Rex Dwindle

It’s a lovely Monday morning (well, nearly lunch time but still, my bigger kids are in school/nursery so it still feels very much like morning) and I’ve got a new short story for you. This one was written a while ago, but re-reading it made me laugh. See what you think.

It is the year 2300. Most of the Earth as we know it has been annihilated by imbeciles insurgents. Only the state of Bunga Doing remains, and does so vehemently, with grace, and ergonomics.

It is for this state that valiant, if slightly stout, Rex Dwindle slaves away, for the better of yesteryear. (Because they missed that deadline.)

And so, on a smog-filled Monursday morning, Rex drags himself to work. He gets in his Dustbuster 5000 and curses when the automatic seat snaps shut like a clam, sandwiching him between the steering-rod and the anti-glare mirror. He stretches and groans until he is out of breath, then huffs and puffs as the car turns itself on. It jerks backward, then forward, then back and forth again, and Rex is out of the parking spot, shaken and stirred, and on his way.

Rex works for ABC Rocketscience company, as an electromechaputed analyst. He doesn’t know what that means, but his wife enjoys bragging about him to her friends while shopping for shoes. Shoes that cost more than the Dustbuster 5000, he thinks, and screams at the voice-controlled GPS as it drives straight past his office.

He drags himself up the escalator, which once again only functions in the opposite direction. Smug faces on the other side pass him by as they effortlessly glide down. Rex glares at them and straightens his tie. It’s way too hot in this building, he thinks.

He walks to his supercube. ‘The cubicle of the future, they call it,’ he thinks, and huffs. He puts down his bag and walks to the vending machine. Twenty minutes later, and a little less tolerant (and quite a bit sweatier) he carries back his empty cup. He sits down in the giant Rubik’s Cube-like contraption. Rex squeezes first his left leg into the ergonomagical chair, then his right, then tries to breathe. He is still catching his breath when his phone rings out of one of the many glowing corners of the supercube. He squishes himself closer to the phone and groans when his belt digs into his belly.

He picks up the phone and groans again.

“Dwindle? Is that you? Where is Durka Hubberplop’s calculation?”

“Sorry sir,” Rex realizes his boss, from the supercube next to his is yelling at him through the phone. “What calculation?”

“Dwindle!” He slams down the phone and Rex overhears him squeezing himself out of his own ergonomagical chair like a tunafish with a can-opener. A short, fat man comes thumping around the corner, and he too has trouble catching his breath now as he wipes sweat from his reddened head. Rex smiles for a moment, gloating at the fact that he is not the least out of shape in this office.

“Dwindle,” his boss yells again. “Dwindle, the calculation Durka Hubberplop requested three years ago?”

“Durka Hubberplop never requested any calculation from me, you can check my spreadsheets,” replies Rex, and presses a button that makes his cube’s walls alight with writing and calculations. The boss shakes his head.

“Well, Dwindle, he requests it now. So take care of it. In fact, note it down!”

Rex nods swiftly and grabs for his pen but – gasp – his pen is nowhere to be found! He stares at his boss in horror.

“What is it Dwindle?” replies the boss.

“Somebody took my pen.”

Cue dangerous music – the crime scene is perfect. Who took Rex Dwindle’s pen? Who would do such a thing? It was his only pen, exactly like all the other 300 pens in the stationary cabinet, and yet so different in that it was his. His only companion, his friend. The pen he shared lunch with, the pen he once used to pick wax out of his ear…

“Well, Dwindle, raise an IRaTE, an Issue Resolution and Tacklement Element,” he turns on his heels to leave Rex’s cube. “And Dwindle, after that you better get that request done!”

Rex sighs, and turns to his computer, scrolling aimlessly through his e-mail. In the next cube he overhears Herb Longbottom talking to his friend Kavanagh.

“Dude, and then they brought fertilizer to my yard, and dude, I didn’t ask for no fertilizer.”

Rex rolls his eyes.

“Dude, I can tell that dude who walks his dog past my yard to,” he chuckles loudly. “I can tell him to stop letting his dog you-know-what on my hard, because dude I got so much fertilizer!” He gurgles, and Rex’s phone rings again.

“Dwindle,” Rex answers.

“Dwindle!” The person on the other end screams, and Rex puts one finger in his ear as he contorts his face.

“Durka Hubberplop here. I need that calculation now! The TeaTrea 9000 spacecraft depends on it! We depend on you, Dwindle!” he says dramatically.

“I’ll get to that as soon as I fill in this IRaTE, sir. You see, somebody took my pen this morning,” He is interrupted by Durka laughing at the other end of the line.

“That was me, Dwindle. I’m keeping your pen hostage until you complete that calculation for me!” He laughs maniacally and Rex hears a click at the end of the line signalizing that his baffled response is not required.

Over the next five hours, Rex hacks away at his computer like a crazy person. He finds the old calculation that was supposed to be requested three years earlier, but didn’t, and he enters it into a spreadsheet. Then he spends four hours and forty-five minutes formatting the calculation, to ensure that the rainbow colour standard is met, as well as the bold standard, and the standard for writing out the exact date both in words and phonetically: mɑrtʃ fɪftinθ tu θawzənd ænd θri həndrəd.

When he is done he presses send, hoping, hoping so very much that his pen will now be returned safely.

He receives an e-mail message from Durka: “Thx. DURKA HUBBERPLOP, ENG EXP MNG PBS BBQ,” and sighs, relieved. Rex is about to heave himself out of his ergonomagical chair when his boss waddles around the corner and sticks his red face over his cube wall.

“Well done, Dwindle,” he beams.

“Thank you sir,” says a happy Rex. “By the way I finished that IRaTE you wanted. I just sent it to the printer, all 23 pages should be ready in about five minutes.”

The boss laughs.

“Good one Dwindle,” he walks away shaking his head, and Rex hears him mumble, “An IRaTE for a pen. Hah! Just get a new pen!”

Rex, defeated, hungry and tired, glances at his watch and realizes it’s time to leave. He switches off the computer and locks up the supercube.

On the way down, the escalator facing him is now working, and smug faces greet him as he drags himself downwards.

Herb Longbottom passes him on the way, racing over the broken escalator steps.

“Hey dude,” he yells as he runs past him. “Dude someone must have thrown their computer down the escalator, dude, and broke it. He must not love his job like we do, eh dude?” He gurgles with laughter and nearly trips. Rex catches himself faintly wishing he had tripped, and clears his throat.

Just as he is about to step out of the building and walk to his car an announcement is made over the intercom.

“Employees of ABC Rocketscience. Our new spacecraft 9000 will sadly be delayed by another two years. So anything you did over the past six months could’ve been done next year, but we’re cancelling your vacation next week anyway.”

The announcement pauses and Rex wonders if the person behind the intercom has to stifle their laughter at his misery. Then it continues, “Also, Old MacDonald had a farm, I’m a little teapot. Goodnight.”

Rex walks out of his building and to the Dustbuster 5000. ‘Thank goodness for technology,’ he thinks.