Chapter 523
Dustin swiped a sweaty hand over his brow. Another email, this time from someone in Italy, saying their "Sonus" branded headphones had become hot.
Like he cared. Just more static noise to fill the daily grind. His desk was cluttered, not that anyone was surprised.
Complaints stacked up, digital screams into the darkness of customer service oblivion. "Seriously, these things are actually burning people, man," said Marcus from across the room.
His voice was laced with a dread Dustin tried to ignore. He liked Marcus, he was funny in a weird kind of way.
But now wasn't a good time to crack jokes. Dustin typed out another canned response.
"Ensure proper usage," he muttered, barely aware of the letters appearing on his screen. His fingers moved mechanically, no real thought put into it.
Days passed like this, a monotonous, grey existence. He had a small TV to keep himself entertained while he answered mails.
It was just noise that drowned out the thoughts. One day, a live news broadcast showed a city skyline on the small screen in his cubicle, engulfed in chaos.
Fire raging across entire blocks. People were panicking and shouting everywhere, running, screaming in the streets.
The newscaster was in total despair. The reporter didn't seem to understand what was going on.
"Another instance where they just burst into flames," she choked out, "we don't understand why, they don't understand how..."
Her voice was one of disbelief. He saw the images from the streets and felt his chest tighten.
These headphones, made in China for Sonus, sold by the millions, were somehow involved. "What's happening?" he muttered, eyes fixed on the unfolding horror.
Marcus leaned over, a dark cloud over his face, the reflection of the news playing out in his glasses. "It's the damn headphones, Dustin, the fucking headphones."
The usual levity of Marcus was gone. Replaced with anger, desperation. Over the coming weeks, the situation became darker.
The number of dead grew. Dustin felt a darkness in his gut every time he thought about the headphones.
"We're murderers, man," Marcus said one day, his face was covered by shadows, "we're part of something truly evil."
Dustin thought it was all very dramatic. But even he couldn't ignore the numbers.
A million dead in the first week. Then two, five, then eight.
All because of faulty wiring, a production defect they should've caught. But who in this godforsaken world had time to check for stuff like that, and what for?
His boss, a soulless corporate suit named Jack, called a meeting. It was brief.
Jack told them they knew the problems. All of the company phones stopped ringing one morning, and the mails got really, really low in volume.
It had been strange, until it was time for the company meeting in the canteen. "The higher-ups are handling it," he said, devoid of emotion.
Like he was reading the weather forecast. "Just do your jobs." Just do your job?
Millions of people were dying in fires across the world, as they wore these faulty devices. Dustin went home that night to his empty apartment.
His apartment was his life. He felt a new fear of being left all alone in this world.
This company would go down like Titanic. He tried to watch some TV, but every channel was the same.
Images of flames, screaming faces, all linked back to the headphones, Sonus. It was very boring watching the same scenes over and over.
He couldn't help but fall asleep. Weeks passed and somehow he didn't think it would become so bad.
The death count was staggering. Twelve million now, the whole world was crying for help and nobody seemed to care or to take the time to think things through.
All that seemed to matter was selling this trash to poor people. He barely slept, every nightmare filled with the echoes of explosions and sirens.
A horrifying chorus of what their negligence had created. The whole company had done something really evil, he started thinking about what this meant.
"They're pulling the headphones from the market," Marcus reported one morning, there was a sadness in his eyes that had never been there before.
There was a new seriousness that just hung around in their offices now. Dustin didn't feel any relief, just a growing numbness.
The whole world just went along with it, almost like they had always known these things could, and would happen. Almost like some big unspoken agreement.
The entire country had done the same thing. All countries did it. The product was done, destroyed, but the damage was irreparable.
Their company, once a titan of tech, was now a ghost ship, drifting towards its inevitable crash. He would go down with it.
The thought never really bothered him. He felt very tired these days. "They say they know how to solve the whole problem," said Marcus.
"How? Everyone who bought it is dead" was what Dustin answered, feeling like this wasn't the first time he'd lived through this. It wasn't the first time.
It wasn't the last. The world didn't know that yet. He did.
But what good was it? The CEO of Sonus, a man who lived a life completely separate from their reality, was arrested.
A circus for the masses, Dustin thought, watching it unfold with cold detachment, this was all the show of a system that was meant to put fear into all that wanted to stand out.
To say things were insane, to do things differently. The office became a morgue, the silence more deafening than any explosion.
People lost their jobs, their lives upended, all because of a few wires crossed the wrong way. There were no answers.
There never was, to any of it. Marcus was the first to go, fired without ceremony.
He left with a box of personal items, not a single glance back. Dustin knew the feeling.
There was no use in looking back. What good could come from any of it.
No money could undo what they did, no court case could solve anything, no words could be spoken to change anything at all. "See ya," Marcus said.
His voice was hollow. Not a goodbye, more like an acceptance of a shared fate.
Their fates had been determined at the beginning, now they knew, Dustin had thought. Now they knew what all their meaningless jobs and efforts were leading towards.
A meaningless end, to something that would never be remembered. They didn't matter. And would never have any consequence.
One day, Dustin found himself alone in the office, the last man standing in a sinking ship. The silence was broken only by the click of his keyboard.
He typed out final responses. It wasn't always like this. This company, this work place, had meant something, once.
He had meant something, once. Long ago, maybe he could have done something else with his life, been something else, someone else.
"Your service is no longer required," a letter from HR read, impersonal to the very end. So many things in this world just came to an end, without any answers.
Or explanations. Dustin didn't ask or inquire, there was just no reason, he never cared.
Dustin packed up his few belongings, a cheap watch, a stress ball he never used, and a photo of his sister. Someone he hadn't seen or spoken to in over five years.
Somebody who never answered him, anyway. Not really trash, but nothing that would really change the world.
A sad collection of cheap things, with no purpose at all, never serving a purpose, except for reminding him that he had nothing to live for. That he had nothing.
He walked out into a world forever marked by their failure. The streets were filled with anger, the cries of those affected, now an unending backdrop to his life.
It felt as if the whole world was just walking, all the time, nowhere in particular. Dustin bought a coffee from a small street cart.
The vendor looked exhausted, almost broken by it all. The poor, the people he never thought about, only serving him when he needed them to.
For food. For cleaning. All the things he didn't want to do.
They hated it, and they wanted better, for them, and for him. Even if they didn't know him.
Even if it was never going to come. Even if it all fell apart one day.
"Thanks," Dustin said, taking a sip of the hot, bitter drink. It was something he needed.
He liked it strong, without sugar, not something he thought people enjoyed, ever. He found his way to a park, a small patch of green among the towering buildings.
People here were almost normal. There was laughter, talking, walking.
A family having a pick-nick on a blanket. It was normal here.
Why? What was wrong with these people, enjoying this after everything that had just taken place?
A homeless man lay on a bench, asleep, clutching a bottle in his hand. Dustin knew his destiny had always been connected to this.
There was a reason for his existence here, but not yet. He had been so close to finding his way.
He walked until night fell, his footsteps echoing in the empty streets. The city lights blurred into a continuous, oppressive glow.
No purpose to the way it all went, the way people's lights would get dimmer, and fade away in the middle of the day, or at night.
No reason at all, behind any of it. His apartment was dark, unwelcoming.
He was scared now, he didn't have enough money, not even enough to pay the next month of rent. He could have been a better person if it hadn't turned out like this.
If the world had done something else with his life, perhaps it all could have gone differently. His entire life could have been one happy event, from start to finish.
If he hadn't gone and worked for these evil people. He lay in bed, sleep evading him.
He knew, he'd seen it, it was so clear now, there was no other end, no other point to all of this. They could make all the changes they wanted, he thought.
He was here. The sounds of the city, usually a numbing presence, now amplified every fear, every regret.
It was like everything in the world suddenly just stood still, with him. There was a new fear, it made him feel colder, somehow.
He was used to being cold, at home and outside. Not this kind.
He tried to calm himself down. In the distance, sirens wailed, a constant soundtrack of his life.
Dustin closed his eyes, wishing it was all a bad dream, wishing there was a reason for it. But what he found there wasn't a way out.
Wasn't another world where things went another way, a happy way. It was dark, with sounds, almost like screams.
The next morning, he decided to visit his parents' grave, a place he had avoided for years. They died when he was a child.
He didn't really know them. They never cared for him. The cemetery was overgrown, forgotten.
The world didn't seem to care about it anymore, and people came to find them in their final resting place less and less these days. Soon, these graves would vanish.
These headstones would just vanish from the world, and it would all just turn into one big flat field. Their gravestone was small, unmarked by any sign of care.
Or remembrance. A sad thing, just sitting there. The world really did forget them.
As it should. His mother had been cold, abusive. His father was just a drunk, angry fool who should never have gotten kids in the first place.
"Why?" he asked, though he knew no answer would come. Why all of this.
Why do we let things like this happen. Was the question he meant to ask, but only asked the wind that blew.
He knew. There was no use in trying. The wind doesn't answer, the dead don't know, but he did, at last.
Dustin returned to his apartment, the weight of his life bearing down on him. Marcus had been trying to call him.
Why would he bother calling? Did he think anything could change for the better.
He had a last idea. He wanted to try something. He decided to call Marcus, maybe he was on to something.
"What if we change it all?" said Marcus on the phone, excitedly. But what was there to be so happy about.
They met one final time, in the now-deserted office. The world didn't see these last two lonely, useless people, here.
Two failed people, two sad and broken individuals with nothing but time on their hands, now. It had to be here.
"We have nothing left," he said to his friend. But what he meant was, that we had nothing, ever, even before any of it.
"They made us," said Marcus, "like the headphones." They broke into the server room, a place they shouldn't be.
The computer had their entire life, but also the life of the entire company, on it. It was more real than they ever could have been, now.
"What are you doing?" Marcus asked, watching Dustin type furiously, a sense of purpose he had never shown before. But the typing didn't seem to change anything.
The system was very old. He was deleting everything. The whole company would be gone, like it had never existed in the first place.
They couldn't pay what they owed to the world, but they could disappear completely, leaving no mark, at all. The screen went blank, all traces of Sonus, their jobs.
Their failures, erased. Like it had all never really happened at all. How could it ever matter to anyone, if it just wasn't there, Dustin thought.
The world wouldn't know. It wouldn't understand what he did. Only he knew what they really did, why this needed to be done.
Nobody would care, and people would simply go on, doing the same jobs, taking the same walks, all without meaning, every day. But it didn't feel right, still.
There was something else he needed to do. He wasn't done yet. It had to be perfect.
He knew what he needed to do. "Why did you really call, Marcus? I have to know, I want to make this right," said Dustin.
"We can change it, can make things better" was the answer from his now slightly irritated friend, who kept looking at his watch. Outside, the world was dark and dangerous.
People kept on dying. In the darkness of this empty building. Here he was, trying to save something, his life.
"We should go. We should be there. That's how we do it," said Marcus, impatiently. "No," Dustin said, grabbing a large metal wrench from a nearby toolbox.
This was his only chance. It was something they did, now. It could always have been this way.
Here. He struck Marcus with full force, the sound echoing through the empty office.
The body just fell to the floor. "The world will change now," he thought, as he sat down, looking at his friend.
He knew what to do now. He dialed the emergency number, his hands covered in blood.
"I did something really bad" he said, his voice surprisingly calm, considering what he'd just done. "We created these headphones.
We made it, this is our work, it was our hands who made these." The sirens came quickly, filling the night with their mournful cry.
Nobody cared who they were. Dustin was taken away, another problem to solve. But now it would finally end, at long last.
They put him on trial. He told the truth. But nobody listened, they didn't care.
The world seemed to go on as if none of this mattered. His trial had very low ratings.
The court wanted a life sentence. This is what they always did. They didn't know the real reasons, he felt.
Like he knew what was going on. He would just do what he had always wanted, now, make them understand, if they would listen to him, only.
He needed them to listen to his story. He smiled. They put him in jail.
He sat in a small room for a while. And the guard said: "you have the right to remain silent."
But it didn't mean anything, just words, meaningless words, from an actor playing out their scene in this horrible theatre piece they put him into. In this play.
With all its dark, sad rooms, and with people dressed in boring outfits. Dustin took his old, worn out, and repaired Sonus headphones from his pocket.
Put them on and turned the volume to maximum. His screams, barely audible through the thick prison walls, he started burning, the pain was horrible.
It finally felt like there was something in this world, some meaning, to end it like this, to let it burn and go out with a bang, literally. He hoped they felt it.
Across the city, across the world. He knew, they did, in a way. Like some strange, sudden nightmare they never spoke about.
Never acknowledged. They didn't need to know about his pain, they would only laugh and point fingers at him, mock him, insult him.
He needed to change it. Change it all. He knew, as his mind started to fade out, that this wouldn't work, not like this, and there wasn't enough time.