He was not a truly exceptional individual by most statistical measures.
He was dedicated, but lacked the genius to make connections to things he had not been explicitly taught. He was curious and great at memorization, but unfocused and unsociable, often slipping into an internal dialog and missing important social cues. He struggled to come to terms with the world around him throughout his childhood and found himself floundering in every aspect of his life. It seemed he was destined to be one of those citizens who “did not quite make it” in life, if put generously. A new statistic among the tax moochers and criminals who were a burden on the normal people of society. It was in this way that he found himself reading every scrap of non-fictional information he could find, desperate to find his place among the successful.
Then he found it, hidden deep in an Economic Textbook he struggled to memorize, he had found his chance at redemption.
The Chicago School of Macroeconomics.
Of course, it was not the topic itself that was of true importance – although it was very interesting – rather it was that the topic catalyzed his understanding of the world. Society, he found, was underpinned by a set of solid, foundational rules through which it functioned. It laid out a path such that even a mediocre talent like himself could become successful.
‘How has no one told me about this?! Be kind to others? Respect your parents? How can someone go through life with such vague guidelines?! Is it not better that the world is shaped by a clear and easy-to-understand structure? Society has worked hard to construct this rational and logical framework. Why is it ignored? It is a travesty of the highest order!’
It was here that he soon delved into the world of economics and psychology. The Social Contract made it clear that everyone was bound not just by the legal rules, but numerous social ones as well. Likewise, Signaling Theory showed that so long as one exuded the proper auditory and visual responses expected of one in their current role, everyone would treat them like they fit that role. He laments those like him who struggled with this before the advent of the Internet. With the near infinite knowledge of the world at his fingertips, he needed only to memorize the expectations of himself for the various situations he could reasonably find himself in. There were numerous scientific and qualitative studies on all manner of situations: what one expects of a candidate in an interview, conversational topics to bring up with your boss at a party or casual conversation with coworkers by the water cooler.
Of course, he was no robot. He had feelings and opinions of his own about how he would prefer the world to work, but the world was good enough to him that he had no concern in keeping those thoughts to himself. He felt no more hypocritical than the average human; at least he was aware of the hypocrisy. So long as he kept his head down and focused on his path to the top, he was free in every sense that mattered. After all, being able to do and say whatever you wanted was just another name for Anarchy, and no sane individual wanted that. By the principles of Liberalism, it was better to sacrifice a few unimportant freedoms in order to maximize the rights of all members of society. The people who would refuse to let go of their “freedom to kill” in order to gain the “right to not being killed” were not worth keeping among the population.
By the time he had graduated, no one could doubt that he signaled the role of the ideal job candidate; someone with a degree in a sought-after field that would do exactly what was expected when it was expected.
February 22nd, 2013 – Corporate Head Office, Tokyo, Japan – Salaryman POV
In a modern glass skyscraper in downtown Tokyo, he sat working at his desk. His office was pristine; containing everything one would be expected of an ideal Salaryman. Numerous awards he had received for his exceptional loyalty and service to the company lined his desk, employee manuals and training material covered his shelves and his college degree hung proudly behind his head. No matter if they were the receptionist or the CEO, to any rational person employed at his company it was a room which commanded respect.
An Employee entered his office with a face full of anger and slammed the door behind him. It appeared that an exception towards the respect he usually received was going to be made today. He let his right eye twitch in annoyance but remained professional.
He pointed to the seat across from his desk.
“Have a seat.”
The Employee quickly took a seat but also took the request as an invitation to begin a rambling diatribe.
“What the hell is going on here?! I have been an employee of this company for over 5 years and this is the thanks I get?! My wife is in the hospital and you people think you have the right to demand I work though that?! She could damn well be dead right now while we're having this conversation! The only reason I am even here is because HR sent me an email saying I'm going to be fired! I demand an explanation!”
Throughout the cobbled together sentences, the Salaryman could only focus on the spittle from the man’s mouth fall on the edge of his desk. It took more willpower than he expected to not fire the man right there.
‘I can see now why HR recommended this to me. What a worthless case. If this employee had any sense, he would be dropping into Dogeza and begging me to let him keep his job. Doesn't he know that one bad reference in this industry is enough to permanently remove any chance of promotion?’
However, there were rules for this situation that he had to abide by. It would do no one any good if this man found some way to involve the company in a lawsuit. With a brief sigh, the Salaryman straightened up and faced the Employee with a neutral, professional expression.
“It is unfortunate that this tragic event has affected you so strongly, but this company works under a set of regulations you agreed to when we hired you. Over the past year, you have already used your paid leave and unpaid leave and yet you continue to be absent from work. The company has a generous bereavement plan for circumstances just like yours, but you must provide regular updates with your supervisor and it requires that you to work at least half of every month. You-”
The Employee got up from the chair and slammed a hand on the desk.
“How many times do I have to go through this with you people?! That paid leave was for a vacation before my wife's health took a turn for the worse. Because of the shitty pay and insurance I get with this crappy company, I can barely cover the hospital bills but I can take out loans as long as I have this job. I need to be there for my wife, can't you understand that?!”
While he could strain his mental faculties to try to find something to sympathize with the Employee, he found nothing.
‘There is a famous quote which says “Compromise is the best and cheapest lawyer.” That the Employee is unsatisfied with his circumstances is only natural. I have issues and grievances in my life too, you know, like hearing you yell at me! But I know better than to air my dirty laundry and risk my job for it. How ironic that he is the only one in the company that can’t see where this line of inquiry is heading. The fact that this is coming to my desk at all is proof that he’s gone too far.’
He did not give voice to these opinions and instead spoke out in an even tone.
“You're going through a hard time, I understand that, but you need to come back into work. You are not being paid for when you’re absent and it this is going to affect your future prospects. You only need to come in every other day-"
The Employee looked like he was going to pull his hair out. The man clenched a fist at him with a face going incandescent with rage.
“You- you bastard! Is this how it is going to be?! I worked tirelessly for this company! I’ve earned at least this much!”
For the first time in the meeting, he showed a non-professional emotion. Rubbing his eyes, he could feel a headache starting to come on. Reluctantly, he felt that there was no way to salvage the situation. He let the polite fiction of the professional social contract drop and unveil the cold, hard facts as it stood.
“I do not see how you are going to achieve what you want with this. This company is not going to entertain your specific needs. HR has pushed this to me because of your belligerence, and I can only bring this up with your VP in Accounting. What do you think they will say? They will tell me to do my job and fire you. It is because of your history here that this has not already happened. We have no strong need for employee retention at the moment, so I just can’t see how we can accommodate you. Please give up before you do something you'll regret.”
The Employee seemed to take this as an invitation and got up from the chair, kicking it over.
“I'm not going to let this company boss me around!"
Not getting up from his desk, the Salaryman sighed.
‘I think that should do it. No one can complain to me that I didn’t try.’
"Then I have no choice. You're fired. Collect your things from your desk. Your manager might-"
The Salaryman stopped as he looked up. The Employee looked like he was going to throw a punch and so he leaned back in his seat, unsure what to do. Luckily, it seemed the man still had some sense left and stormed out of the office.
The Salaryman sighed and quickly opened a new email. He would make sure that he had a sufficient paper trail detailing the specifics of the case. He made sure that there would be no legal consequences either for the company or himself, but that did not mean he was happy with the result. Such cases always disappointed him and he could only confess his confusion.
“What an utter waste of Human Resources…”
March 14th, 2013 – Downtown, Tokyo, Japan – Salaryman POV
It had been just over two weeks since that last awful interaction with the Former Employee.
While it always felt like a waste of time to manage such troublesome cases, there was nothing for it. Every society had its outliers and often it was too difficult to correct for every little mistake others made. The Sunk Cost Fallacy established that not quickly moving on from a mistake was often far worse than the original mistake. And so regardless of the time and effort in recruiting and training a replacement, it was the right thing to do. He had to rely that while the company stock would have plenty of dips, it was ever increasing. With that optimistic outlook, he carried on with business as usual. The only exception to the wonderfully ordinary routine was when his Supervisor came by to tell him to “watch his back”.
He could not understand what there was to worry about. The Former Employee had obvious issues with authority and was prone to emotional outburst, but there were doubtless many more people to blame than himself. He was reminded of the many bullies in his elementary school days with similar traits and wondered how many of them grew out of their proclivities in adolescence. While logically he knew that even ordinary people could turn to crime, statistics laid bare the fact that the world has never been a safer place. It would be paranoid to the highest degree – and even a bit arrogant – to think he was significant enough to fall into the statistic of “victim of violent crime”.
He was vindicated as more days passed.
So he found himself leaving the company in high spirits after a long day at work. With a confident stride and serious expression befitting , he waded though the dense crowds of a Tokyo train station on his way home. The Former Employee no longer entered his mind when he found himself flung off the station's platform and hurtling towards an oncoming train.
"What?"
It was all he could say, the shock robbing him of his last words being something more profound. Instinct had him raise his arms in a futile effort to protect himself from the multi-ton machine signaling his inevitable demise. Falling through the air, he was turned around just in time to see the Former Employee with his arms outstretched. Time seemed to slow as he realized he was about to die. In a moment of stark clarity only granted to those about to die, he could not help but think.
'I guess my boss was right about him.'
A male voice called out to him.
"My, my, what a predicament you find yourself in."
A second went by and he was still alive. He realized that — despite all logical or rational scientific explanation to contrary — he appeared to find himself and the world around him still completely frozen in time. Only his mind and eyes seemed to function. He looked to his right and towards the source of the voice.
Suddenly a monster walked across the platform he had just found himself unceremoniously thrown from and floated above the crowd of people. "Monster" was the only word fitting for the creature. Like a "Yokai" or "Shinigami" out of ancient Japanese Folklore it was an amalgamation of creatures in a horrific fusion that would make any horror movie's prop department proud.
The thing frowned at him, smoothing back the bristly mane of its deformed goat-like face with an eagle's claw that appeared haphazardly stuck onto the end of one of its limbs.
"I take offense to that! I will have you know that looking this good isn't easy. This world's "reality" just does horrible things to my complexion."
The being's non-sequitur was so strange that the Salaryman could not help but stop to rationalize the situation. While he was no genius, he had read plenty of fiction in his youth. It did not take him more than a minute to figure out what was going on, despite the obvious insanity of the situation.
'So am I to believe that you were the one that stopped time? That you can hear my thoughts without me being able to open my mouth? Am I to thank you for stopping my death?'
The thing appeared to smile bashfully, it's grey, bulbous face flushing red as it fluttered its long eyelashes at him.
"No need for thanks. No really, don’t. I am getting something out of this after all."
With a snap of its talon, clothes materialized on the creature. It was now wearing a three-piece suit and holding a Thompson sub-machine gun in the lion-like paw of its right limb and wearing a comically large pompadour wig on its head. It then spoke in the sort of accent he would expect from a thug in a cheap yakuza film.
"Isn’t that not how these sorta deals go, punk? A little 'quid pro quo', a little 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch youse', ya dig? Here I am, saving that sorry hide of youse and ya gotta do a little somethin' in return. Ya feel me?"
The Salaryman rolled his eyes. The action caused him to glance into the headlight of the oncoming train to his left. He looked back to the creature with narrowed eyes.
'Stop it with these nonsense antics. What do you want? I don't appreciate being stuck in this farce of a situation any longer than necessary, Being X.'
His eyes widened at his own thoughts being edited from his mind.
The creature frowned, his clothing and props disappearing from his body.
"There will be none of that. My name is Discord, Lord of Chaos, and I will not have my good name sullied by an inferior appellation. As for what I want, well, I want you to live. Isn’t that nice of me?As you can see by your situation right now, things are not looking good, and I’m here to help."
The Salaryman tried to ignore Being X's Discord's wish to be named “properly”, if only out of pride, but his every thought was corrected as he thought otherwise. He quickly gave up and focused on the relevant point Discord brought up.
'Then why not fix it? I am unsure what sort of extraordinary phenomenon is occurring at the moment, but you seem to have abilities that defy common sense. Can you not simply... move me back onto the platform?'
Discord smiled and wagged his finger.
"Ah, ah, ah, no can do, I'm afraid. Moving across Planes of Existence and freezing time are trivial. This conversation; all this around you? This is all happening inside your mind. Since you're going to die soon anyway, I'm not really making any lasting changes, if you get my meaning… at least nothing that can't be fixed with a little re-arranging of probabilities here and there. No butterflies causing tornadoes or anything like that. You could say I'm a bit of an expert in Chaos Theory."
The Lord of Chaos approached him and made a motion to dust off his clothes, however in doing so, the pawed hand phased right though his body!
"As you can see, moving just the tiniest speck of dust from your clothes would be impossible. Using my magic to force the matter would rip a hole clean through your universe and fuse it with my own. While that might be it's own fun brand of mayhem, neither of us would survive to enjoy it. No, I had a better idea, one that works for both of us."
Discord disappeared in a flash and teleported back on the platform.
"You see, I made a friend. A wonderfully kind being…"
His face contorted with anger.
"That was killed by an awful world that didn't deserve her. No matter how much I pleaded with her to help or protect her from the awful problems all around her, she insisted that I stay out of it. She was just so... nice; too nice. By the time I realized what a mistake I was making by listening to her, she was gone and I was left all alone. I couldn't accept that. I spent years racking my prodigious mind to find some solution, but my powers cannot bring back the dead or turn back time... or so I thought."
He looked at him with a ferocious look in his mismatched yellow eyes.
"By finding someone my complete opposite in another world — some weak creature obsessed with order and rules — my powers will be 'balanced out'. I could take the consciousness of someone like yourself and use it to make a tiny tweak to the past. With that, I can then slip something noticeable for my past self to realize what a horrible mistake I was making. You will get another chance at life and my best friend gets to live. A 'win-win' situation, if there ever was one."
The salaryman raised an eyebrow. It seemed that he was getting some control of his body back.
'I can't help but imagine there is something of a "catch" to all this. This kind of "Devil's Bargain" must have some sort of twist, am I right? Do you need me to do something for you or-'
Discord leapt back in shock. He looked at him with clear disgust written on his already revolting features.
"Don't even think about that! In fact, it would be best if we never saw each other ever again! A boring, by-the-book person like you would be an absolute nightmare to try and wrangle into my chaotic schemes. Please, stop trying to make sense of all this. There is no greater planfor you. You are not “the chosen one” or important. If you want to die here, I’ll find someone else. That's not how Chaos works. Go off and die again for all I care. Honestly, you humans… you should be grateful that I even explained my reasoning for this in the first place! Can't you just 'go with the flow' for once in your uninteresting, miserable life?"
The Salaryman felt like he should be insulted, but one look at the monstrous form of his interlocutor made him realize such emotions were unwarranted. Did he really want to be considered interesting by this thing? What would be the point of arguing with such madness? Either this whole situation was an hallucination dreamt up by his mind on the verge of death, or this insanity was really happening. Regardless of what was the truth, there was only one logical choice.
The instant he thought of his answer, the train to his left collided with him and he thought no more.