Chocolate is like a life of boxes

"Chocolate is like a life of boxes"

I guess you would say that my position in the Company is lowly. That
would be the best word. I am a lowly clerk. I never intended to work
for a paper-recycling company in any event, I just sort of laid there
and let it happen. I dropped out of University after eighteen months
(Marine Biology, if you want to know. I was very taken with octopi at
that stage. Half of my first four months wages went on acquiring Edgar
and the tank.) The Company just came along and it seemed like the
easiest thing.

I'm sure there are hundreds of people who have jobs, houses,
relationships that they just seemed to end up with. It's not so
bad.

The weird thing about the Company is that nobody has ever seen our
Executive Manager. He has an office in the building that I work in -
well, in fact he has an entire floor for just him and his secretary
Linda Pearson. And nobody much sees her either. She doesn't mix with
the other secretaries or come to the Christmas party, she never signs
anyone's leaving card. It is quite weird when you think about it -
Mister Warren is the Executive Manager, so he is supposed to supervise
and motivate, but he just sits there on floor seven, doing whatever it
is that he does.

Another weird thing is that our production of recycled paper is always
higher than any comparable company, despite the fact that we have less
staff. We produce almost three times as much as some of the
others.

Weird things don't bother me much. I tend to be, what's the term -
unphased. A year ago, I was in McDonalds and this guy walked in, stood
at the counter and cut off his own tongue with a knife, then handed it
to a blonde girl that was working the milkshake pumps. I guess he was
in love with her or something. Anyway, while everyone else was
screaming and chucking up, I just took it all in and kept dipping my
McNuggets into the little pot of barbecue sauce.

You get much more blood from cutting off a tongue than I would have
expected. The guy too, by the look on his face. Someone handed him an
empty paper cup in the end, large it was, just for him to keep spitting
the blood into, while he waited for the ambulance. All I could think of
was what it would be like to french kiss someone who had no
tongue.

So, when a message comes up on my email asking me to go up to the
seventh floor to meet with Mister Warren, I am curious, but not
unnerved. The message tells me that I should treat this invitation with
the utmost discretion and I will be able to exit the elevator on the
seventh floor. (Generally this floor is locked, to prevent curious
office boys and typists sneaking a peek at Mister Warren.)

If I expected anything, it would be that the seventh floor would be
luxurious, with thick carpet and fine art on the walls. Instead, there
is thin greyish paper on the floor of the sort my mother used to have
for assembling dresses from patterns. It is pinned to the carpet that
lies beneath, covering every part of the corridor and the pins run
evenly along it, someone has taken pains to do this.

I pause for a moment and decide to take off my black shoes, for fear of
tearing the paper. It seems peculiar to go to see my Executive Manager
in socks, my shoes clasped tightly together and held that way by the
fingers of my left hand, but it would feel ignorant, disrespectful to
walk on the paper in my shoes.

When I reach Mister Warren's office, I clear my throat and tap lightly
on the door. I try to put dignity, respect and capability into that
tap, but in the end it just comes out as a light tap.

I am told to go in and I enter. Once again, the thin grey paper covers
the entire floor. I note with relief that a pair of navy office shoes
with a two inch heel are neatly placed by the door and I put my shoes
next to Miss Pearson's.

Mister Warren is standing. He doesn't appear to have a desk or
computer. He is about forty and looks a little like Richard Gere,
greying but still handsome. His eyes have that sleepy look about them.
There is something about his clothes which seem odd, although he is
wearing a perfectly respectable blue suit, white shirt and red
patterned tie, there is something about the way they move when he moves
which is not right. The weight of his clothes seems wrong.

And he is wearing cardboard shoe boxes on his feet. To the left of him
are a stack of intricately constructed little boxes and some items that
I take to be origami, little paper models of everyday items.

"Miss Pearson, " he says, in a very serene voice, "Would you leave us
alone for a moment ? "

She unfolds herself from the chair, glides past me and collects her
shoes from the floor before leaving the office. Her chair, desk and
computer are the only pieces of furniture in the entire room.

I proffer my hand politely to Mister Warren, but he declines.

"Do you like chocolates ? " he asks me, "There is a box of Roses on
Miss Pearson's desk. "

He says, "I adore chocolates. I haven't tasted chocolate in over four
years. I miss it so much. The way it just begins to melt in the warmth
of your mouth, that milky flavour, the small comfort it brings."

I assume that he is diabetic. Sad to love something so much and not be
able to have it.

"Would you please unwrap one for me and throw it to me ? " he asks, "I
would just like to hold one in my palm for a moment. An orange creme.
"

Of course, if this is something the Executive Manager wants, I am glad
to oblige, but I could easily hand him the chocolate. I rummage in the
box and find an orange creme, twist off the paper and weigh it up for a
second before throwing it to him. I don't want to throw it too
hard.

Mister Warren catches the chocolate and holds it in the palm of his
hand. He does this for perhaps three seconds and as I watch, the
chocolate whitens and it seems to become thinner. He throws it back to
me.

The orange creme is made entirely of paper. It is an exact replica,
every ridge, every curve, but it is now made of paper. It is also
solid, just very light.

I nod politely, "Very impressive. "

His face colours, "This is no parlour trick. It is a curse. It is why I
cannot tread on my office carpet, why I have eaten nothing but paper
for the last four years. I am cursed like Midas. "

This is where most people would have panicked, but I have a taste for
the unusual. A King Midas curse where everything the victim touches
turns to paper. No wonder the Company does so well, with a paper
creator at the helm.

"Interesting, " I say, taking a closer look at him and realising that
all of his clothes are constructed from paper, "Mind if I test this ?
"

I feel around in my pockets, looking for something unique. I find a Bic
pen top, red in colour. I throw it to Mister Warren and he transmutes
it to a paper model and throws it back.

"Does it work with everything you touch ? "

"Everything, " he says heavily, "It has taxed my ingenuity to live.
Were it not for Miss Pearson, I would be dead by now. She has found a
way of soaking the paper I consume in nutrients, so that I can at least
eat. "

I whistle softly to myself, it must make almost any daily event become
charged with significance and difficulty. He can't use a key, or a pen
or a credit card, can't pick up items in a shop. What does he spend his
money on?

"Does it work for people too ? " I ask. It needed to be asked.

"That is why you are here, " he says to me, with a great heaviness in
his voice, "I have not felt the touch of another human for years. I was
married you know. When this curse struck me, I avoided all physical
contact with my wife. She cried, she lost her appetite and grew
depressed. She withdrew from life almost completely. One day I came
home from work and she had slit her wrists. "

"There was nothing I could do. I cried for help, but nobody came. I
could not telephone for an ambulance and I could not carry her. I sat
near her, talking to her as her life ebbed away and eventually as the
end came near, I took her in my arms. I felt her for only a few seconds
and then she became a statue. She remains in my house, with all the
other paper boxes of furniture and possessions that are all I have now.
"

He tells me how he stayed with his wife, how the droplets of blood that
were falling from her wrists had become little cubes of paper; how he
had not been able to decide whether this paper crystals belonged with
the statue or not.

I wasn't really listening, I was picturing him kneeling next to his
fragile wife.

"So where do I come in ? "

Mister Warren brought his hands close together, with his fingers
steepled, but I noticed that his fingers did not actually touch each
other. There was an almost imperceptible distance between them.

"I need to feel that sensation again. I must have someone touch me,
hold me. I have tried to end my own life, but it is impossible. Knives
lack their steel, bullets become wadded-up paper - if I jumped in front
of a train, I could kill hundreds but live myself. I have money, but it
is of no value. I would give fifty thousand pounds to anyone who hugged
me. "

"But whoever does give you this hug will die, " I say slowly, "That's
going to be a drawback when it comes to them spending the money.
"

"Very true, " he says, "This is why I selected you. I had read reports
from your supervisor which indicated you might have the necessary
mettle. Whoever hugs me will have to do it knowing that they will die,
but that their family or loved ones will become rich. And your finders
fee - five thousand. Miss Pearson was too squeamish for the task. She
also feared the police. "

This does make sense. If you go round paying people to commit suicide,
sooner or later, someone is going to talk. One of the relatives
probably, unhappy at their share. If they went to the police, or the
media - Mister Warren was in a very vulnerable position.

Although he could escape from any prison by touching the bars or the
walls and then tearing through. Cool.

(I look up and realise I said "Cool" out loud at that point, because
Mister Warren is looking at me in a peculiar way)

The more I think, all I can see is downside. I would have to trawl
around looking for losers - they have their own scent and it ends up
sticking to you. Then I would have to talk them into suicide, persuade
them of the truth of the story; which sounded weird, even to me. There
would also be relatives, and funerals (procession of pallbearers
carrying a paper corpse in a wooden box).

Something would get out and I can't turn prison walls into paper. And
they get ten times what I get. I'm the one taking all the risks and
they get all the cash.

Out of the weirdness, an idea comes to me.

Of course, these people don't need to be willing volunteers. They just
needed to be paid to hug Mister Warren, in ignorance of what that might
mean. The money doesn't go to their families, it comes to me. Warren
thinks he is being presenter with a do-gooder, whereas in fact it is
just some mug who thinks they're giving a sad businessman a
cuddle.

And disposing of the bodies would be ridiculously easy, just two
minutes with a shredder. Bag up the shreddings and take it downstairs
for recycling.

Finding people to murder, so that my boss could have a hug. That had a
ring to it. In this instance, murder had all the benefits lacking in
suicide and none of the risks. Besides, I quite wanted to see a paper
body for myself, to look at how all the angles and folds would
appear.

"I already have some ideas, " I tell him.