Outside the city roared. Not like the gentle drum of a tiny metropolis but the roar of a true city. Hundreds of thousands of people on top of each other, all talking and whispering and shitting. It was ear piercing, ear shattering, a destroying sound.
People walked about in headphones and earbuds just to drown it out but you could never drown it out because the sound was in the air, you could feel it’s vibrations on every step. You can never get used to it because it always accompanies you.
They were there in minutes, it wasn’t far, the door to the building was inconspicuous. A slight pale red color that had been painted over, the sign above was faded and only the remnants of lines well-treaded still survived.
Poppy didn’t know why he decided to come with her. It was spur of the moment, she wasn’t trustworthy, she wasn’t attractive, he just felt a certain pull towards it. She opened the door. It was a waiting room. Four dirty red chairs sat in a row, a pile of etcetera magazines were strewn about on a smudged glass table.
He fumbled with his watch, the only possession he still had since, since, since then, it was mid-day. He had nothing better to do.
It smelled like yellowing paper and earth. Poppy stared at her neck, around her a thin veil of orangish burnt sparks hovered but they didn’t make any light. They spiraled and spiraled in circles around her head but she didn’t seem to notice.
There was no receptionist's desk, only a door. She motioned to the chairs.
“Sit I’ll be back in a second. I need to ask if you can come in.” She walked through the door. Poppy leaned his head to look in but the door closed before any came in view. He was alone except for a sleeping older man in one of the chairs.
The chair squelched under his weight.
The old man coughed. Poppy browsed through the magazines, picked one and sat back. It had a half-naked woman with a pair of fake-tits on the cover.
The old man grabbed the magazine. Poppy watched him. The older man pulled out a pair of extra-long safety scissors covered in stickers and started to cut. After three seconds the picture of the women sat in the old man’s lap and the magazine sat in Poppy’s hands. Poppy stared at him.
“Why’d you do that.” Poppy said.
“Needed the picture.” The old man fiddled with the image. Tracing his hands over the image of the women’s breasts. Poppy looked away, it was better not to wonder.
The women came back. She glanced at the old man and said nothing. She motioned Poppy in and he came up beside her. On the other side of the door was not a very typical office.
They were in a long hallway with several doorways to either side. The walls were a deep red and covered with a tacky striped wallpaper. Metal incense containers hung from the ceilings making the whole place smell like rose. Paintings covered the walls. As they walked together, Poppy stared at the paintings, hundreds painted faces stared back, black and white and burnt and old, it was beautiful. They all sat together and looked at him.
She opened a door and walked in, he followed. The room held the distinct smell of old Earth cigarettes and pure must, mixed with a funk from the easel in the center of the room. A picture much like one of the ones in the hallway greeted him like a familiar customer, it sat left on an easel in the center of the room. Right next to the easel a desk covered with several different varieties of paint and an old busted computer. The room felt much like the room of a destitute prostitute who had combined her living space with her working space.
Though thinking of that would be insulting to her.
“Make yourself comfortable.” She pointed at one of the chairs and he sat. He watched as she made her way to the end of the desk and pulled out something from one of the drawers. It was a cigarette.
Of course it wasn’t a real cigarette, they had stopped making those years ago, in favor of an artificial blend of chemicals that had relatively the same effect. She put the cigarette in her mouth and sat on the chair behind the desk.
“So uh, what’s your name.” Poppy asked. He repeated the last word twice. An accident.
“Frankie. Damn these cigarettes are nothing like the real thing. Real tobacco is just a different experience, a different animal.” She said under her breath, holding the cigarette between her fingers and looking at it.
“I’ve never tried either.” Frankie nodded, still looking at the cigarette.
“I’m sorry about the mess. The boss doesn’t like anything looking that organized.” Poppy scratched his face.
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“It’s not a problem.” They sat in silence, Frankie looking at her cigarette and Poppy looking at her. The burnt orange halo faded and all that was left was a faint brownish color.
“You want a smoke?” Frankie said, still looking at the cigarette. Poppy fixated on her lips.
“Nah I’m fine.”
“What’s your name?”
“Poppy. This place is really nice” Poppy said.
“Is that sarcasm. I don’t really like sarcasm to be honest.” She said.
“Is that sarcasm?” He said smiling. They both smiled.
“My boss is going to come in at any time. Don’t be weirded out by him really, he’s like that to everyone, don’t touch his arms. He doesn’t like men in that way. God the government really tolerates so much sexual harassment. You know one time he just straight up groped me in front of a client. Full on hand on tits.” She said, moving her fingers across the cigarette, caressing it.
“Are you ok?”
“Of course it’s no biggy. You get used to that kind of stuff.” She nodded, it was a fact of life. Poppy thought she looked sad in a sort of oblivious way. They sat in silence, he felt too guilty to check her out, flirting with someone who sees flirting as necessary isn’t flirting.
Eventually they heard a knock on the door. She got up and opened it.
The old man from the hallway came in speaking. He had changed from the yellowing workout clothes from before. He wore a bright red suit. It did not fit him both in look and in fit.
“So you’re the one Frankie found, mmm you do have a great smell. I’d say it’s kind of a musk. More of a nutty fresh almond smell. Do you wear cologne? No. I don’t think you would. You don’t look like the type of guy that would wear cologne more of a stick of deodorant and a prayer huh?” He said sitting in a chair next to Poppy.
“Uhhh hello?” The old man’s smile stared back.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I must say I’m always excited when she brings someone in. I always need more. Oh nothing creepy don’t worry I’m not using you for parts, well I mean technically but like not in that way more of a soul way. What’s your name by the way?” Frankie sat staring on the palms of her hands.
“It’s Poppy sir.” He crossed his feet inwards.
“Poppy? That’s a weird name, were your parents fucking hippies? People need to have better names. They’re wasting their time picking all these bullshit hippy dippy names like Poppy or Rose or Samantha, I hate the name Samantha. Do you know how many fucking Samantha’s I’ve met? All the same. All the fucking same.” The boss kept on twirling his fingers, patting them on his hands. He was still in street clothes yet he acted like he was naked.
“I picked the name.” The old man shook his elbows.
“Ah, someone on the run? We have a little runaway bastard. A little stupid for a runaway. I don’t smell any personality from you. It’s weird not an ounce, do you not have any memories? Anyways, has Frankie told you what I do? By the way Frankie dear, get us some water.”
Frankie got up. The strange thing was how even though she held the position of power in the room, the desk, she still shrunk around the boss. He wasn’t a tall man or someone large and he was not good looking. His nose was too big, his lips were too long, he looked like the way someone would draw an ugly character in a comic book.
“I haven’t told him.” She said getting up and walking towards the end of the room. As she made her way the older man grabbed her ass. The red skirt morphed under the old man’s strength. She looked down at him and he did not look back.
“Thanks.” She said and kept on walking. The sound of the skirt tearing grated at Poppy’s ears. The door closed and the old man looked back at Poppy. In his hands he balled up the piece of red cloth and stuck it in his jacket pocket.
His pockets overflowed with different pieces of cloth and other “memorabilia”, the red cloth dotted the head of the picture of breasts that he had snatched.
“Ah you’ll just have to mind her. It’s so irritating to people like her. Women like her I should say. I wanted a hotter secretary but she just has such a good smell that you can’t waste her on a one night stand.” Poppy laughed but his eyes were fixated on a piece of the old man’s neck fat move side by side as he spoke. The old man had lots of it for looking so skinny.
He scratched his knees.
“I guess some introductions are needed, necessary, whatever. Necessary for you, not particularly for me. Well maybe necessary for me. My name is James Kelly, you can call me Mr. Kelly, sir, whatever you want and I’m the oldest Master in this city. Probably.”
“I have no idea what any of that means.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Nah you have that smell around you, I don’t know how to explain it. Have you ever tried smoking? You smell like the scent of smoke on a sweater. Nostalgic but no context to it. No substance. Like you just smell like that. There’s no mustard or ketchup or anything else on the sweater. Just smoke and sweater. That’s an awful analogy.”
“I’m sorry sir. Sir? Is that even right? I mean umm, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t explain anything?” James laughed.
“No it doesn’t really, does it.”
“You are quite empty. It’s really quite shocking, I need to taste your essence but it’s shocking just how empty you are. Not empty empty of course but just no flavor. Or I guess that’s its own flavor. Is flavorless ice-cream a flavor of ice-cream? No, that doesn’t really make sense.” Frankie walked back into the room wearing a different outfit and carrying to glass bottles of water and two bags of classic potato chips. She tossed a bag to each of us and put the water on the desk.
“The first thing to understand about the world is that it doesn’t really make any sense. God I’ve never really introduced our world to anyone that feels weird. Frankskizzle, how would you describe what Masters are?”