Kilgore Trout

Big Winner

On March the Third, a Wednesday, amid the frenetic clickings and sotto voce titterings of the office floor, beneath the drop ceiling and its whack-a-mole of panels displaced or teetering, encased between chipped drywall and plywood dividers, and the far tighter boundaries of his own spiralling mind, Nick Cerny tried to remember why. Why he should pick up the phone and dial the next number. Why he should scroll down the list on his computer screen. Why he should even drag his gaze up from the gray emptiness of his desk to the static vacancy of that informational array. Why he took this job to begin with. But he knew why, and it was as simple as the cogito: a body needs money like a mind needs… stimulus.