. It was a crisis, and his brain fully intended to treat it as such.

Eventually, Brad found he’d plodded along until he’d reached the back-to-back desks of Ethan and Liz. This seemed as good a spot to stop as any. For once, he felt like he really needed to talk. With Marion gone, these two were the only ones left amongst the staff that Brad really considered as anything approaching friends.

“So, uh, I just did something really, really stupid,” Brad said. “How’s your day going?”

“It’s stupid to ask us how our day is going?” Liz asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, they’re unrelated,” Brad said. “The stupid thing was something I said to Marion. How your day is going is more a friendly greeting to see how your day is so far.”

“It’s a normal day. We’re at work. We’re doing work things,” Liz said. “That’s how our day is going. Our day hasn’t gone very far since the last time we saw you. It’s only been a couple of hours. Even if a couple of hours last a very long time here. Since we’re on work time.

“Do you think time really does slow down when you’re bored? I know that people say time slows down when you’re standing in line. But sometimes I wonder if it’s really true. If maybe our brains help make time, since I saw on the Discovery Channel once that time isn’t real anyway. That it should go backwards and forwards. So maybe it’s our brains that make it move forwards. And maybe when you’re bored, or doing something you really hate, maybe your brain actually makes time move forward more slowly. But that’d be stupid, because why would your brain want to punish you like that? If anything, it should make time move forward more quickly when you’re doing something you hate, and then slow it back down when you’re having a great time. Shouldn’t it?”

Brad blinked, then nodded. “Yeah, man. It really should. Or maybe it should let you move backwards a little, when you say something stupid. So you can un-say it.”

“You said something stupid. Since you’re not going to quit looking like a Basset Hound until you share, go ahead already. Tell us the stupid thing you said. Then you’ll feel better, and we can talk more about time travel,” Liz said.

“There’s no reason to repeat it word-for-word,” Brad said. “It was just, like, racist. But I didn’t mean it. It just kind of came out of my mouth. Like sometimes when you’re talking, and for no reason, a big stream of spit just hurls out of your mouth onto the person you’re talking to. And you weren’t even eating, or thinking about food, or doing anything to explain it. It just kind of appeared and spurted out. That’s sort of like how it was. Only it wasn’t spit. It was this really retarded, racist remark. I was pissed off about something, and so when I complained about it, I said something racist, like maybe that explained it. It was dumb.”

“You’re being vague,” Liz said. “I don’t like it when people speak vaguely. Just say what you said. Otherwise you’ll just yammer on and on about it for twenty minutes, without Ethan and I having any idea what you’re talking about.”

Brad glanced nervously over each shoulder. “Look, the important thing is, I didn’t mean it, okay? It was just, like, weird words that came jumping out of my mouth.”

He then leaned down, close, and motioned for Ethan and Liz to lean in, too. As they did, he continued speaking, “I was talking about all the people that sign in at eight, then leave to eat breakfast for an hour without signing out, and then take off for lunch at eleven without signing out – y’know, the ones that are basically here for four hours a day when they get paid for eight. And I said to Marion, ‘Is that a black thing?’ Which was really, really stupid of me. I mean, hell, I know it isn’t a black thing. It’s a lazy, Civil Service thing. But I said it.

“So now Marion hates me. And thinks I’m some sort of evil racist. She’s probably talking to Faye right now. I’ll probably have to go to some kind of sensitivity training, or maybe I’ll just get fired outright. I always figured the only way to get fired from a Civil Service gig was to kill someone, but this might be the other way. I can’t believe I said that. I’m such a closet bigot. And I had no idea. Jesus.”

“God’s Son has nothing to do with the stupid things you say,” Liz said, pulling her head away from the impromptu huddle. “And what you said was very stupid. You should speak more carefully. I’m always careful with my words, because I know that words are very weighty things. So you weigh them before you say them. It even rhymes, so it’s easy to remember. Maybe you should practice memorizing it, so you don’t say anything like that again. You don’t even have to thank me. I’m happy to share, if it’ll keep your mouth from saying bad things in the future.”

“Or I could just get some kind of muzzle,” Brad said, leaning away from the other two, shifting his considerable weight so some of it rested on Liz’s desk.

“I don’t think that’d be a very good idea,” Liz said. “It’s probably some weird sexual fetish of yours. Those should be discouraged, especially at work. How you dress at home is none of our business. But I shouldn’t be forced to watch you mentally pleasure yourself here in the work environment. That’s inappropriate.”

“Dude, seriously, that was a joke,” Brad said, “not a fetish.”

“Of course you’d say it was,” Liz said. “It isn’t like I can trust anything you say when it comes to fetishes and fetish behavior. A fetishist will work very hard to hide his secret shame. You could be wearing women’s underwear right this minute, for example. You’re certainly not going to show them to us, unless that’s your fetish. But it doesn’t seem to be. You haven’t done that so far, which is good. Like I said, I shouldn’t have to put up with that at work.”