12/19/19

The Vacuumer
By Eric Suhem


“Vacuum this, vacuum that! I’m not a machine!” yelled Timothy, nude and perched in a tree in front of the office building, vacuum accessories in his hands. As he screamed at the passersby, the asylum van’s siren could be heard in the distance.


Monday

Dr. Hoover stood in the hall addressing Sylvia. “I am glad you have applied for the position of ‘Office Vacuumer’, the job is yours,” said Dr. Hoover. “This position will help you to clean the impurities from your consciousness and cleanse your soul. Vacuuming my office will give you a sense of purpose, a dedication of spirit. Don’t listen to that voice inside of you, as its views are steeped in an archaic, narcissistic, navel-gazing, self-involvement that will repeatedly drop you into a psychological null pit of need and greed. The benefits to your soul of simple service cannot be overestimated.” Sylvia looked forward to the work, somehow wanting to be around vacuuming.


On the first day of therapy in the asylum, Timothy noticed crumbs on the floor under the couch, so he volunteered for a vacuuming work shift.


Tuesday

Sylvia started work at Dr. Hoover’s office. As she was vacuuming, Dr. Hoover walked in, clutching papers in his hand. “Now Sylvia,” he said, “if you are able to use each of these diagrams to disassemble and reassemble your vacuum, you will be freed of all anxieties, self-doubt, and feelings of victimization.” He handed her the drawings depicting mechanical details of various vacuum components and then left the room. Sylvia put the diagrams on the floor in a mandala pattern and began to disassemble the vacuum.


During his work shift at the asylum, Timothy was vacuuming the hallway when a man in a white coat approached. “Come with me, Timothy, we need to discuss how to vacuum the shag carpet,” said the man.


Wednesday

“Why are there crumbs all over the carpet?” Where’s the vacuumer?” demanded Dr. Hoover. Sylvia was frantically trying to reassemble the vacuum she had disassembled the day before. Dr. Hoover found her and said, “Sylvia, do you understand that you are a co-conspirator in your feelings of self-doubt and anxiety, perpetuating them as a comfortable integration of your self-identity, giving you license to not have to undergo the efforts of psychological growth? You must start taking more responsibility for your feelings, as this will help you to function more effectively and responsibly.” He then left the room, scowling at the crumbs on the carpet.


Timothy’s mind flashed on what seemed to be a dark room with a movie screen. He was strapped down to a chair, watching a film of a woman trying to assemble a vacuum in an office. People in white coats hovered near him as the screen faded to black.


Thursday

Sylvia arrived early at the office but wasn’t making any progress reassembling the vacuum. She left the office and drove out of the city to the forest, where she wandered amidst the redwoods, inhaling the crisp clean air. Sylvia happened upon a meadow full of flowers. Each of the flowers resembled the mandala of vacuum cleaner diagrams she’d created on Tuesday. Staring at a flower, she realized, “I need to follow that voice inside of me.” She returned to the office and found the disassembled vacuum parts, strewn on the floor. Following the instructions in her mandala of diagrams, she assembled the pieces.


Timothy finished vacuuming the reception area, and sat on the carpet, visualizing a woman using a mandala of diagrams to reassemble her vacuum. As she put the parts together, snapping the last piece into place, he felt something click in his own mind, his tattered psyche beginning to reconstruct.


Friday

“Timothy, you experienced a nervous breakdown on your last vacuuming job. Fortunately, my technique combining hypnosis, psychotropic drugs and subliminal suggestion worked to accomplish your recovery!” said the psychiatrist. Timothy mulled this over, as faded images of Sylvia frolicking through a forest and assembling a vacuum drifted through his head in a residual mist.

Later that day, Timothy was given his belongings, mainly vacuum accessories, at the exit desk. The psychiatrist waved to him. “Goodbye Timothy, and happy vacuuming.”


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Eric Suhem lives in the orange hallway (www.orangehallway.com)

6/8/17

The Dreamer
By Eric Suhem


Jared awoke in the office of the project’s psychiatrist, Dr. Lenov. A metronome clocked back and forth as the psychiatrist looked on from the hazy background. “Now Jared, you’re probably wondering why you’re here. As you know, you’ve been participating in our sleep research program, and we’ve been monitoring your dreams, some of which have been found to be reliable indicators of trends in young consumer demand. While not all of your dreams have resulted in successful marketing campaigns, many surprisingly have. You have become a much sought-after commodity, providing valuable data to advertising teams, who monitor your dreams to track subconscious purchasing impulses. However, as of late, you have been having wild dreams of neon orange trampolines, unicycles that are electronically wired into the vibrations of monks chanting in the Himalayas, and other bizarre merchandise that is not in demand.” The details of the room became clearer to Jared as he regained consciousness. He focused his vision on the wood grain door, inches from his eyes, intrigued by the various dots and swirls. “Now Jared, our goal here is to restore the marketable qualities of your dreams. We’re going to start by examining your childhood,” said Dr. Lenov, who then looked toward the doorway, where a tall, worried-looking man had appeared. “Yes, can I help you?” asked the psychiatrist.

“I’m here for my appointment, Dr. Lenov,” said the man, looking at his watch.

“I’m sorry Mr. Floom, but we can’t deal with your issues of abandonment right now. Come back later, I have an open-door policy with my patients.” said Dr. Lenov, walking to the door and closing it in Mr. Floom’s face. “Now Jared, let’s begin.” As Jared talked about his childhood, there were more interruptions from other patients, and Jared started to notice the psychiatrist’s disturbing tendency to close doors incessantly, often in the face of his patients. In fact, special hinges had been added to the doors of the psychiatrist to prevent his door-closing, but Dr. Lenov overcame the hinges, often slamming a door theatrically as his patient looked on aghast, the door’s varnish and wood grain inches from the patient’s face. When Jared pointed this out to Dr. Lenov, the psychiatrist said, “It’s not helpful for you to project your issues onto me. The issue here is that you have closed the door to your unconscious mind.”

After talking about his childhood for 6 hours, Jared felt exhausted and worn out, falling asleep on the leather couch. The research team entered the room, and attached their surveillance equipment to Jared’s head, his dream soon appearing on their monitor. “I think you’ll find that the lucrative potential of the patient’s dreams has markedly improved,” said Dr. Lenov to the corporate overseers of the project.

In the dream, Jared was leading a group of men in lab coats through an oddly-angled house with stairways to nowhere, acutely slanted windows, jagged light, and barbed shadows. They walked down a lurid red passageway, eventually stopping at a door. “Inside this door are the secrets of my lucrative dreams,” said Jared in the dream, pointing at the door.

Dr. Lenov and the surveillance team leaned forward with anticipation, staring at the dream monitoring screen.

The dream continued with Jared opening the door and walking through. The group in lab coats attempted to follow, but the door slammed shut, a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign attached to it.


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Eric Suhem lives in the orange hallway.

9/4/14

The Plastic Suitcase
By Eric Suhem


The little boy sat by the pond, tousled hair in his eyes, feeling the cool grass between his toes, smiling as he looked at the fish swimming in the water. Steve remembered this pond from his childhood.

Steve was awoken from his dream by a shrill ring of the cell phone. “We require your services at corporate immediately. Catch the next plane out,” said the voice on the phone line. Steve put plastic clothes into a plastic suitcase. He put a plastic toothbrush onto plastic teeth, brushing with even strokes.

Zoom, Zip, Bang! Steve thrust himself into the synergy of the moment. "Give me a plastic Pina Colada, baby, I'm here to stay!" he said to the flight stewardess. He whispered sweet nothings into the ear of the other stewardess, who was splayed out upon the plastic food tray, delighting in the peanuts, Sprite, and napkins that were sucked into her writhing spray-shellacked beehive hairdo nudging itself against the industrial tan fabrics of the reclining seat in the preceding row, occupied by the portly businessman.

Steve’s plane landed at the airport and he walked through the plastic terminal, staring forward with a steely glint, checking his media devices, texting appropriate responses. After looking at his plastic agenda for the corporation’s ball-bearing and therapy advertising campaign, he got into the new rental car, air conditioning on, friendly fumes of lacquer and paint solvents filling his lungs. The temperature, as always, was 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

When he arrived at corporate headquarters, the employees flung themselves at his feet, kissing his hard plastic boots, their lusting eyes craving his image. Steve entered the conference room, where his team showed him charts and graphs. The team milled about, commenting, pursuing deep-seated needs, hoping to find an advantage and gain Steve’s favor, carrying out Freudian agendas as they acted upon the murky volcano lurking deep within their unconscious. Later, Steve and the management team bonded over martini olives, brilliantly reforming the ball-bearing and therapy advertising campaign into a cultural force.

Steve woke up the next morning, writhing amongst the secretaries on plastic sheets in the plastic bed, administrative lacquered plastic fingernails slicing thin rivulets of blood into his back. Festive, hunching orangutans flew through the dark spaces of the hangover in his skull, while he prepared his mind for the next gathering of hard-charging entrepreneurs, looking to create a new tomorrow for the rest of us, little grey monkeys trimming nails from their bulging toes. Steve decided to step outside and walk around the ponds and rivers of the corporate grounds.

He saw the little boy sitting in the grass by the pond, still smiling at the fish in the water. The boy waved to Steve, and Steve waved back, seeing himself from long ago. A sadness and regret started to overwhelm him. He blinked and the boy faded away, waving goodbye.

Steve regrouped and looked at the water, deciding that there weren’t enough fish. "What about piranha? What about carp?" he demanded. Steve got on the phone and decided to make things happen, placing a call to facilities, with a dictum of restocking corporate’s plastic ponds and rivers with piranha and carp.

His coup at corporate complete, Steve packed his plastic suitcase and left headquarters for the next assignment, located in a climate where he was sure to find more succulent piranha and carp. Instead he’d find blood on a broken air conditioner, a story that would end with hard nails in a warm room.


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Eric Suhem lives in the orange hallway.