New Hope For Small Men: Chapter 16
by Grant Bailie
New Hope For Small Men is a serial with new chapters published each Monday and Friday. A list of installments so far appears to the right.Bree was not at the desk next to his on Monday, nor was she anywhere else in the office. Robert felt ashamed of the disappointment he felt at this. She was nice and he had felt reasonably comfortable sitting next to her. He hoped that she had not quit after only one day.
People had quit after only one day before. People had quit after only one morning and a part of the afternoon. There are those who were easily confused by the numerous screens and boxes on the computer, and put off by the manager’s mysterious chart, and others who were too sensitive to be yelled at by people who had lost service in the middle of some important big game or during the finale episode of their favorite show. And customers also tended to be a little irritable when told they would have to wait between nine and five the next day for someone to take a look at it.
Robert himself had been called many names. He had been threatened and had heard the sharp crack of phones being slammed against kitchen counters, but none of this bothered him much. He was more unsettled by the sad and lonely voices he sometimes heard, the people who called to complain about static or an error in billing, but in whose voices he could hear, beneath their words, the misery of all existence. It seemed sometimes, to Robert, that the city was a vast network of human suffering, each tormented and writhing soul connected by cable.
“How’d the new girl work out?” the manager asked him after lunch.
“Very well,” Robert said. “She picked things up quickly.”
“Yes,” the manager said. “She’s a fast girl. She’ll be back tomorrow and I can break her of all the bad habits you’ve taught her.”
Robert smiled. Because it was a joke. But he could not quite bring himself to laugh.
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The story so far...
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
About the author
New Hope For Small Men was written during Grant's participation in Novel: A Living Installation, for which he spent thirty days writing in an architect-designed habitat at New York's Flux Factory.
Acknowledgements
But most especially I would like to dedicate this book to Sara Clarke, who was there for me when I was willing to sell the dedication of this book for a pack of cigarettes. This book is for you, Sara. I have since quit smoking.