“Funny thing is, I think I'm actually happier thinking that God is real, and that He hates me, than I was when I was a proper atheist. Death scared me silly back when I figured there was no God. I mean, petrified silly. Couldn't-sleep silly. Thought-about-killing-myself-as-a-kid silly. I know, you wouldn't think fear of death would make you suicidal, but it did, because the way I saw it, I was going to die eventually. It didn't matter what I did. Everyone dies. And once I died, it would all be pointless. Endless nothingness. Like I'd never existed at all.

“So why wait? In the long run, there was no difference between dying at 80 in a hospital bed, or dying at 13 in my parents' closet with a rifle in my mouth. The main difference was, if I died at 13, I wouldn't have to keep going through middle school and all those bastards making fun of me every day like I was some kind of personal punching bag. But the gun jammed. And then I got scared silly I wouldn't be able to unjam it and make it look like I hadn't messed with it. The only thing worse than killing yourself is screwing it up and having to explain what you were up to afterwards."
"You're really good at small talk, aren't you," Marion said.
Brad blushed, deep red, his face growing hot enough in the process to feed a new round of sweating. He swallowed, but it didn't go right, and some of his own nerve-induced spit ran down into his lungs. He choked a little and tried to cough without making a noise, feeling his throat and chest ripping themselves apart as he clamped down against the involuntary spasm. Marion saw his distress and the smile faltered, replaced with a look of genuine concern.
"I didn't really mean it," Marion said. "Not like that. I'd rather talk to you about things that matter than listen to the same people say the same things they've been saying for the last seven years. The only time anyone changes the subject to something that matters around here normally is if someone starts to die. It's nothing but inanities and death. That's pretty much life in the office. You fall somewhere in between, which is why I keep wondering how long before you
vanish."
"Everyone says that," Brad said. "About wondering how long I'll stick around. I dunno why I give the wander vibe off, or whatever it is I do. I mean, sure, I haven't been here very long, but I kinda like it. It's like a family, in a weird, partial way. Only real problem is I need to make more friends than just Liz and Ethan. And while I like a lot of people in the office, I don't seem to find friends. Like I'm not friend-compatible, or something. Does that make any sense?"
"Sure," Marion said. "I've never really made friends here. Working at an office like this doesn't make for good friendships, though. You have to go back to those jobs you had in high school. The ones we all had. You could make friends in places like that: flipping burgers, working the cash register, service industry. Something about those jobs; you grew closer.

“Here, you just grow around each other, not closer. You do things together; you go to parties when someone in the office holds them, but it's not the same as your friends. Mostly because to be a realfriend, it has to be someone who you can be honest in front of. Stupid, if you need to. Vulnerable. Silly. Unguarded. And if you were that way around people you had to have a working relationship with, it just wouldn't work."
"Yeah," Brad said. "I'm probably breaking all kinds of office rules right now."
"I think it's okay," Marion said. "They suspend the laws for the holidays, right? Dead week. We get to be ourselves for a little while. At least so long as we don't get caught."
"Kinda like stealing Post-it^®notes," Brad said, "only more personal and, y'know, profound and stuff. Or like the legendary office Christmas party, only with less sex and booze."
"I think those mostly happen up North," Marion said. "I've worked in my share of offices down here, and I've never seen the Christmas parties you hear about. The lawyers downstairs are about as racy as you get in the South."
"And they were mostly loud," Brad said, "with bad music. I'm not even sure if they had any booze. But then again, they're not really lawyers, y'know? They're public defenders. They're sorta like the guidance counselors of the legal world. Sure, they went to school and worked hard to get where they are. And sure, maybe a few of them are really good at it, and chose that path because they had some sorta moral compass that led 'em that way. Figured even poor people deserved a chance at trial. But they figured out pretty quick how pointless it all was and quit caring. One of those ‘pile rocks on your dreams until they die, to make sure they weren't a witch,’ sort of career paths."
"You're a little cruel sometimes," Marion said.
"Hey, it isn't like they can hear me," Brad said. "And I'm not saying it to be mean. It's just that, if you go into your average public defender's office, it's gonna look a little like our offices up here, like someone who works for a government pay scale works there. But you go to the district attorneys, you look in their offices, they look like something out of Boston Legal. 'Cuz, somehow, it's fair for the dudes who try to lock you up to get all the respect and all the money, while the ones that try to keep you out of jail get paid like night watchmen.

“Which, if you think about it, is sorta a backwards way of doing things. I mean, from a spending standpoint. When you figure that every dude we lock up, we taxpayers have to pay for, the best way to save some cash would be to flip things. Pay the public defenders well, and make the prosecutor overworked and underpaid. Solve the prison overcrowding issue. Only lock up the really easy cases."
"I don't think that idea would be very popular with voters," Marion said.
"Of course not," Brad said. "Voters are, from a demographic standpoint, the ones that flee to the newest suburbs or gated communities whenever they see a black person. The ones that all those security system ads target, where some fertile, defenseless, white woman is saved from certain rape, robbery, and murder because her traveling salesman husband had the paranoid good sense to get an alarm put in. Nevermind that false alarms waste so much cop time that I bet you could make a case for home alarm systems actually making us collectively less safe. What they really need is some kinda home security system that'll also alert you if your wife is diddling the plumber. Then they'll finally be able to give Proverbial White Man the peace of mind he's been trying to get with his chronic alcoholism."
"Poor Proverbial White Man," Marion said. "Sounds like he's got issues."
"No kidding, yo," Brad said. "Dude has always been wound up a little tight. If it isn't Willie Horton raping and killing his wife, it's the dangerous filth his neighbor's kids are watching on TV, or the video games they're playing, turning them into immoral serial killers. Not that Proverbial White Man's own kids need to have their TV or video game time monitored. They, after all, are good kids. It's always everyone else who is raising little delinquents."
"Yeah, funny how it's often parents that complain about some scourge ruining a generation of kids," Marion said. "But those parents are always sure it's someone else's kids being ruined, which is why we need laws to protect those 'other' children."
"I always wondered who raised all those 'other' kids," Brad said. "Hookers and strippers? Guests of The Jerry Springer Show? I mean, yeah, there's bound to be a decent segment there, but are there really enough kids being raised by totally inappropriate caregivers to explain how worried the news seems to be about all these bad influences? It's almost enough to make you, y'know, cynical. Think that maybe the idea is to distract us from anything that matters, like the way corporations run the country.

“Maybe it sounds weird, but I never got all that bent out of shape by the idea that corporate America owned the political system. It'd be better than if we handed the reins over to, say, televangelists, or street mimes. I just wish they'd do a better job of it. Aren't corporations supposed to be, like, rational? Wouldn't it make sense, if they call the shots, for them to do something with education? After all, they're the ones that need a labor pool, right? You'd think they'd want a better one."
"The closest business comes to caring about schools is when they donate to universities," Marion said. "CEOs are no more visionary than the rest of us, no matter what they think of themselves. And they don't hire anyone out of grade school or high school. Everyone a CEO hires, they hire out of college or grad school. So, to them, that's where education needs to be improved."

Click here for Part XX.