michael zunenshine – horckman starts the day

The doctor told Horckman he’d have to give up coffee, that most basic narcotic aid so universally accepted to kickstart the day. Horckman loved bean shopping at artisanal markets, his electric grinder, his single-cup pour-over; he savored not only the flavor but the passive rush of caffeine channeling through his morning body, flipping on his internal switches.

Horckman tried various teas. At first they did nothing, but he was assured, in time, they'd serve the same purpose as coffee but without the damage. He’d gone from cheap tea bags to specialty shops in Chinatown before finding the perfect but pricey blend. After a week, this tea started working.

Except a diplomatic tariff spat led to new sanctions on China, resulting in halted imports of that particular tea. The shopkeeper apologized as if he were personally responsible. Horckman felt sorry for the man. The shopkeeper suggested that maybe he had a reserve stash if Horckman were willing to conduct a transaction under the table.

Horckman drove out to a sketchy suburb around midnight. He had withdrawn two hundred dollars cash and broke the hundreds into twenties and smaller denominations as the shopkeeper instructed. But when approached the address, he saw the flashing blue-and-red lights and a SWAT team lugging a battering ram toward the door. 

A dozen families were deported after the raid.

Horckman had a nephew who wore all black and had long greasy hair. He asked his nephew what he knew about amphetamines: Could one take small doses as a substitute for coffee or strong tea? His nephew assured him one could and offered to procure the pills. They’d cost five bucks a pop, and Horckman would have to buy 100. 

He started with a quarter pill. It seemed to work. But after a week he was taking halves. Then one morning after a sleepless night, he decided to take a whole pill. On his commute to work at the hospital — where he processed insurance claims — his scalp, palms and feet started sweating, and his heart pounded like a prisoner trapped in his ribcage and frantic to bust out. 

Later at the hospital, Horckman got the amphetamine rush under control. He was working at a faster pace than usual, but he missed a typo on a claim form. The clerical error led to a delivery delay of heart medication to a city water-treatment worker. Unable to take the day off, the worker had a minor heart attack on the job while he was in the middle of a routine calibration. 

Several hundred residents got violently ill from water poisoning.

Horckman tried meditation: He’d wake up extra early, do deep breathing exercises, try to empty his thoughts and dissolve his ego so that he could return to society fresh and productive.

The first few days were tough; Horckman couldn’t forget himself and his obligations, and he’d emerge from his forced Zen hardly energized. But soon he got the hang of it. He almost found it hard to escape that meditative state and emerge his usual self. 

One morning while wandering in his barren mental landscape — looking but not seeking, feeling but not thinking — Horckman saw someone approaching from across the blank horizon. This man looked just like Horckman. However, the man spoke with a harsh Slavic accent. 

When Horckman opened his eyes, he couldn’t remember any of the man’s specific words or phrases. He did feel that some message was communicated to him — or implanted in him — and that this message would find its recipient autonomously of Horckman’s will. This made Horckman antsy. He went to the police and reported himself as a Manchurian-candidate sleeper agent. The police snickered and told him to come back when he found the microfilm.

Later, an anonymous message went out all over social media: The metro-wide police computer network got hacked. The sabotage brought down systems from internal records, automated security, dispatch and comms, motor pools, surveillance tech, and inventory databases that included everything from drug seizures to riot gear storage. The city ruptured into chaos. The army was called in. 

Thousands were arrested and locked up in makeshift camps.

He researched a virtual reality app that seemed promising. Horckman shelled out a couple of thousand dollars from his credit cards for the headset and proprietary software.

The program was disappointing when he first fired it up. Horckman expected to be transported to psychedelic cyberspaces, triggering his neural network to simulate a mental state of focus and ambition that would sail him through his job. Instead, when he looked through the dark visor, all he saw was his own apartment; the only thing new was a virtual cup of steaming coffee hovering on his kitchen counter.   

Horckman reached for the cup, but its positioning glitched. He knocked it over. Expecting to feel the hot liquid burn, he jerked away, tripped over a chair and fell, smashing his forehead against the counter’s edge. The VR headset sparked, the image blitzed, sharp flashes shot into his eyes. Everything went black.

When Horckman woke, he found himself at the hospital, sitting at his desk and going over insurance forms. At first he thought he was concussed and dreaming, still lying on the floor of his apartment. 

But everything was too banal for a dream: the lights too white, the air too antiseptic, the coworker chatter too meaningless. It occurred to him that this was the VR program all along.

What’s more, he felt tired. If this wasn’t real, he might as well get a cup of cheap bitter vending machine coffee. He got up, marveling at the software’s accurate rendering of his workplace, and got himself the coffee. The smell enlivened him. But the first sip that went down his throat cut his insides like flaming daggers. 

Horckman worked until the end of his shift, but the end of his shift never came. He couldn’t stop being productive; it was exhausting.


MICHAEL ZUNENSHINE is an assemblage of mismatched parts of a writing machine. Recent output can be consumed at several fine locations, such as: Apocalypse Confidential, Expat Press, Close to the Bone, Terror House Magazine, Soyos Books, D.F.L. Lit, and Pere Ube; or you can access a catalog directly from the manufacturer here: linktr.ee/realitytvdinner.


HOME