The madness singularity
Chapter 17
The madness singularity
The death of Joel Ater came a bit earlier than Nom had intended. It was national news.
What a pity. Nom thought while watching the news clip. That charlatan getting exactly what he would have wanted. More publicity.
Anderson Cooper was rather adamant. "The cause of the mysterious stroke had no known or discernable cause. A full autopsy has been scheduled."
Fortunately for him, Nom had thus far heard nothing from the police. With any luck he would stay under the radar for the foreseeable future. Nom found out about the death during the family dinner, when a Pigeon News push alert buzzed his phone. It was all he could manage to not burst out laughing. Why provide a spoiler to the other soon to be victims at the table?
After the evening at the Manor was finished, Nom sat with his grandfather in the family room. It was a tradition for him to screen an opera every Friday evening. Tonight he was showing a new production of La Somnambular. It turned out to be a crap modernist take on the classic. Rather than showing the opera, it showed a production of the opera. The curtain arose on an empty stage. The opera was acted out as the actors prepared for and rehearsed the opera they were in fact living. Plot points were interwoven with the lives of the actors, even the somnambulism of the lead soprano being shown as a part of the real play.
It was merda. Nom's grandfather loved new and "insightful" innovations on classics. He seemed to love this fecal deposit. What Nom loved, was that Chegaboud despised opera. He packed up his clan, and left the second the blue ray dropped into the tray.
Nom pulled his usual trick. His grandfather was deaf as a post, so the volume on the TV was cranked to the point the windows were oscillating with the timpani. Eriena had retired for the evening to her room upstairs. Fortunately she had left before the fireworks had begun earlier, otherwise she might have had another breakdown. The uncles, being the ungrateful swine they were, had left a massive mess for their father to clean up. Once his grandfather had nodded off into his usual concert nap, Nom snuck out and bussed the table. As much as he enjoyed telling himself that he did this to feed his superiority complex, there was another much more real reason. This particular production of La Somnambular was so shitty he could not bear to watch it.
Eriena, while an artist with the spices, was a walking EPA superfund site when it came to cooking. The kitchen looked as if an earthquake, the artist Dada, and an F5 tornado had collaborated. It took him an hour and a half to return the room to a livable standard, and an additional hour to sanitize and organize it to his personal satisfaction. Every non cooking surface had been scoured and then sterilized. Every item was put into its exact spot. The spices had their containers cleaned, were categorized, and then alphabetized in their categories. The fridge was cleansed and old food discarded. Even the grease trap was sterilized. It was so relaxing. Nothing was finer in the universe than chaos forced into the patterns of logic and order.
His world was finally starting to be organized and clean. Not only had he cleaned the kitchen around him, he had taken the first step in cleaning his family's house. The family's virtue had been avenged and justice delivered. The next family gathering would be like walking into a room after he had cleaned it. The trash would have been taken out.
In the absence of trash, organization would grace his vision. Chaos would wither in fear before his eyes, and the pleasing smell of cleaning agents would waif into his nostrils. Nasty mortuary chemicals to be sure, but, for the first time in his life, they would be a fine aroma to his nose. The bouquet emitting them would be the beautiful spent mortal coils of his foes.
Nom chuckled at this last thought. It was not so very long ago that the smell of mortuary chemicals had made him ill at the very thought of their aroma. Those smells would have a different meaning to him now.
Come to think of it, every time he cleaned a room, he was carrying out a genocide. Billions if not trillions of microbes died under his never ending reign of terror. It was the smell of pine sol, Lysol, bleach, ammonia, and soap that were his potpourri of choice. It was not the beauty of their scents, but rather the knowledge of what those scents meant, his foes were no more. Well formalin, and whatever other preservatives morticians used, would now be the same to him. The terror of the anatomy lab from his childhood was melting away. He hoped that in a short time, he would attend what would be the first of many funerals to come. Just like every time he walked into a clean kitchen.
From the family room Nom heard the familiar libretto of the Count defending Amina. The opera was wrapping up. Nom walked in and woke his grandfather, he always enjoyed watching a cast take their bows, even if he had slept through the performance. When they had finished taking in their unearned praise, Nom powered down the entertainment center, and sent his grandfather to bed.
His grandfather was an easy one to handle. Nom simply had to go to his office turn on the speaker zone that fed his bedroom, put on some minimalist dreck, and the man would go upstairs. Next he'd go to the kitchen, grab a half gallon pitcher, fill it with ice and twenty ounces of whatever fruit juice was in the fridge. Then Nom would go to the wine cellar, grab a bottle of merlot, pour a glass, and take both the ice and wine upstairs. The ice was delivered to Eriena in completion of her usual nightly ritual. Nom said his goodbye's and left her watching Nick at Night. The wine went to his grandfather's room, where he found the man in his dressing gown reading Pope Benedict's newest treatise. Once again saying his goodbyes, he left the pair in their normal routines. The house alarm was switched on, the door locked, and he left.
Messes had been cleaned, order and justice restored. Now it was time to settle another old score.
Before Nom had become a truck driver, he had worked for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. In many ways it had been the perfect job for him. It was a chaotic place. As an assistance payment worker, he shuttled applicants for benefits through the rules to eligibility or denial.
His inner socialist liberal was sated, and his need for cleaning up the messes around him was actually quite. He fell in love with the job. Especially when he could tell a person in the worst moment of their life there really was light at the end of the tunnel. From preventing evictions, to getting Medicaid for disabled persons, to food stamps for the starving, he did it all. It was a job with meaning and purpose.
The only problem was the administrative staff in his office. It was not unusual to find a psychopath in management, a number of experts have claimed that psychopathy is a necessary element for effective leadership. Bad treatment, overwork, total lack of respect or dignity for those under them, and hints of sadism are their calling cards. Nom's boss was one of these people.
His supervisor at DHS, Mrs. Cobb, was a typical supervisor. She oversaw the daily performance of twelve people. She was older and had reached the pinnacle of her career. She was actually rather knowledgeable about the duties of her subordinates. Most of the staff in the office, whether they reported to her or not, knew if they had a question about departmental policy she was their best resource. She had an encyclopedic knowledge and was always up to date on the most recent changes. If anyone wanted to know whether a person on food assistance had to have their monthly stipend changed when they got burial assistance from social security for their spouse, she would know. Twisted as it may seem, the answer was yes, unless a manager granted an exemption.
The difference between Mrs. Cobb and most of the other managers in the office, was that she seemed to take a genuine joy in denying people. Most of the office was staffed by bleeding heart liberals like Nom. Perhaps ten to fifteen percent of the office really did not care, they just wanted a paycheck. But five or so percent were proud members of the TEA Party. The latter openly admitted that they were working in government because they hoped to dismantle the system from the inside.
Mrs. Cobb was none of these. She did not hate the 'moochers'. Her husband was independently wealthy and let her want for nothing. She did not care for the people the agency helped. All she ever seemed to care about was power and using it to inflict suffering.
Most managers in the office seemed to prefer a hands off approach. The workers had little enough time. To force them to waste it standing in a que waiting for authorizations seemed absurd. Most managers found themselves working eleven hour days just to accomplish their normal work. Why make any more for themselves?
Mrs. Cobb, on the other hand, was a different breed. She was one of those classic Americans who found her self-worth not in her family, hobbies, or even in her bank balance. No, Mrs. Cobb valued herself based on her career. She had managed to achieve something unusual for a psychopath. Nom watched with awe every day as she pulled off an achievement he had only ever seen his grandfather do. She led the most efficient and stable unit in the building, and every one of her people wanted to set her on fire and roast marshmallows over her immolation.
Normally, a demoralizing manager would find their staff fleeing. Mrs. Cobb had that one covered. Senior management had a standing policy. Internal transfers were only approved if the "safety" of a worker was in jeopardy. Mental, physical, and health issues were not a concern to be worried about, only physical threats.
The average worker had basically reached the end of their career rope by the time they arrived at DHS. The department was not exactly picky about who it hired credentials-wise. It seemed to thrive on hard luck cases. Persons who had been laid off for several months, college students who had graduated a while ago and still had not landed a good job, empty nesting mothers, these were their main targets. The pay was rather good, so long as you did not expect to get any overtime. The benefits package, thanks to the skills of the UAW negotiators, could not be beat.
The problem was that the office was an eternal black stain on the resume. All of the local employers came to hate DHS workers. They were forced under threat of a subpoena to supply copious and regular data on any workers they had who were receiving benefits. DHS District A workers would regularly show up in person to do random spot checks. They had to certify they saw the client working. Local employers knew that former DHS workers would be leaving for only one of two reasons, they had an offer for a better job in hand, or they had finally snapped.
Nom was assigned to the Oakland County District A office. At the time of his arrival, forty-one percent of the staff had been there for less than a year. It was not due to an expansion or transfers; tenure was simply that short. If a worker survived their first two years, it was assumed that they would remain with the department for the rest of their career. The reason was simple; no one else would hire them. If they left, it was because they had snapped. Their only recourse was to leave town.
The end result was that a select group of psychopathic managers, like Mrs. Cobb, had found the paradise long sought by Le Marquis de Sade. Victims that not only had to show up every day but had to thank the manager for not firing them.
One of Mrs. Cobb's favorite games, was finding the bleeding heart liberals who joined the department out of a sense of duty. She did not torture them directly. No, she enjoyed feeding on both clients of the department and on her workers at the same time.
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