Copy of Hell's Breakroom - Episode Three

A Union Mandated Hell Story

The break room is unusually quiet. The vending machine hums with a low, menacing energy, and the flickering overhead light makes everyone look 12% more exhausted than usual. Screwtop is hunched over the counter, aggressively tapping his coffee with a spoon, clinking against the ceramic in a way that suggests he’s at war with it, or at least the spirit of it. Bubbles is sitting in the corner, twiddling an alarming number of thumbs while Kevin, as always, is staring into nothing, his eye sockets radiating pure existential dread. Deborah is sitting on a chair, her feet on the arm of the couch next to her, flipping through a magazine called "Lust & Guts", her expression unreadable. The couch is purring softly.

A door creaks open. A demon enters, tall, gaunt, and covered in a fine layer of soot. His name tag reads "TERRY – SOUL ACQUISITIONS." He looks around, sighs, and trudges toward the counter. He opens several cupboards, without finding anything of interest before grabbing the coffee pot and walking to sit on the couch. Deborah catches his eye and simply says, "I wouldn't." Confused Terry sits at the table instead.

Screwtop doesn’t look up. "Rough shift?"

Terry grunts drinks directly from the coffee pot a liquid that what might almost qualify as coffee. "You ever try to get someone to sign away their soul in this economy?" Immediately grimaces at the coffee. "Oh, that’s bad." He takes another sip. "Oh, that’s real bad." He keeps drinking.

Kevin doesn’t look away from the void. "People aren’t selling?"

Terry scoffs. "Oh, they want to sell. Everyone’s desperate. But they’re all trying to negotiate now. They Google ‘devil contract loopholes’ and suddenly they think they’re Harvard Law." He lights a cigarette off Kevin's finger. "Guy today demanded unlimited WiFi in Hell. Unlimited."

Screwtop winces. "Oof. Did you give it to him?"

Terry gestures vaguely. "Sort of. He has unlimited WiFi, but every website loads one word at a time. Out of order. Randomly." He taps the ash from his cigarette into the coffee then swirls it around. "The first thing he typed was ‘help’ and the first word he got back was ‘never.’" Tasting the coffee, he shrugged, considering the ash an improvement and added some more.

Bubbles claps all their hands. One pair missed and flew off in different directions. "OH, THAT’S FUN! LIKE A LITERAL SLOW BURN!"

In the corner, Screwtop mutters, "That’s actually pretty elegant, though”.

Terry shrugs. "I try," he said, slowly watching the two appendages wriggle back towards Bubbles.

Deborah turns a page in her magazine, still unfazed. "Maybe you should start doing buy one, get one free contract. Rope in their roommates, spouses, children." She takes a sip of her own drink, a glass of something cold and yellow. "Capitalism, sweetie."

Terry points at her. "See? That’s the kind of thinking we need down here. Ruthless. Efficient. Evil." He frowns, studying her. "Why are you even in Hell?"

Deborah finally making eye contact with Terry shrugs, kicks off her shoe and then violently shoves it under the seat cushion. The couch screams in ecstasy and then whimpered for several seconds. "I work in HR."

The room goes silent. Even the vending machine makes an uncomfortable clicking sound.

Kevin mutters, "Oh, yeah. That tracks. Always wondered. Wait, you could have had me up on all sorts of charges in here."

Deborah shrugs again, "I'm on a break."

Screwtop clears his throat. "Anyway. Terry, what’s new with upper management?"

Terry sighs and rubs his temples. "New efficiency quotas. They want us to increase suffering output by at least ten percent by next quarter."

Kevin groans. "Ugh. Why? People are already suffering at max capacity."

Terry shakes his head. "Apparently, there’s been a dip. Something about ‘diminishing returns.’ Honestly, I blame video games."

Screwtop looks sceptical. "How do you measure diminishing returns on eternal agony?"

Terry waves a hand dismissively. "I don’t know. They have charts."

Bubbles gasps, suddenly more horrified than she was at Deborah's abuse of the couch. "NOT THE CHARTS."

Terry nods. "Yeah. Pie charts, bar charts. Even one stacked line graph. All with labels each in a different language."

Bubbles shudders. "THE TRUEST FORM OF EVIL."

The vending machine spits out a single can labelled “Quarterly Reports.” Kevin opened the breakroom door and placed it on the floor in the corridor. He wrote ‘Trip Hazard’ on the wall next to it, then closed the door. An unknown voice outside immediately screamed as though it had tripped and then fallen horizontally down the corridor.

Clive enters a moment later looking over his shoulder down the corridor and shouting, "See you Ben". He still looks hollow and dead inside from his realization that he has been trapped in an eternal follow-up meeting since last Tuesday. He takes the coffee pot from Terry, fills his mug, and takes a sip. He gives the coffee a respectful nod, noting its better-than-usual taste. "Hey, does anyone know what’s on the agenda for this afternoon?"

Kevin gestures at the vending machine. "It’ll tell you."

Clive turns. The screen blinks, loading. Then, in a single, awful flash, it displays:

"ALIGNING STAKEHOLDER EXPECTATIONS."

Clive sighs and lets out a whimper. The vending machine lets out a triumphant ding. "This morning, we had a seventeen-hour meeting to plan the agenda for a conversation about planning a training session. The topic was whether bringing the ‘Training on How to Teach Team-Building Exercises’ in-house would be more emotionally efficient."

Bubbles’ head actually melted around her body and the foetus visible in her centre started crying. "And what did you conclude?" She asked, nervously.

"We didn't," he told her. "Were circling back when several prerequisite pieces of analysis have been done." Tears flowed silently down his face.

Deborah nonchalantly stood and caught them in her glass before going over and sitting down on the couch. The couch began breathing heavily. “You should complain to HR," Deborah told him, sipping her drink.

Screwtop held up a finger and looked at her, but she interrupted him. "I'm. On. A. Break."

"Fine," he said, resigned. Then he asked, "What on earth are you drinking by the way?"

"I'm not sure," she replied. "I have been collecting bits of all sorts of stuff for days and been sipping at it. It is mostly, lower management tears and couch pee at the moment though. It's revolting, but hey, it's something to do."

Nobody spoke. The vending machine hummed louder, as though considering its own existence. Then, with a cheerful ping, it dispensed a single can labelled ‘Motivation.’

It hit the floor, hissed open on its own, and screamed. Another scream echoed it from the can outside the door.

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