1 January 2094, Friday

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I’m glad I managed to get a new diary. I have no idea where the last one went, but at some point, I suppose I must have misplaced it.

I’m feeling happy and I’m feeling positive.

But…I’m tired. Very tired. There’s a dull ache in my left arm that I can’t quite place, so I can only assume I’m developing carpal tunnel from the constant scanning of these stupid articles. Essentially, I run the newsroom in Samantha’s absence. I have absolutely no clue where she is. Probably in some sort of some hot foreign country like Barbados or something, the lucky bitch. She’s the CEO’s daughter and has left the newsroom a pigsty, which is my job to clean up.

But I don’t mind so much. All this tidying and sorting gives me a little peace of mind. Makes me happier, I guess.
As happy as I am, though, I need a holiday. In fact, I can barely remember the last time I left this office. Sometimes I just fall asleep at my post, wake up the next morning, and carry right on. The news waits for no one.

As I scan what feels like the ten millionth copy of today’s rag through, I can feel a pair of eyes watching me. I look up to see Emma looking at me through a window slat in the door. She comes in and we walk through the usual meadow of bullshit. She tells me about her kids, Brendan and Alex, their schoolwork and banal stuff I have no good reason to care about.

After a while, she almost seems to get bored and it looks like she’s turning to leave.

Then the question comes. “You just dropped your smile, Carl.”

In this news firm, we’ve got a rule. It’s written nowhere, but it’s essentially a given. I can only assume it started as a motivational thing. You have to smile at all times. I must have dropped mine.

I mime leaning over the desk, picking a smile off the floor and plastering it across my face. It’s stupid, but it makes Emma laugh. She seems happy enough with that but loiters.

“Taking your Bliss too?”

Oh, for God’s sake. I missed about two days of Bliss. It’s allegedly a drug trial we’re guinea pigs for. They’re probably ineffective. Placebos to chew on whilst staring at monitors and scanners to make us one percent more productive or whatever.

I take one of the neon purple pills out of the 400pc pot next to my desk tidy and pop it in my mouth, grinding my teeth over it.

At that, she seems to relent and leave. Jesus, I like the woman but I just wish she’d stop busting my balls over the smallest of things. Supervisors with chips on their shoulders, eh?

Something’s wrong. There’s something incredibly wrong. But I have absolutely no clue what’s changed.

Sometimes I’m left in moments of sheer terror, like this afternoon when I looked up from the scanner to see that my office desk, not older than two years, rotting and broken on the floor. But then I blink and suddenly it’s back where it is.

9 January 2094, Saturday

There’s no doubt I’m hallucinating. I need a holiday fast! When the CEO, George Clifford, comes in to ask me how my progress on the latest newspaper is going, I freeze up.

I have no idea what the news is. I can’t remember what news stories have been scanned through this week and I’ve proofread hundreds of them, haven’t I?

Haven’t I?

I joke that the news is exactly the same and he seems to almost go into hysterics over that. Apparently I am “very funny” and “a card,” whatever that means. He thumps me on the back jovially and asks me the same questions that Emma did.

Am I still smiling?

Check.

Am I still taking my Bliss?

Check.

Well, sort of. I’m taking the week off as an experiment. On Tuesday, I decided not to take any more for a while. They’re playing with my memory. Short-term and long-term.

I remember I’ve got a family, but I can’t remember exactly where they live. It sounds strange, but I can’t remember when I last saw them, either.

I pose the question to the big boss, grinning widely as I ask. If I overcompensate on the “Always Smile” policy, maybe he’ll be a little bit more understanding.

He lets out a sigh attached to a smile. He starts by congratulating me on working all the overtime and admits that perhaps the days have started to blend together just a little bit.

He tells me how my family came by for last week’s office party bash and I was so excited and happy to see them. I don’t question him; he must be telling the truth and part of me feels as if they have dropped by fairly recently.

He heads out through the door after commenting that I look a little pale. There’s a thin crack running down from one of the corners which I don’t think I’ve noticed before.

It’s nice to know my boss appreciates me, though.

As he goes, I notice he’d left a small note on the desk:

Double up on your Bliss intake :)

14 April 2094, Sunday or Monday

I’ve stopped taking Bliss and things have gotten much, much, stranger. I have no idea how long I’ve been in here, scanning through the same article again and again.

When I try to read it, my eyes just won’t focus. There’s something about a large object being dropped from the sky and that’s it. I haven’t seen the CEO for a while. A few colleagues pop their heads through the door occasionally.

It’s like a dream, though, and only just now I’m starting to question it upon waking. I know some of the people who stick their heads round the door don’t work here. I know that something’s happened to Samantha and George.

There’s something that doesn’t quite fit, like a piece of the puzzle that hasn’t quite revealed itself.

I try to concentrate on the article I’m scanning in. In my mind, I know it’s the exact same article I was scanning yesterday. Why? How? In my head, I know it’s the same, but the words are different. No matter how hard I concentrate, my eyes just slip straight off and won’t stick to the page, like oil on water.

I put my head on the desk and find myself dozing. When I wake up, it must be dusk. Emma is standing over me. She soothingly states that I probably shouldn’t be sleeping on the job and gestures to the pill pot on the desk.

I relinquish and take one.

Immediately, everything feels a bit more lighter and I feel the colours brighten. That was the problem all along. Must’ve been.

From behind her back, she presents a small, beautiful, blue ceramic pot. My stomach rumbles and I suddenly remember that I haven’t eaten lunch.

“Beef jerky.” she says with a smile.

I take a bite and it’s delicious.

The thick salt skin cracks off and I’m delighted to feel the warm steak juices in my mouth. This isn’t beef jerky.

This is GOURMET beef jerky!

I feel privileged to have such thoughtful colleagues. As Emma leaves, she asks me if I’m coming to the annual office party. Duh. Wouldn’t miss it for the world!

I finish off the rest of the jerky and carry on scanning articles with a feeling of freshness. I feel new. Invigorated. My arm doesn’t even feel that tired anymore!

24 September 2094, Thursday?

I’ve barricaded myself in my office. My old office, I suppose. We don’t make newspapers anymore.

We haven’t for 20 years. Not since the warhead fell out of the sky.

The ground was scorched and irradiated. Borderline inhospitable. And eventually the food ran out.

But marshal law didn’t break out. There was no fighting, no riots or horror. Because everyone was zonked out of their skulls. I remember now, sitting here in the corner of this blasted room.

The pills.

The American government knew when China was going to drop the big one and started promoting Bliss. It was impossible to avoid the fucking pill. They’d tell you it was better than health supplements and replaced them. Headache pills, liver pills, any pills.

They told us it was the Cure-All. They’d tell you anything you wanted to hear if you’d swallow it.
But I suppose it was a cure all. In a way. Once you had one, nothing else mattered to you. And they were in liberal supply.

It was around August when it all started going downhill. The office annual party had started and we all gathered in the main foyer of the building.

This year was Mexican-themed and so we had red salsa dip and crunchy tortillas dotted around grand tables.

For some reason I had trouble focusing. There was something about the food, but my eyes just kept slipping off them as if my brain was telling my eyes that it didn’t find it particularly interesting.

Oil off of water.

People cheered me on as I hoisted a brightly-coloured rainbow piñata up on a rope and held it in place as people took turns swinging at it with baseball bats. Rainbow confetti was already pooled at the base of the piñata so I can only assume that they started swinging at it before I arrived.

A friendly man tapped me on the shoulder and offered to hold my rope for me. I handed it off to him and he passed me a baseball bat. As I drew it back, I felt a sense of unease. My eyes were telling me that everything was fine, but in my head, there was a sense of unease. Something was most definitely off.

But I swung. And I watched as the baseball bat arced towards the rainbow horse piñata and then connected with George’s body, shattering his left rib.

He hung there, suspended in the air of the grimly-lit foyer like some twisted circus act, leaking blood. His limbs were heavily distorted and parts of him were missing. The exposed red flesh and white tissue glistened wetly.

Around me were many hunched figures, surrounding rusted metal cans that crackled with fire. None of them noticing each other.

Some muttered to themselves nonsensically. Occasionally, one would laugh. Or let out a moan. Or a crunch. Their clothes were little but scraps, clinging to their emaciated bodies.

Their eyes were ringed with black circles as they stared, zombie-like. Blood coats their mouths. The roof of the building is missing, but I barely even felt the rain.

I looked up at the twilight sky, cloaked in a sickly green hue. The stars seemed to almost swirl above. Never have I felt so disconnected.

If there was ever any higher power who cared, I feel they have abandoned us.

Underneath George is a pile of bones and bits of viscera. I think I know what happened to Samantha now.

I feel breath hot on my neck and turn to face Emma. I avoid letting out any sign of being horrified, but it’s difficult. She only has a few partial chunks of hair left and her face is missing an eye.

Thin slices of her arms are missing and there are firm raised black nodules across the exposed flesh.

She catches me looking. “That’s the bad meat,” she croaks. “Can’t eat that, no. Makes you sick.” She leans in and I can smell death. Her skeletal smile stretches all the way up to her ears due to her torn cheeks.

“Remember when your family came to visit?” she says, pointing just below George’s dripping corpse.

I take a step back and feel my face droop. She lets out a banshee like screech and everyone turns. They fall upon me like a pack of rabid wolves.

And now I’m here. I’m in my office with a bunch of smashed furniture propping the door closed.
I’ve taken a good look at myself. There’s a thin slice of flesh missing from my left arm and what appears to be a black mass growing at the centre of it. Well, that explains why my arm was tired.

I feel like laughing now, honestly. Looking at the broken and cracked bowl covered in dirt and blood that contained roasted human skin resting on my desk and hearing the scratching of the door as people outside gently ask to come in.

I suppose I’d better put this diary away, store it away in the back for future historians to find. If there are any.

The barricade is cracking.

All I’ve got left is the pill bottle in my hand.

May God have mercy on our souls.

1 January 2095, Friday

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I’m glad I managed to get a new diary. I have no idea where the last one went, but at some point, I suppose I must have misplaced it.

I’m feeling happy and I’m feeling positive.

But…I’m tired. Very tired. There’s a dull ache in my left arm and neck that I can’t quite place, so I can only assume I’m developing carpal tunnel from the constant scanning of these stupid articles and craning my head constantly to read.

Essentially, I run the newsroom in George’s absence. I have absolutely no clue where he is. Probably in some sort of some hot foreign country like Barbados or something, the lucky bastard. He’s the CEO’s son and has left the newsroom a pigsty, which is my job to clean up.

But I don’t mind so much. All this tidying and sorting gives me a little peace of mind. Makes me happier, I guess.

As happy as I am though, I need a holiday. In fact, I can barely remember the last time I left this office. Sometimes I just fall asleep at my post, wake up the next morning, and carry right on.

The news waits for no one…