The Voice Behind the Machine - Short Story

Chon opens his eyes before the alarm clock goes of. It is warm and comfortable in the bed, and part of him wants him to tuck himself under the blankets more, to sleep on just a few more minutes. But he knows he can't do that.

He gets up and stretches, checking the time: 2:45 am. He's up fifteen minutes earlier, like always. He considers not putting the alarm clock on anymore, for he never needs it to wake up. But it's better to leave it there, just in case.

His slippers are on the side of the bed. He puts them on and goes to the bathroom. The lights are kept off, he lets the water flows a bit to warm up, and then washes his face and brushes his teeth. Then he opens the wardrobe in the bedroom.

It is not hard to choose an outfit - his clothes are all the same. He picks the gray plain t shirt, black jeans, equally black sneakers and a red cap with the initials M. D. A. written on it. Once he's dressed, it is time for breakfast.

The kitchen is small but practical, just a few steps from the bedroom. The coffee machine has just finished making the coffee, like it does every morning. Chon pours the steaming liquid into his gray thermo, sipping it as he looks for some cookies. He finds a few, and stuff some into his pocket. There's still one can of tuna with veggies, he puts it in the other pocket. 

He drinks some more coffee with the cookies as he looks outside the kitchen window. It's pitch black and very cold. Like it always is every morning at that time. And it is time to go.

His coat is on the sofa. It is a worn out coat, but very warm. He likes that coat very much, and always leaves home for work with it. He opens the door of his house and freezing wind hits his face. He zips the coat and buttons it up to his neck, closes the door and goes into the dark of the day. 

The lights of most of the houses are off, and there's not enough street light, but on those rare occasions when cars appear, they casted light on his simple neighbourhood.

He has lived there all his life, and doesn't know any other place but his working place. The food arrives at his house once a month, not a lot, but enough for him to live. 

A red Toyota comes in his direction and stops not far from where Chon is. He thinks they might call him, but they don't. After a moment the Toyota drives away. Nobody ever talks to Chon or sees him.

The shopping mall where he works shows up in the distance, he'll be there shortly. He can see some dark clouds above him, and wonders if maybe it will rain today. He hopes it doesn't. It is never good for him when it rains.

Arriving at the mall, he avoids the back entrance and goes straight to the parking lot. There are four floors only for parking, and he goes down the stairs until the last floor. His floor.

Some light bulbs are on, and one guard is rounding the place with a flashlight, walking fast so he won't fall asleep. He doesn't see Chon arriving. 

The parking lot looks huge when empty, and Chon sometimes thinks about all the things he could do in such huge space. He has been wishing to move to a bigger house and to find another job, but he'd always end up changing his mind. He had to do his best to not attract attention, to be alone all the time, and to not change his life. He had been doing that for thirty six years already and, even though he couldn't complain about his current situation, sometimes he wished he were really free to do everything he wanted.

There's a pile of newspapers near the stairs, the daily papers is deliver to the mall every day early on the morning, lots and lots of it. He grabs one and looks at the important news, not really reading it, thinking about something else, somewhere else.

Lost in thoughts, he crosses the parking lot to where the machine is. It is a brand new ticket machine for the parking, its futuristic design going well with the design of the shopping mall and all the expensive fancy stores there. 

When Chon arrived at work some days ago and found out the old ticket machine wasn't there, he got very worried. He was scared and didn't know what to do, thinking about the worst. It took him a lot of courage, but he decided to stay there hidden and wait until the end of the day to see what would happen and if the machine was gone forever. It was such a relief to discover then that they were only replacing it with a nicer, modern one, that would be better for customers and, hopefully, for himself as well. And it proved to be that way. 

He gets the keys from his pocket and inserts them on the opening of the green door. It opens with a low metallic sound. He steps inside the tiny machine and the lights turned on automatically.

Though small, the place is comfortable enough for Chon. There are buttons and cables and all sort of electronic components everywhere except on the floor. A slot designed for the white cards previously paid is empty, soon to be filled with more and more cards. There are stickers with numbers and descriptions, a pile of books that served as the manual to operate the machine from the inside. He had made the book himself, working on it on those occasions the day was calm and quiet.

He presses some buttons to make tests and nods as everything is working fine. He only needs to test the microphone, but he'll do that later.

The newspaper of the day seems very interesting, and he starts reading the first pages, stopping at the cross words. He loved crosswords and was very good at it. He worked on them quickly and soon he had finished. Those ones had been too easy. Maybe he should buy a book filled with crosswords, level hard. 

The little window in front of him allowed him to see the drives of the cars, but they couldn't see him. It was basically the same every day: people would arrived at the mall, pick up the white card at the entrance of the parking lot, do their shoppings and business, pay the parking in another machine and give it to him once it was already paid so they could leave the parking and carry on with their lives. 

Chon pays a lot of attention to the drivers and passengers of the cars and always talks to them happily. Most of time people don't answer him, but sometimes somebody does, and he smiles at them, even knowing they can't see it. That always makes him think about humans in general, their purposes in life and the silly decisions they make all the time. 

He knew humans, but humans didn't know him. And he hoped it would always be that way. There were not many of his breed out there, and the ones who adventured and were friends with humans didn't have a happy ending. Better to hide and not mix with anyone or anything. There's a reason why unicorns and mermaids still exist.

The electrical sound was heard everywhere in the lot, waking up all the light bulbs, and in a couple of minutes all the parking lot is illuminated, exposing trash cans, carton boxes and dirt, things that parking lots seem to never be able to get rid of. 

The ticket machine has his own electrical system, so it can keep on working in case there is a shut down. Still, it makes the same electrical sound and shakes slightly, as if coming back to life. 

Chon liked when it happened. it meant he had officially started working, and he'd always wonder whether his day was going to be busy or calm, interesting or just random. He checked the calendar he had attached to one of the walls to see if there was any holiday during the week. There was one tomorrow, which meant tomorrow was probably going to be nice and very interesting and busy. He was happy already.

But today it is just a regular day. Or maybe not. An idea starts to form into his head. He gets the notebook he has tucked below his table and makes some quick notes and draws a happy face. And then another one. He smiles. 

Drinking the coffee that is still warm on his thermo and grabbing a cookie from his pocket, he turns on the microphone and starts testing, as he waits anxiously for the events of the day to unfold before him.

"Thanks for visiting us, have a good day!" 

"Thanks for coming, see you soon!"

"Have a good day and drive safe!"