What Are You Looking At?

What Are You Looking At? 19

While cleaning the halls of a health facility, one must be extra vigilant and pay much more care than he or she normally would when disinfecting, vacuuming, and sweeping. One's eyes must scan with the efficiency of a radar, although a Roomba or other robotic device could eat debris with much more accuracy than a human ever could. Infrared light can detect rubbish as tiny as a splinter of wood within multicolored and disorienting carpet, which usually passes by an organic retina just the same as a pebble, rock of road salt, or even a few errant raisins. This is the issue that Zack has suffered throughout the past three years as a supervisor at Pine Rest Psychiatric Care.

As a thirty-year-old man with mild cerebral palsy, he's beaten many odds, especially in his childhood, but it's given him a slight sense of agitation towards others and the world in general. He can easily complete any physical labor job given to him, although it might seem a bit awkward to a passing spectator, but he's built a life for himself, although he never tried exceptionally hard in school and dropped out of college after two years. As the three-year manager of his cleaning crew, he's been responsible for the oversight of four separate buildings, but he's usually able to keep his employees, most of whom lack the discipline it requires to work without management, under strict control.

His workers include two bathroom cleaners, two walkers that change the trash and take care of soiled linen and hazardous materials, two males with portable vacuums (he wouldn't want a woman to suffer the throes of a ten-pound backpack compressing their spines), and a wiper, which cleans down walls, windows, desks, and door knobs. The only problems Zack's ever had with his subordinates seem to be with the vacuumers. The trashers rarely ever miss any cans, recycling, or biohazard waste. The bathroom cleaners detail on the first day of the week and then maintain for the next four days. The wiper, as the senior of the group, has worked this campus for five years, thus trumping Zack's tour of duty. Only the vacuumers ever have trouble with their assigned areas, and their position is that of a revolving door.

Throughout the night, each cleaner begins their job, splitting the work between "odds", who clean wards A and C, and "evens", who clean B and D; Zack, the person responsible for every other worker's actions, begins his walk forty-five minutes after everyone else has started. His walk covers all four buildings in a specific order, traveling clockwise throughout the medical facilities, where he will check the trash cans and recycling, each of the seemingly hundreds of bathrooms split into quarters between each ward, and the desks, walls, windows, and linoleum floors, and, as he travels from room to room, the carpets, which, obviously, cover most of the surface area. The carpets in wards A and C have been left exceptionally messy every single day since, he's surmised, the new "odd" vacuumer, Kevin, has started.

The previous vacuumer, Andy, was not the greatest at his job, but he didn't require Zack's constant and tiring surveillance like Kevin does. Andy, rather than wearing his heavy backpack, would go around the halls and pick every bit of debris with his fingers and place the garbage in his pockets. At the end of each shift, he would empty his bulging pockets, and Zack would chastise him since he'd inevitably miss small piles of dirt, powdery road salt, and coffee grounds, but Andy would never change his method. His lethargic work was just passable enough to not elicit the wrath of the monthly inspector, but Zack was still never pleased with his worker.

To add to Andy's short list of benign enemies, the wiper, Rudy, had grown tiresome of the vacuumer's perceived intent in not pushing the office chairs back in after pulling them out, since the inspector would blame Rudy for this minute, arbitrary detail. Zack had always viewed this complaint as trivial, since Rudy could easily trail behind the vacuumer and push the chairs in himself, but, after five years of working the same job and shift with little to no change other than in his coworkers, Rudy's routine had become that of a rut, and any significant change was enough to cause him annoyance. He would begin to leave bottles, cups of coffee, and other small yet noticeable items underneath the chairs and throughout the hallways to get revenge on Andy, but the dubious intent only spiraled into Andy's retribution, which involved the vacuumer leaving fingerprints on various windows. This feud would take different forms with different "odd" vacuumers, but it would always result from Rudy's lust for a normal, simple routine.

One day, Andy showed up to work, and Zack immediately noticed that his skin was slightly grayed. Andy would complain about acute exhaustion and cramps, but he would continue to work despite Zack's advice of seeing a doctor, which, ironically, Andy would reject despite working in a medical facility. Shortly thereafter, his stomach began to bloat, causing pain around the area where his waist strap would tighten. Eventually, he succumbed to Zack's pleas, and he discovered that he had a rare form of liver cancer, which entered the third stage of malignance. Had he waited one more week, he would have more than likely died. After learning the harrowing news, Andy quit working and began to focus on treatment and recovery.

To Zack's dismay, after Kevin was hired as Andy's replacement, he realized that he would rather deal with the former "vacuumer's" picking methods than suffer through Kevin's horrendous work ethic, offensive odor of unwashed clothing and flatulence, and overall uncomfortable presence--even Rudy would have rather dealt with Andy's childish behavior. As a twenty-eight-year-old man whose weight exceeds four-hundred pounds, he has difficulty wearing his vacuum, traversing the long, winding halls of the two buildings he must hobble through each night, and even bending down to tie his shoes. As a result of this, combined with his poor eyesight, he misses, as Zack has told him for each of the four nights he's worked thus far, "an unforgiveable amount." Zack is blunt with his employees, but he does have sympathy to some degree. He knows that Kevin is overweight and needs to wear glasses with thick frames, and he's suggested that the new vacuumer finds another job, but Kevin insists that he can fix his mistakes.

"J-just trust me," he stutters in his deep, gruff voice. "I-I can do it. I-I've cleaned places tw-twice this size." Zack wants to tolerate Kevin's incompetence, but he's also grown tired of having to pick up Kevin's slack and either strap on the second backpack when the other imperfect-yet-virile vacuumer has finished or shuffle through his walk while carrying a cordless upright vacuum. All the same, he decides that he'll give Kevin one last shot. If he can't step up and improve himself, he'll be gone by Monday.

Beginning their nightly routine, Zack and his "odd" crew start with the ward that attends to personality, mood, and related disorders, such as bipolar, borderline personality, and various schizotypal disorders. Referred to as "ward A", this building does not house any patients, but psychiatrists and doctors treat clients who visit for routine checkups. These neurological victims must have their blood pressure recorded, weigh themselves, and sometimes have their blood drawn, so it's imperative that every room is spotless and reeks of lemon-scented cleaning supplies by the end of the night.

Seated in the break room in the A ward, Zack scrolls through his Facebook feed and eats pre-packaged cheddar popcorn in an uncomfortable computer chair. The break room is a tight enclosure, but it can still fit the eight employees if need be. The wall to the left of the entrance is stacked with all the supplies the cleaners will ever need, such as toilet paper, disinfectant chemicals, and vacuum bags. If one is to walk straight ahead after entering, he or she will stumble over carpet cleaners, tile scrubbers, and other large equipment, which all sits in front of the desk that Zack presently sits behind as the large metal door slowly swings shut in about thirty seconds.

Every night, for forty-five minutes, he listens to the hum of the fluorescent light bulbs that hang over his head, and, although one of the tubes flickers slightly, he never bothers to order a replacement, and he never even glances up. He hears a subtle rumbling sound, signifying a loose aluminum vent plate in the upper back corner of the small room shakes violently as the furnace pumps warm air. Similarly to his lethargy towards the lights, he's annoyed by the sound of the vent cover, but he never bothers to take a screwdriver and tighten the screw that's loosened over the past few years. He hypocritically curses his vacuumer's laziness, while he, himself, wishes to do even work than anybody else. His job is delegation, and he revels in his, as he perceives, astute accomplishment--years bent over a grill flipping cheeseburgers, taking orders, and sweeping fries in a fast-food restaurant has finally paid off.

After forty-five minutes of relaxation, he knows that Kevin has likely moved on to the second half of A. To clean both respective "odd" buildings, the job usually takes no more than four hours, or about two hours each. Rudy is the only one who takes the entire allotted shift of five hours, but it's because he works the only wiping position and is responsible for each of the four wards. However, Kevin moves much quicker than any other previous vacuumer in his position and faster than any of the current employees in general, which Zack finds suspicious considering he's also the heaviest vacuumer the company has ever hired, but Zack posits that it's probably because he skips over many areas.

As Zack begins his walk, he's immediately flustered by Kevin's negligence as he's been every other night so far. There are salt-laden foot prints up and down every hallway, and, even in just the front secretaries' offices, it's evident by the trail mix, bits of tissues, and paper hole punches that Kevin didn't pull any of the chairs out and missed the offices completely. The back of his skull growing warm with annoyance, Zack briskly travels throughout ward A on a hunt for Kevin. He listens for the whirring of a vacuum or its bright yellow cord, peeking through the tiny square windows of doors that lead down hallways but sees no sign of the large, bear-like man. Finally, he spots Kevin's backpack, which lays on its side adjacent to relatively spotless bathrooms.

"Kevin?" he calls, but there's no reply. "Kevin!" Rudy passes by, having heard Zack's beckoning.

"He's over there," he sighs, pointing his eyes down the hallway to the right while spraying his rag with disinfectant. He's a tall man with a slightly dark complexion and short black hair. His eyes are usually obscured by his glasses, but when he speaks, he tilts his head down towards the ground and his pupils peek up above his lenses, which seem to slide down his nose. Zack always thinks it's a bit smug, but he never mentions anything that would attack the wiper's character. "There's something off about that guy."

"You're telling me," Zack replies as he leans up against a door frame.

"No," Rudy continues. His glasses have slid further down his nose. "There's something seriously wrong with him. He's gained a lot of weight since he started."

"Huh?" Zack replies a bit bewildered. He hadn't paid much attention to the already obese man to notice any obvious weight gain, and he's more perplexed by the idea that anybody could grow significantly in less than one week.

"That nasty red shirt clings to him like Saran wrap," Rudy says, spraying his cloth with disinfectant. "It used to dangle off him. He told me he eats plastic."

"I don't know about all that," Zack scoffs, dismissing Rudy's ridiculous observations. "I think he was fucking with you, but I can tell you one thing: he ain't right." At this dismissal, Rudy raises his eyebrows and moves his mouth to one side as if to indicate that Zack is stating an obvious fact, such as that the sky is blue.

"Have you tried telling Terri?" Rudy questions, staring at his cloth as he continues to soak it in chemicals.

"Not yet," Zack replies shortly. "But she'd probably want me to give him another shot."

"What's there to see?" Rudy retorts, his tone shifting down.

"You're telling me," Zack sighs as if defeated. He stares at the pile of smelly trash and wrinkles his nose as he closes his eyes. "Not to give up before we've even tried, but it looks like we might be stuck with him."

"Maybe you have to take matters into your own hands," Rudy says after a moment of silence. "Or maybe someone else has to." At this, he grabs his cart with one gloved hand and pushes it through the rest of ward A. Zack glances back towards where Rudy had just stood and wonders if there even is any way to nix Kevin or if he's simply fighting a pointless war. Then again, he ponders, he hasn't even tried to remedy the situation besides his failed attempts at fixing Kevin's work ethic. It would be rather uncharacteristic of himself, he decides, to give up now. He continues on to where Rudy had directed and finds Kevin inside the office of a bipolar specialist. He's glancing upwards at the top of the doctor's bookcase, which seats her various framed graduate degrees and a picture of she and her husband.

"What are you doing?" Zack barks. "You missed, like, four rooms back by the secretary offices."

"Wh-which ones?" Kevin asks, still fixated on the picture frames.

"1200, 1300, 1350, and 1400," Zack replies, listing a finger for each room. "And there's a bunch of salt in each of the hallways."

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Kevin replies. His eyes haven't deviated from the top of the bookshelf, and Zack feels a bit irritated.

"Come on, Kevin," he sighs, just as Rudy had moments ago. "You shouldn't be looking at that stuff."

"Wh-what do you mean?" Kevin replies, turning to face his manager, but his eyes continue to point up towards the ceiling. "I-I wasn't looking at--" He cuts himself off and his pupils, surrounded by gray-blue irises, rapidly dilate. Confused by his employee's constant upward gaze, Zack tells Kevin to go over to the offices and wait. As the large vacuumer hobbles over towards his backpack, Zack's aghast by his pungent odor and surmises he must not change his clothes, especially since he's worn the same plain red t-shirt since his first day. Kevin straps on his vacuum and wobbles towards the offices, and, once out of sight, Zack peeks into the doctor's office and sees that Kevin had been staring at a vent. It's tightly fit to the wall and doesn't make any sound like the one in the break room. Zack scoffs at Kevin's strange nature and his lingering odor and goes to meet him.

In room 1200, Zack points to a couple piles of salt. They're not extremely noticeable at a quick glance, but it's apparent to him or anyone who is looking for messes that the floor is dirty.

"I don't see what you're pointing at," Kevin confesses. His eyes are searching the ceiling again, and Zack grits his teeth.

"Kevin," he spits. "You need to look at the carpet."

"I know, I know," Kevin replies impatiently. He powers on his vacuum and starts to run the head across the floor randomly, all the while his eyes remain aloof. Zack reaches over and flips the switch off.

"Kevin," he repeats for what seems like the hundredth time. "You're not looking at the carpet."

"This is bullshit!" Kevin retorts, his voice raising in pitch like a frustrated eight-year-old. "I already fucking did this!" Zack's slightly taken aback and licks his lips. He's never had an employee cuss at him or even snip back in such a manner. Although he's fantasized an opportunity to get physical with Kevin, which would put him many hours of Muay Thai lessons to use, he's caught off-guard by his sudden defenses.

"Look..." Zack finally replies as Kevin breathes rapidly, his eyes on the ceiling. "Just keep doing what you were doing." Kevin yanks his cord from the outlet and storms out of the offices. As the door sluggishly shuts, Zack can hear the disgruntled vacuumer mumbling to himself.

"I-I'm trying..."

~

After Kevin's poor performance moments ago, Zack decides to follow Rudy's advice and call his boss, Terri, who ultimately oversees this contracted area as well as three others around the city. He tells her about Kevin's outburst first and foremost, but she simply says that she'll come Monday to chat with him.

"What's there to talk about?" Zack replies, losing his patience further. "He's an idiot. At the very least, he shouldn't be vacuuming if he has to wear 5-XL shirts. He always complains about breathing problems."

"Well," Terri begins. "Maybe we can train him on trashing."

"Both the current trashers are women," Zack retorts with a sneer. "You can't take their job away from them and then force them to wear those heavy-ass backpacks. They're both so skinny as it is. It'll twist their spines."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you, then," Terri replies apathetically. "It's gonna be months before they hire anyone else in. You know how it goes around here. Takes them forever to do the background check. You're just gonna have to put up with it."

"Fine," Zack replies, standing up from his computer chair as cheddar popcorn crumbs sprinkle onto the cold cement floor. "I'll fire him myself. I'll strap that stupid thing on and clean this whole damn place if it means getting rid of that moron." He hangs up and drops his phone into his pocket. "I knew that would happen..." he mumbles to himself. As he starts towards the door to deliver his severance, he hears the familiar vibrating of the loose furnace vent. "First things first," he mutters. "Let's fix this cocksucker." He roots around through the toolbox he'd brought from home and can't seem to find a Phillips head screw driver. "I just bought the fucker," he complains. He settles with a flathead screw driver and, with slight difficulty, tightens a screw that had probably loosened over time, and all errant noises--besides the light bulbs overhead--cease.

Feeling halfway fulfilled, Zack continues towards cutting away the tumor that is Kevin and begins his walk. To his surprise, though, the salt, crumbs, and scraps have all vanished. He peers into every one of Kevin's assigned areas and they're spotless. There's no sign of the cord and no whining of a vacuum, so he wanders through the crisp winter air towards ward C, which is about an eighth of a mile away. Snow crunches beneath his dirty sneakers, and he begins to ease up as he deeply inhales. He marvels at how quiet the world seems when fresh snow blankets the ground. However, he knows that he will be much more at relaxed and relieved in light of Kevin's absence, so he furrows his brow and keeps his destination at the forefront of his mind.

As he enters ward C, he's immediately met with a foul odor. It seems to be emanating from the air ducts, but he also quickly realizes that it's the familiar smell of Kevin's body. He barrels through the hallways, plugging his nose, as his eyes dart down each corridor. Soon thereafter, he sees Kevin's cord and follows it to find the backpack is once again on the ground.

"Kevin!" Zack shouts as his infuriation begins to peak. Exactly following the last time he had been searching for Kevin, Rudy appears around the corner, which catches him off guard. Normally, Rudy would only be on ward B, so he must either be moving quickly tonight, which is not likely, or he's jumping around his normal routine to try and get ahead of Kevin. In the same tone and manner as about an hour earlier, Rudy informs Zack of Kevin's location. Following the directions, he hears the rustling of metal and the sound of heavy boots thudding onto carpet. He follows the noises and sees Kevin within another doctor's office. It's the office of an obsessive-compulsive specialist, and when Zack sees the strange vacuumer hide something behind his back, he crosses his arms and shakes his head. "What could you possibly be doing in here?"

"N-n-nothing," he begins, his eyes fixated upwards as usual. "I-I was just--"

"Don't take that backpack off again until you're done," Zack orders sternly. He stands and waits for Kevin to leave the room, but he doesn't. "What are you waiting for?"

"I-I-I'll do it in a second," he replies as colossal beads of sweat drip from his forehead and chin. The armpits of his red t-shirt are dark with perspiration, and his arms are still behind his back in an obvious attempt to conceal something.

"What are you holding?" Zack asks. He's more than fed up with Kevin's behavior, so when the large man doesn't reply, Zack starts to enter the room, and Kevin backs up into the desk, knocking over a lamp that had been seated upon it. "Kevin! You're making a mess!"

"Leave me alone!" Kevin screams as he pushes past Zack and waddles out the door. In his bizarre rush, he had dropped the object he had been hiding, which was the missing screw driver from Zack's toolbox. Kevin hustles through the hallway towards an unknown location, pushing past Rudy, who had been listening to the altercation, and scooping his vacuum in tandem. As Zack holds his recovered tool, he wonders why Kevin had been so afraid to reveal it. Then, he glances up towards where the large, strange man had been staring and sees a vent cover similar to the one in the break room and in the bipolar psychiatrist's office. A chair had been pushed into the corner of the room beside the door, and Zack concludes that Kevin must have been standing on it to get inside the vent. He pulls the chair underneath the duct and climbs up onto it as he had earlier, but, rather than tightening the screw, he begins to loosen it. The same odor that Kevin always emits is emanating from the vent, and he holds his breath as he unscrews the second bolt. When he releases the aluminum cover, soiled linens, bloody gauze, and used needles spill out onto the floor, and the smell worsens.

"What the fuck?" he shrieks. Had Kevin been hiding trash inside the vent? Had he done the same throughout the rest of the C ward? What could be the purpose? Zack's head swims with questions as he stares, mouth agape, at the garbage beneath his feet. Rudy glances in from the side as if mildly interested and then continues through his routine. Before cleaning the mess, Zack decides to try and find Kevin once again, but, as he jogs throughout the rest of the facility, he realizes that the rest of the floors are clean. He sprints back to the A ward, careful not to slip on any ice, and into the break room. He sees Kevin's vacuum seated in its usual place, and his key ring and card are on the desk.

~

The next day, Zack confronts Kevin about the air vents. The large man had been sitting along the brick wall outside the building long before Zack arrived. When he unlocks the door, Kevin stands up as quickly as his body allows him to and hurriedly queues up behind his manager, who is forced to hasten his pace. As Zack slides into his seat in the break room, he asks Kevin about the medical trash, and the vacuumer bumbles an obvious lie.

"I-I-I thought... I had to c-clean them out." Zack pinches his eyebrows together as Kevin continues to fib, and he finally tells Kevin that as long as he continues to clean as well as he had the previous night and stays away from the vents, he can keep his job. At this ultimatum, Kevin's eyes seem to light up and dilate again, although they're still facing directly up and over Zack's head, and he dons his backpack without fastening any of the straps and rushes out into ward A while mumbling to himself.

"I'm doing it for you," he utters as he passes through the heavy metal door and crosses Rudy's path. Zack doesn't pay this much mind, and he decides that he'll call human resources himself and tell them about Kevin's violent outbursts and his mysterious obsession with the air vents. He knows that he doesn't hold much ground, since Kevin's begun to pick up his slack and is actually doing a better job than the other vacuumer, but he still figures it's worth a shot. He notices that the vent behind him is rattling again, so he climbs back up and tightens it, but he's met with the same foul odor. Furiously, he opens the vent and more trash spills out as Rudy enters the break room through the door as it slowly creeps shut.

"Rudy," Zack snarls through clenched teeth. "If you see Kevin fucking around with the vents, you let me know, alright?"

"Will do," Rudy sighs as he gathers his supplies.

After cleaning up the air duct garbage, Zack goes to the bathroom to wash his hands, but he winds up inadvertently spending the remainder of his usual grace period within the stall as he questions Kevin's possible motives. What could a person gain from sticking trash into the vents? Is it some sort of prank? He surmises that the reason Kevin's been moving so fast is so that he can get ahead of the trashers, who move relatively rapidly, and take all the medical waste to the air ducts before anybody sees him. The thought that he would touch bloody bandages and linen covered in bacteria, disease, and fecal matter makes him recoil and gag. He sits in the stall for thirty more minutes while browsing Facebook and other social media. Finally, he decides to begin his walk.

As he starts down the first hallway, he can already see that Kevin hasn't done any of his work. The floors are laden with salt as usual, so, rather than trying to find the incompetent vacuumer, he decides to go back to the break room right away and grab the upright vacuum. He passes Rudy, who walks briskly without his cart, and does a double take. He wants to ask the veteran wiper why he's still in ward A, but he stops himself short because he knows Rudy is the last person he should be worried about, although it's odd to see him breaking his usual routine. He continues on to the break room, cussing to himself, and he opens the door and sees Kevin unscrewing the vent that had just been tightened.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Zack bellows, and Kevin, startled, jumps as the loosened vent drops to the ground, spilling trash everywhere, and the Phillips head screw driver flings up into the air.

"I-I-I-I..." He blubbers, but he doesn't say anything else as his eyes dart around the ceiling.

"Enough," Zack begins, still shouting. "It looks like I'm gonna have to babysit you for the rest of the night, but, tomorrow, you're fucking out of here!" He stomps over to grab Kevin by the shirt to drag him out of the office, but the large man pulls a used needle from out of his pocket and makes rapid stabbing motions towards Zack, who backs up to where he was previously standing.

"Get away from me!" Kevin screams and reaches into his bulging pocket with his other hand. He's produced a handful of bloody gauze and stuffs them into his mouth and swallows, choking the dry mound down his throat. Zack stands frozen in utter confusion as Kevin pulls more gauze and linen out of his pockets continues to eat it all, sometimes chewing and sometimes immediately swallowing. He gasps for breath between mouthfuls, all the while his eyes stare unblinking at the ceiling. Mouth agape, Zack tries to cough out any word at all, but it's fruitless. Then, as Kevin finishes the last bits in his pocket, he gathers up the rest of the trash that had fallen out of the duct and fills his pockets. He jerks his hand in pain as he clasps a few needles that penetrate his palm and fingers, but he continues to garner whatever he possibly can as if it were a pile of dollars and coins. He cocks his head to the side and shrieks, "I did this for you!" Zack quickly glances over his shoulder to see Rudy's figure in the slightly ajar door frame from the corner of his eye before turning back to meet Kevin's twisted face.

"Kevin," Zack utters, his voice quivering, and the vacuumer turns to fully face his manager, finally looking him in the eyes.

"He told me to do it!" he screams. "Every time I eat, he tells me to eat more!"

Zack tries to comprehend Kevin's confession, but he replies by asking "Who?"

"Him!" Kevin points towards the door, and Zack turns to look again, but nothing except the heavy metal door is present, and he asks himself if Rudy had really been standing there a moment ago. "Now I can't stop eating! He says, 'eat more and more', and... I-I..." Suddenly, having cleaned the pile, he breaks away from his proclamation and towards the door, head down like a running back, and Zack dives out of the way as the large man grips the handle, flings it open, and disappears into the A ward and out the front door. Processing what he had just witnessed, Zack finally decides, apprehensively, to peek out of the office as the heavy metal door continues to close. He sees Rudy standing by the A ward's entrance.

"Kevin split," he says in a slightly chipper tone. Zack doesn't reply, but he stands and stares with widened eyes. Truly, he can't understand the mental anguish that had befallen the now ex-vacuumer, and nobody ever will, he concludes. He shuffles towards the glass door and sees Kevin's wide footprints in the freshly fallen snow leading a path towards an unknown destination. He had never questioned Kevin's mode of transportation, but, as it seems, he had no vehicle and probably relied on public transportation or his own feet to get to and from work. He realizes, in stark horror, that Kevin hadn't dropped off his keys or card, so he decides that the only option is to call the police to tell them that a worker had quit and stolen the keys and card, thus creating the possibility of a security breach. When two officers arrive twenty minutes later, they tell Zack, grimly, that another patrol had already found Kevin facedown about half a mile away from this location.

"It looks like he slipped on some ice and hit his head," one of the officers states. However, rather than becoming disheartened, Zack is relieved.

~

Of course, since Kevin quit (and died), Zack's had to fulfill the role as "odd" vacuumer, since no other replacement has yet been processed. Although he would have been upset a week earlier, he's content in knowing that all his current workers are "normal", albeit a bit strange in their own ways; Rudy, most of all, has fully returned to his rut. The first day after Kevin's death, Zack cleaned out a total of fifteen vents, all of which were full of medical waste that Kevin, presumably, had intended to ingest.

"I told you something was wrong with him," Rudy would say every time he passed Zack as he cleaned out a vent. The wiper had never expressed any horror, dismay, or even respectful grief for his fallen coworker. His brief statements represent, to Zack, a sense of accomplishment--it's as if Rudy knew Kevin's destiny. Presently, Zack sits in the break room and scrolls through Facebook. After five minutes of ads, news articles, and click bait, he sees the local news station has posted a story about Kevin. Zack blinks rapidly and swallows as he's met with Kevin's upwards stare, taken from a Facebook selfie, but he then reads the headline, which says, "Man found dead with stomach full of garbage". He clicks on the article and reads it.

According to autopsy reports, Kevin's entire digestive tract had been stuffed full of plastic, gauze, and linen. It's unclear how long he had been ingesting the objects, but it's theorized, as Rudy had stated weeks earlier, that he had been eating plastic for the better part of five years. Medical examiners declared that he had died from starvation and dehydration because the inedible materials had caused him to feel as though he was constantly full. Furthermore, tumors had developed along his stomach line as a result of ingesting plastics for so many years, so he more than likely would have also died from cancer that had unknowingly plagued his system or the many venereal diseases he had acquired from eating blood-soaked bandages from track-marked addicts.

As Zack finishes the article, he shudders as he wonders what might have been causing Kevin's compulsion. A psychiatrist theorized he may have suffered from a condition called pica, which causes a person to hunger for inedible objects like hair and finger nails. However, as Kevin confessed his inner-most thoughts prior to his death, it seems as though someone may have penetrated his mind. Of course, as he works through his thoughts, he knows that the concept of ESP is fictional, but he wonders if, truly, these walls contain more than just medical equipment, books, and files. He wonders if, somehow, the woes of the insane are trapped within this facility. Perhaps, someday, he may become crazy as a result of this job. He consults with Rudy, and, to the wiper's dismay, Zack informs him that he's quitting after tonight. He decides he'll try his luck once more in the restaurant business. At least, then, the employees will grow fatter simply from fries and burgers rather than the waste of the ill. As Zack exits the sluggish metal door for the last time, Rudy clenches his jaw as he realizes he'll have to repair his rut once again.