“It was just a joke,” Elijah Moore chants, like prayer, as he runs down the echoing white halls, the whispers of strong stomps of clashing metal finally fading in the background. However, the supposed distance did not stop him from praying as he reaches the elevator and tries to mash the up-button, only to slip with the wetness on his fingers. He curses and finds the button again, clicking it at the same pace as his heartbeat.
Then, he starts to pray again. “Just a joke. Just a joke. Just a joke. Just a joke.”
He sticks his eyes to the ground, needing to focus on the featureless tiles. The seconds seem like hours. The groan of the falling lift too much like the dry laughter he tried to escape, like it’s coming from all sides. His heart and the clicking goes faster and overcome everything else.
The following ding seemed to resonate throughout the entire compound. A moment of quiet unappreciated as Elijah quickly went sideways as soon as the doors opened, his dreadlocks crowding his view as he went.
Having memorized the floor format since first arriving, he clicked for the ground floor even through his obstructed vision. The doors then quickly started to fall in. Elijah swiped his dreadlocks back for one last look back into the hall, only to meet the cause of his flight, standing at the end of the hall past bulletproof doors, pieces lying at its feet.
Despite the distance, Elijah knew they both looked into each other’s eyes and saw the same upturned stink-eye he’s seen so many times before, stretched out across a black, flat screen. A reflective abyss.
He watched it open its mouth as the lift doors closed, but still his voice, now booming like lightning, reached Elijah’s rising sanctuary. Not even his own screams or the covering of his ears could stop the four demonic words that drilled into his head through the static.
*JUST A JOKE. RIGHTTT!?*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elijah always gives the nod when he sees he’s not the only colored dude in the room. He gives the wave when they’re a lady, a right hand raised at level with the middle and index fingers outstretched. She was a pretty lady at that, so she gets the smile too. He knows he got a connection once she smiles back, her own dainty wave visible and welcomed among the house’s chatter and bustle. She sat at a coffee table among a gang of three others, all white of course. She leaned back into her chair and sipped her steaming paper cup as the trio were no doubt debating their own skills and importance to the project, bare bones as it is since this is just the first open house. Everyone’s first time meeting each other, and the last based on who gets chosen.
It is in that spirit, as well as the mousy smirk she gave, that made Elijah believe their connection strong enough to move him from his solitary stance under the living room window. The one shaped like a conical knight’s helmet, with pointed flourishes at the bottom.
He caught various tidbits and info as he made the move.
“Been working at Gallant since the sixties. Began with the first internship and made it lower mid-level management after decades. Has to be me.”
“Moved here for the job. I miss it, I’m through.” “Jormungand Joust was my favorite ride.”
“Have you ever watched the cartoons? Kids used to be obsessed with the old ones.”
“Have not met anyone with an English accent, yet.” “How’s this then, love?”
“There’s me in the costume. See?” “Never had cable growing up.”
“Taking my all to not nerd out. Standing in the actual Fantasy House!”
Elijah arrives at the general area the girl and her entourage gathered at. A coffee table settled along the far side of the room, where just a little less light came in. A casual scene he’s encountered many times before. He sits at the chair just around the coffee table’s corner, just around the corner from where the girl sat, and the trio surrounding them goes silent. Elijah takes a quick look at all three of them, and tries to approach them as a group, as much as it annoys him to turn away from the girl. Brianna, or at least she seems like a Brianna. Perhaps a Luisa. Her light caramel skin. The twin afro buns styled firmly on her head. Her small, perky body, radiating an anxious jitter masked as general excitement. All of these qualities, cute and absolutely attractive for a man like Elijah, she has to have an “A” in her name. He just could not take it if her name had a “H” or an “M” or god forbid a “V.” He really needs to shake his romantic partners up, these days.
Anyway, the trio. Made up of two men and a woman. The first, a young, fresh-faced late twenty-something, around Elijah’s age, in jeans and clean-pressed polo t-shirt. An uninteresting “Young Adult” as Elijah has come to call them, privately of course and unimpressed. The second, a clearly older, more portly gentleman dressed in a vest and bow-tie. Obviously an eager to please rule-follower which led him to foster some delightful, un-politically correct views. The woman was even easier to read, a social butterfly that acts in a way that expects the world to warp around her instead of adapting. She definitely carried herself in a way that would single her out in a house of stuffed up fogeys and insecure intelligence. She wore a navy blue vest with a matching pencil skirt. Clean, rimless wire glasses lent a sharp and attentive look to her eyes as well. Clearly professional on top of being social and desirable, a killer combo. Maybe a nice rebound if this first girl does not work out.
While the girl was clearly pleased by Elijah’s presence, the still silent trio bored their gazes upon him. Not even his friendly, casual smile could put them at ease, which could only make him cringe inside.
They clearly waited for Elijah to justify himself.
Of course, with those expectations set, it is on Elijah to break the ice. He always hated doing it, but at least the opportunity gave him control.
“Let’s make like we’re all back in university, yeah?” He chuckles, maintaining the friendliness. “Good morning. The name’s Elijah Moore, born and raised in Southwark and educated in old Oxford. Mainly hop to and fro from the odd jobs, this being the oddest, one hopes. Programming and all the computer guff that makes the bots move and such.” He turns toward the girl that brought him in the first place. She now awkwardly holds an empty cup in her lap, her body now tight and packed with being put on the spot. “Tradition allows me the next pick, so how about you? You seem like a real top of your class.”
The girl squeaked out her introductions in an obviously practiced pitch. “And you would be right. Abbey Oyenubi. New York and New York U.” Elijah tilts his head rightward, satisfied. An “A” in her name, just as he thought. Her voice cracks. “Um, let’s say engineering. Umbrella term. A Jackie of All Trades, you can call me.” She giggles. A self-effacing gesture.
Elijah finds it flat out endearing. How wonderful.
To quickly throw the attention off of her, Abbey picks the portly man for the next introduction, his voice as low as a tuba. Already contented with Abbey, Elijah set himself on auto-pilot, couching his psyche back into a snarky mood. “I am Gil Skotts. Grew up in Japan and graduated from the University of Tokyo with a robotics degree.” He takes a bite of a complimentary scone and chews. “Nice to… meet you.”
He points a finger at the four-eyed girl, immediately at attention. “Erica Walsh, but you can call me Rica. Short for Rica Nasty,” she says, rolling her tongue. The obviously doctored nickname died as soon as it left her lips. “Had a barrage of college crash courses at the masters level across Florida in Design, with a capital D.”
Last of course was the least interesting of the bunch, at least in Elijah’s mind. His name did nothing to disabuse him of the notion. “Thomas Thompson. USC. Triple major in Architecture, Political Science and Urban Planning. Minor in Film Studies. Minor is how I got the invite.” Like he thought, the least interesting, but it did not stop the others to take such great interest and fawn over him.
“Hollywood,” Skotts says, impressed. “Have you made any movies?”
“I had a couple of scripts in the works, but when you get an invite from Gallant, you got to drop everything and get to Mother England.”
“Where is he anyway?” Rica cuts in, “You would think we’ve all wasted enough time with these sorts of pleasantries.”
“You can’t say that about Gallant,” Skotts scoffed. “He might be your boss if this goes well. And he might hear you.”
Rica rolls her eyes. “Just my personal opinion.”
“Those are the things that get you fired where I’m from, Nasty,” said Thompson, a fact dripping with condescension. “Also completely unfair. I have heard nothing but excellent things about the man, in all facets.”
Elijah watched as the trio descended into their back-and-forth-and-back char, which he only glimpsed when he first approached. It was like watching frogs in a pot as the water grew warmer, speaking a language with knowledge and experience that excluded the likes of him or Abbey. Just made Elijah wonder how Abbey got involved with this group.
However, there was something to be grateful for in the trio’s impenetrable interaction, as it allowed space for Elijah and Abbey, “A” and “E,” to get a little more familiar, to maybe start liking each other, of which “E” was well ahead.
But, as the conversations between the trio and beyond become so much white noise, Elijah decided to take a different approach to his flirting, a way to stand out. And that was to say nothing at all, reaching out to Abbey, appealing to her, only through the vaguest of expressions of hand gestures. No matter the outcome, at least she’ll get a kick out of it, Elijah figured. In much more hopeful thoughts, he thought it could lead to a deeper, more private connection.
He just needed some time to plan out the interaction. His own actions and the desired reactions from the girl. The social programming of it all. Elijah takes another quick look at his surroundings, and reminds himself where he is now. In seconds, he has it down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The worst thing to come out of this project, Elijah first thought, would be a stain on his more independent, anarchic reputation. Why work for a worldwide corporation instead of the constant string of micro-studios and start-ups? A worldwide corporation based in the height of the empire, royal-obsessed Britain, no less. What happened to the small-timers he dedicated most of his freelancing career to, never staying too long and surfing from office couch to office couch?
He also worried others would ask why he came to Gallant before making his own project. Something that belonged to him outright in some corner of private obscurity. He always thought of answers to such inquiries.
And he obsessed over it as the lift doors opened to the compound’s first floor, a flat white room stretched out to obscene size. Most likely the cleanest floor in the whole compound, considering recent events. A backroom basement the size of a football field. At the absolute farthest end of it, Elijah sees the stairs leading to escape. Just needs to stagger through what looked like a mile of cold, unfeeling tile floor, but that could be the stress and exhaustion talking.
On the lift ride up, he lost any ability to speak or pray. The lift cables were the only sound he could hear after his last “joke” eked out. If he still had the strength, he would find some way to fill the silence, to feel less alone despite the circumstances. A whistle. A witty comment to himself that only he could chuckle at. Instead, he gets himself off the lift wall and steps forward, past the threshold and back to reality. An ironic sentiment considering what those stairs lead to.
In each step, pain erupted from his bruised left side, a mix of raw red and tender purples from recent impact. He holds it with his right hand, now dry. Keeps himself from doubling over. The pain used to be held in his heart the past couple days. A strange weighted feeling that he absolutely loathed, especially when it made him feel like sinking in his sleep.
Elijah worked to keep it at bay, a focused sprint to bring the project, or at least his part of it, closer to its end. He put so much of himself into it. So much work, more than he ever did, to distract himself from an undeniable truth that feeling revealed.
Elijah is alone.
Another irony. That would be the worst thing about this project, he would come to realize. To learn about himself under the house Gallant built.
He is never alone.
He starts to hear crackling sounds underneath. A shift of weight in his feet. No, he thinks, cannot possibly have gone through the floors that fast. Too much risk involved.
The voice below the floor fills the first floor with static. Elijah’s staggered pace quickens around the cracks as a large metal arm painted swamp-green pops out. The palms were wide and shaped like spades, an intentional artistic choice, while his fingers ended in curved digits with short but sharp nails. Perfect for digging. Of course.
A small aftershock knocked Elijah from his fragile stance, forcing him face-first towards the floor. His small concussion rings as the voice speaks again.
*I CAN’T* zzzzzzz *ZELP IT! I WAS BORN WITH A CLUB AND AN UNDERBITE!* Another hand rises from the ground. A large metal pipe from the compound’s plumbing nails the point.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First, Elijah smirks at Abbey and tilts his head toward the trio, now devolving into semantic arguments on etiquette and professionalism. His expression showed disbelief at how meaningless he sees the subject, all towards comedic effect of course. She responds well with a stifled laugh. A cute, mouse-like action with puffed cheeks and a little snort. The desired outcome. Now to tease out that cuteness again and again.
They continue their quiet repartee.
Elijah gestures toward their surroundings, putting aside the other four-eyed and vest-wearing visitors. This finely kept dollhouse on Gallant Entertainment land. Its custom-shaped windows representing medieval fantasies. Even the odd suit of armor standing at every other corner, holding their downturned swords with both hands, firmly clenched. And just outside, away from this nerdery were throngs of visitors and tourists at an amusement park. One wouldn’t hear it in this place, but they were definitely present as far off echoes of childish laughter. It all seemed so fake but nonetheless well-kept with a perfectionist’s attitude. Elijah’s eyes were wide at the artifice of it all.
Not out of a sense of admiration, understand, but an outright disbelief that everyone around them is taking this place so seriously, like it’s a hallowed site. Elijah held no such reverence. This place, the Gallant House, was a set for a children’s show made to sell television sets and amusement park tickets, hence the echoes from beyond. Ground zero for a corporate empire, and he acted as such in accordance with the circumstances.
It is a very refined, disaffected air Elijah cultivates, calculated to be more charming than grating. He was happy to see the girl responding so well to the effort.
Then, something entirely unexpected happens, outside of Elijah’s program. Abbey shifts her place on the chair, where her body reaches over the armrest, leans forward and surreptitiously lifts her left hand. Elijah’s social programming dictated he keep his eyes on Abbey’s, now squinting, with a serious look to reveal she is trying something new. Focusing so much on what he’s supposed to do, her soft, thin hand landing on his thigh resulted in shockwaves across his body, his every nerve. Elijah, obviously surprised by an off-script touch, had to stifle his own laugh. His only reaction a soft and accepting shake of the leg. The trio did not bother to look back at them, their interaction trapped in what is now purely hypothetical. Elijah pitied them for missing out on something real, beyond employment hopes and a boss’s perception. Beyond whatever this job at Gallant is supposed to be.
Abbey slinks back to her starting position, taking away the hand, her message clearly received.
Elijah thinks to himself, so she does want to get intimate. He needs to reorient his approach.
This result is much better than expected, miraculous even, with such feelings in a stuffed-shirt convention. Elijah tilts his head up and squints his right eye into the sarcastic stink-eye, playfully chiding Abbey for such boldness but clearly willing to play along. Her eyes widen with a hint of joy, and her full lips open, about to release a good, maybe lustful word…
And then, somewhere on the premises, a bell rang, and everyone went quiet. Static rained down from the ceiling through hidden speakers, no doubt installed from the Gallant Fantasy days, and the trio looked up like the heavens were rumbling.
And thus the man spoke.
“Hello all,” it begins, benevolent but clearly old. “Thank you very much for accepting my invitation. Always good to know that the Gallant reputation still reaches the world over.” A pause. The far-off sound of a rough cough. No one around Elijah reacts. Then it continues. “As you know, this gathering is to scout for hires in a new project for Gallant Entertainment. An important project that I, Gabriel Gallant, am personally invested in.”
Elijah felt the room glow up from the words, imagining themselves chosen ones. He sniffs. The voice continues. “So invested, in fact, that this is not only an opportunity to work for Britain’s premiere entertainment league, but to collaborate with me. You and I, side by side, creating something new.
“Want to avoid ‘Too many witches in the cauldron,’ as I used to say.” The voice chuckles, adding a certain verbal flare to that particular phrase. “So please, do not take it personally when I limit who I bring on. You are all high-value talents in your fields, but whether you have the right talents to work with me… That is the real question.
“Interviews start now, and will be held in my personal study on the Fantasy House’s second floor. Those who watched the program already know where it is, so lead the way and get first in line.” Already several occupants sprinted towards the stairs, even the trio’s own Skotts, clearly not as cool and collected now as he carried himself before. The rest lagged behind but in their own kind of desperate hurry. Even Abbey began to adjust herself and start walking with the herd. Not Elijah though. He keeps his ass to the seat. He made a promise to be interviewed last, this morning in the mirror.
Gallant’s voice went on as the “Interviews will be hard, but you, no doubt, already knew that. So let’s begin. I will ring you in with the Crystal Bell once I am ready.”
One by one, the hopeful lined up to the door, giddy at the opportunity. Hungry for the possible prestige and legacy. The line led down the second floor’s hall, down the stars and around the entire first floor in a cornered spiral. Enough people to last the entire day, and maybe the night.
Then, the door opened and interviews began. Elijah, having settled at the absolute back end of the line, hated Gallant’s voice much more than he thought he would. That static of the speakers made him sound almost human.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of course Elijah made the interview and got the job, a personal spot on the development for Gallant Entertainment’s next character. Why wouldn’t he? Being the absolute dead last person for Gabriel Gallant to meet while being cool as a cucumber had to make some sort of impression. He didn’t even let on that he just hated the interviewer’s voice, with a shameless huckster tone and what couldn’t help but feel like a condescending politeness. That impression obviously counts for something, he drearily thought as the doorbell’s trumpet-like ringing dragged him out of bed.
After he received the acceptance through a hand-written letter, personally delivered by a sharp-dressed woman. He’d flirt, she ticked the right boxes of appeal, but the gentle-lady was already on business and Elijah already decided on Abbey. She waited outside the fantasy house for him, after his interview. Walked him back to the interviewee’s complimentary lodging, even gave him her number when they departed. He has her hook, line and sinker. Just needs to keep himself interesting for as long as the project might go, if she herself wasn’t accepted. He still needs to think of what to say for the first time they converse. Last night was just chatting, nothing developed or deepened. Just the professional exchange of life’s details and backgrounds. Break room talk. Nothing special. Just noise. Not worth being called, ‘the first words I truly said to her.’
The only piece of importance Elijah said was a single hope, a simple desire. “If Big G back there does choose good old Elijah Moore, then I just want, I just hope, for one thing. For it to be the oddest job of my career,” he remembers saying. It was after that when Abbey gave him her number. Must mean she’s drawn to the odd. He smirks while packing his bags for the trek back to Fantasy House. Must be a lot bigger on the inside, if the subtext of the acceptance letter’s instructions are to be believed.
Elijah walks through the amusement park grounds in the chill morning air. The whisper-like breeze takes him back to yesterday, to Abbey’s soft voice. Her kind face and curled hair buns a nice enough memory to string him along.
Back then, at the open house. Abbey was about to speak, with those full lips, those joyful eyes. She opened those lips, and could have said anything, his attention completely enraptured. Any sentence, any combination of words, would have thrilled him, he’s sure, but, truthfully, Elijah wished, no he knew, she was about to ask, “How about meeting outside?”
And his first words to her would have been, “Yes. Let’s.”
They should have both gotten out of that so-called Fantasy House. The moment they locked eyes, they should have gone out and run to the rolling hills, hand in hand.
He wonders what made Gabriel Gallant, ruler of an empire, choose her, Abbey Oyenubi, when they locked eyes again at the house. What else could they do but smile at each other?
No words needed to be said, with them stuck together in the project.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With any project, the planned weeks turn into interminable months with no warning or any hope in sight. The absurd length it can last is made even more so when its success, its utter completion, completely relies on just the final few seconds. The seconds-long sprint to the finish line is the only time that actually matters in Elijah’s world. Everything before is just table-setting, or in Gallant Entertainment’s case, prettying up someone else’s idea before its ultimate reveal to the public, where Gabriel gets all the credit.
But Elijah accepted his place as a footnote when the project first started. He just wondered how much he still needed to take as he gripped onto the staircase for life, using what’s left of his weakened, damaged strength to climb. After both big metal hands broke through the ground, he rushed to the exit with long, spastic leaps, which only led to crashing his shin against the first rung. Obviously, extremely painful, yet he kept on pushing, or pulling up in this case, as the hulking metal thing behind him kept speaking, mocking him. It made better progress pulling itself out of the floor, now in even greater disrepair.
zzzzzz *Ztuck in the mud! Just perfect for a thing like me!* zzzzzz *Doezn’t mean I won’t pull myself up with e-e-everything I got!*
That brazen voice disappeared, supplanted with a tone of cheery determination. A voice disparate with the size and intimidating nature of the thing. Now half of its head was out, turned towards Elijah like a gopher. Half of its ‘face’ remains visible, a bit dusted from the rubble it clawed through.
In accordance with the voice change, its eyes also shifted. Its stink eye expression is now a disconcerting soft one with big round eyes, their ring outlines lime green. If Elijah just turned around, he would see the simulated wetness within the green wings of the flat black surface. The visual touch he wishes he was proud of. No, he chides his mind. Keep on climbing. Focus on nothing else. Nothing is ours. We don’t deserve it.
It kept on speaking. It still struggled to get out.
*I deserve a treat for escaping this jam! Something fancy, like a white dirt pie or seasoned grubs on top of a swamp-gassed lamb!* zzzzzz *Grail The Gallant, hero to be, will absolutely see the courage and value of me!*
Finally at the top of the stairs, Elijah gently pushes the always-unlatched trap-door up, revealing the clean wooden panels of true ground level. Gallant’s ground. Catching a breath, he shouts a victorious insult at the top of his lungs.
“FUCK YOU, GOBLIN!” He lacked the strength to laugh afterwards, but managed to pull his upper body through the opening.
But then came the pursuer’s reply, one leg out. His words chilling to the bone with righteous, digital indignation.
*FFFFUCK YOU GALLANT!!!!*
The Fantasy House floorboards shake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first time Elijah and Abbey actually conversed was underwhelming with how things started off, with silent looks and quiet touches. Purely professional, that walk from interviews back to the lodging. Now, reunited through acceptance for this Gallant project, it was time to re-electrify those feelings. Unfortunately, Elijah was quickly blocked by three other inductees, welcoming with smiles and open arms. Familiar faces, all of them. Elijah is taken aback, but Skotts, Rica and Thompson fail to notice as they fill the Fantasy House with undeserved good cheer.
“Welcome aboard, Elijah,” Skotts begins, apparently thinking they were now on a first name basis. All Elijah gave introductions and a judgmental leer. “Man, it is so exciting to see you again. I looked you up and it’s no wonder you got here now. You’re a computer ace! What you add to Mr. Gallant’s project, well, I just know it’s gonna be stellar.”
Thompson interjects, “Fun fact, the boss has
Rica just smiled and took out her phone. “Now that all five of us are here, time to take a selfie, am I right?” Thompson and Skotts fully agreed and walked behind me, one of their hands on each shoulder, pushing me down. Rica beckons to Abbey and she meekly follows. Rica directed us to one of empty suits of armor, an unwilling and empty participant, near a dragon-shaped window. Then, she uttered some trite celebration, “To the Gallant Five!” Skotts and Thompson echo her.
All I could manage was the stink eye. Abbey mustered up a nervous but acceptable smile, all teeth and no lips. What torture to be the only two of us here, Elijah thought, empathizing with the poor girl. .
“Jolly good to see the team already assembling,” a gruff voice says a couple feet away. “The Gallant Five too… I am going to use that…”
Two of us, three of them and an absolute one of him, Elijah thinks in melody.
In the mouth of the main Fantasy House hallway stood his new, temporary boss Gabriel Gallant, appearing just as Elijah saw him before. He even wore the same clothes as yesterday during the interview, a grayish-silver suit ensemble with a golden tie and cufflinks. Crowned off with a stalwart face and regal salt-and-pepper beard. As nice as it looked, Elijah found it such a rude way to dress.
But it is also a different pair of the same clothes as well as a genius way of recycling outfits, the trio would no doubt say if he called it out. They immediately went silent and whipped their backs straight at the sight of him. So much like the empty knights he owns.
Gabriel clasps his hands together. “Let’s not waste our first morning, now. Follow me to the compound. My favorite place in the park, all within my favorite house.”
“Wait,” Thompson interrupts, “What do you mean there’s a compound in here?”
“Not in here, good chap.” He cheekily points down. “Under.”
Gabriel walks toward a panel on a floor and lifts it to reveal a white staircase leading down. “Get ready for a whole new world,” he announces as he disappears under the wooden floor. The trio follows him, eager.
Two of us, three of them and an absolute one of him. This project, Elijah accepts, is going to be rough. But, he was at least grateful for Abbey’s presence. Even more so for her soft voice.
“I’m curious, Elijah,” she starts, the rest just out of earshot, “About something you said before, when we first met. Walking back to our rooms for the night. You must remember”
“Yes, I remember,” he says, taking her words in.
“Well, why do you hope this job to be the oddest?” The question of the year. The best question Elijah ever heard.
He preambles with a hearty laugh and a wink of his eye, then answers. “‘Cause it’s with the biggest bloody corporation in all Britain. They can afford to be the oddest of the odd, which is what I look for in my work.” Elijah grins. “If they ain’t, I’m gonna be bored outta my skull.”
Abbey’s face lights up, beckoning what’s to come.
“Wonderful! Well, I just know you won’t be bored! Grail the Gallant, all of the company’s characters, it’s lore. It’s all so interesting! Can’t wait to tell you all about it!” Her body brimming with light, she grabs Elijah’s hand and brings him down the stairs.
Oh shit’ Elijah thinks with horrible realization. She’s actually into this Gallant naff.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elijah shifted forward on the Fantasy House floor, still thinking. Still obsessing over the past to distract from present soreness and pain.
Never since kindergarten did he ever misread so wildly. Nor did he ever expect a misread to go oh so wrong. Elijah thought Abbey could handle it as they spent more time together toiling on Gallant’s concept, the slow reveal of apathy against what they worked on and all it stood for. How far beneath him Great Grail The Gallant and his Merry Mates truly was. Besides, they had so much more interesting things to talk about in the compound.
And when that subject would come up, Elijah at least expected her to understand a simple difference in opinion. A bit of respect for the fact that, despite being Britain-born, he held no reverence for the mascot and its owner. She was American anyway, why would she argue about something inherently English?
It was two months before the Gallant love came up and it needled Elijah fierce, as Abbey’s cute enthusiasm turned increasingly grating. Of course it blew up once Elijah said, “Can you please shut up about your stupid Gallant Land? Let’s talk about something else.”
He remembers the drinking glass against his head. The sound it made and the waves of pain. Both stung.
“I can’t believe you would say that!” Abbey screamed. A defensive fervor took quick hold of her, exacerbated by what was clearly cabin fever. She continued to ramble about cartoons and love. The comforting voice of a knight doing right. The squeaky roar of rubber hose dragons. Her entire voice, still imbued with sincerity and heartbreak, dedicated to the frustrating unreal and countered with Elijah’s own deep and uncool screaming.
“Why wouldn’t I think of all the work this way,” he shouted back, thinking himself too good for cabin fever. “All we’re making is some goddamn goblin!”
And they yelled back and forth throughout the night, entreatment met with rejection and then insult traded for insult. An explosion of messy words and feelings, only for the two to face each other again for another underground day of creative work. Writing lines. Laying down code. Keeping it all professional. The job was a job after all, a fact that weighed heavily on Elijah’s mind.
No one else on the team, not even Gallant, noticed the strains, even though they were sure to have heard the blow-up.
He recalls a discussion with an old friend on the franchise’s original designer Ofus Roball and the past treatment of such. How unfortunately horrible it turned out. In the throes of it, his friend, he forgets his name, came up with an apt analogy or parallel, considering aesthetics.
“It’s just like with the royalty, man,” they said, words slurring. “Them and their empire, with how the world treats it. Us perpetrators and the victims, they’re the only ones that see the horror of it. The ones that understand. But everyone else? They love the queen for being a queen, just like they love Grail for being the UK’s Mickey Mouse. Love ‘cause it feels and looks important, yeah? Not for what it actually is: a bunch of dressed-up hogwash!”
“‘Makes you wonder why Ofus didn’t off it,’” Elijah sputters to himself, muscles and mind aching from all the months before. A self-satisfied turn of phrase, back in that college friendship.
Now, it was clear why everything goes down the way it does, with him scrambling across the floor of an aggrandized TV set. Pale moonlight streaming in through the pointlessly custom-shaped windows reveals the dry red splattered all over his hand and the side of his shirt.
Belly on the Fantasy House’s wooden floor, he continued to crawl forward, aiming for an empty suit to hold onto and stand up again.
He greatly overestimated the effect his actions would have tonight. Though those with their heads on straight would call it underestimating. A small group isolated into an underground compound, all of its halls colored in great white and bathed in fluorescent lights. No doubt one bad action from one disgruntled worker like a drop of dye in clear water, constantly spreading across the form. An unstoppable taint of unnatural color.
Elijah laid out, stunned. Amazed at how a few lines of vulgar, rotten code, along with an axe to grind, can transform his workplace. He was only doing his job, focused on the actual thing the project required. The personality. He felt it fitting, given the kind of character he, Gallant, Abbey and the group were creating.
Goblins. Utterly ugly things, in legends and lore across the globe. Gallant wanted his own spin on the concept, for reasons so completely his own, but Elijah could not help it, inserting his own quirks and actions into it. Oh so quietly, without incidence or notice. The only girl who could notice avoided him like the plague.
So, in the most private and random moments, whoever met Terk the Timid, they met Elijah Moore himself. His spirit in this brand new character, like Ofus put into Grail and others decades before. Whether the spirit is trapped or merely the only thing actually animating the thing… Well that was up to any guest or inquisitive child, should they be smart or open-minded enough to contemplate such circumstances.
It is just that the spirit, with the way Elijah coded the Goblin’s life, with anger and a so-called “righteous” defiance, can grow. Expand.
He was very pissed off. At everything.
But that was no worry, no bother, to him. He could always code around it. Hide his remains deeper within the large repertoire of corporate-owned fables. Stories and tall tales Terk the Timid would share with guests at the amusement park. Several hard drives worth of myths, all set to be told in random order, from Grail’s adventures in earning his kingdom to the Goblin’s own origins as a lowly creature, always trying to be a knight. And whatever extra quirks, in tonight’s case rude remarks and swears, he put into the thing, this character, would make it more goblin-like. To drive away from that was just not instructed. And it would be flat-out dishonest, even in a Fantasy.
Despite everything, all that made him angry and alone, Elijah felt proud, having a unique piece of self within Gallant’s idea turned seven-foot tall metal walker. A part of his particular anarchic charm, unrecognizable, to most.
Also, it is just impossible for too much of an artist to be put into a work. What was even the point of creating, Elijah reasoned, if one couldn’t express themselves?
No matter how much it hurts. No matter how strong the anger was, able to supersede all else. No matter how it turns those white halls so quickly into that overwhelming scarlet spread.
Abbey’s scream echoes through his mind, empty and unfeeling, once again. “I can’t believe you would say that!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After that blow up, Elijah became as anti-social as he preferred. The only girl he was interested in now stone-walled him with a more open and off-putting love for the cartoons everyone was trapped in. This ingratiated herself so much more with the trio, who managed to become more insufferable, acting like trained dolphins than the confident and at least self-sufficient sods at that open house. A couple weeks under Gallant had them all in a whipped-down state, regularly seeking approval, validation.
A workplace like that fostered a personality, a mindset, that made normal conversations rarer and rarer as each new subject or conversation Elijah tried to start looped into the same Gallant thing. An attempt to learn a co-worker’s history or past accomplishments, deeper than the introductions exchanged and played off before, morphed into a spiraling tirade on the company and nostalgia. The Gallant cartoons and the fantasy they, as creators from disparate streets and fields, all added to. All joyfully complicit in its effects.
If one bad action taints like dye, Elijah thought, his chest sliding on wood, then childhood love for such artless make-believe functions the same on one’s rational mind. It tainted their views and interactions with everything normal now that they were getting paid for it. But perhaps that line of thought was his own projecting. His own second-hand embarrassment as Skott, Rica, Thompson and Abbey’s self-professed love for Gabriel’s so-called “work” became too much. Cringeworthy, he remembers saying. To Abbey specifically.
But he could not be alone in thinking all that. Elijah coughs with a stutter, red droplets splatter outward.
He could not be alone, he thinks. He remembers the lone figure who seemed a smidgen self-aware, unaffected by the sods’ emotional needs. Boss Gallant himself, never slouching and his head always held high, and always looking ahead. The most forward one in all the compound, Elijah figured out, as each underling attempted to discuss with him the past of the characters, the creations and the park quickly twisted into an invigorating speech about the present project, the goal to create something new. What he actually hired Skotts, Rica, Thompson and Abbey to do. And Elijah could not help but see the respect Gallant dispensed with when shifting talks of past to the future.
So, back then, when all was still white, Elijah knew he needed to talk to the old man eventually, as a last colloquial resort. They have not really talked since that interview, at least not one-on-one with team groupthink and the project around, and much has developed in the project and social dynamics. The ground between them may have been messily tended to, with the blow-up and that guff, but it was nonetheless fertile for a conversation, not a chat, about something real.
And Elijah was quite confident in his boss’s receptiveness and willingness for such a time.
He reasoned, someone like Gabriel Gallant, tied with the cartoons and park as he is, had to be at a constant high of sobriety to make the whole thing run successfully. A business such as his could not have conquered as much as it had if its figurehead remained mired in fantasy. The whole praising of the Fantasy House, his company’s history spoken as gospel over those crackling speakers. Most likely just the showmanship, he concluded. A well-practiced script made for a voice in the specific role of corporate representative on the island and flesh-n-blood mascot all abroad.
That forward-thinking, that humble hand in pushing Abbey and the trio outward, is the true man. What Gabriel Gallant really is and believes. Only found if one read between the lines,
Elijah Moore, troublesome and anarchic as he is and will be… Well, he quite liked what he read.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just around a darkened hall corner, Elijah discovered the tip of a sterling knight boot, shining from a sliver of moonlight through a helmet-shaped window. Not a speck of dust on it, but fingerprints, smudged with sweat and red, will be placed on it soon.
With a series of desperate, spastic wriggles across the Fantasy House floor, Elijah’s reach for escape is shortened. His hands grasp the steel boot tightly. His grip remains miraculously steadfast. Muscles groan as he finally pulls himself upward and reaches flat footing. Terra firma, a state of being now strange and foreign to the disturbed young man.
The empty armor held a spear in its left gauntlet. In what would obviously be an affront to history, Elijah tore it from the gauntlet’s grasp and began using it as a two-handed walking stick. He recalls seeing this armor before walking down into the compound, condemning himself, and then calculates how far from the exit door he is now. Just a couple turns a straight shot to the park grounds, he thinks, mostly sure of it. After tapping the wooden end of the spear to the floor, adjusting his weight, he takes his first step forward.
And thus the Goblin rose, both his robotic arms and his head sprouting from the ground, sending panels and splinters flying. Elijah’s flight, renewed with further fear, tapped through his three legs through the empty, decorated walls. The Goblin, clumsy as it was, barreled through. Its metal husk scraping wood, knocking everything down.
*Diggin’ tunnels and*zzzzz*such all morning and noon! And what do I have to show Good Old Gallant for it?* The static once again overwhelms Elijah’s mind, but with constant exposure, he finds strength to keep moving.
The Goblin closes the distance and tries to swat at its prey.
*Oh what fun! A grub!* It lunges forward, only for its wrist to crash against a corner as Elijah turns left. It quickens its pace, shifts around the corner, and readjusts. Despite the faster steps, more powerful and solid, the floor underneath groans but remains quite sturdy. A monument to its craft. *Silly grubs! D-d-digging away as always!*
Now at a gallop, Elijah turns another corner, to the right. Disappearing from its sight did not stop the Goblin from charging, its tone of voice now more professional and clear, having finally sensed the destructive stimuli around him. *P-P-Park intruders will be dealt with, in allowance of national law*
Like a bull, it runs forward, too fast to avoid embedding itself in the wall. Its voice shifts again, bouncy and childish. Once again. *The Kingdom is right! C-clumsy are we, as well as short and ugly*
The sense of impact and burst of air behind him pushes Elijah forward. He now saw the end to the Fantasy House. The one door that leads in and out, to fresh night air. Through the door’s frosted pane shined pale flickers of neon colors, rolling through the world like waves. Distant bulbs and lights from the amusement park, so far beyond quality.
Elijah did not even think once the door came into view. He threw the spear to the ground and ran. He wheezed, his body settling for fumes. He gets closer and closer. The colors become more clear, falling into shapes. Like the Goblin, he slaps into the door, but braces for impact with his left arm and elbow raised. The wheezing stops, punctuated with focused breaths. Then, with a weak right hand willed solid, he grips around that knob of false gold and turns—
Only to find it stuck. The door stays rooted in place, like a slab of concrete. The knob did not even jiggle as he turned with a desperate, burning effort. A fun fact about Gabriel Gallant’s old show, the Fantasy House, bubbles up. Pretty and mousey Abbey’s tempered voice pops in a final flash of memory. Of thought.
“Its doors lock from the outside. The house is a television set, after all. The ones working within, they didn’t want to be disturbed.”
Fixed into a state of delirious hope, Elijah failed to hear the Goblin’s steps, even as they boomed just inches away. The mix of red on its green “skin” made a display even prettier than the lights outside, but the both of them failed to notice. One unwilling and the other unable to do so. Without pause or lag, the goblin’s curved palm and fingernails merely stretch out, aiming for a meaty handful.
ZZZZZZZ*I wonder what Gallant thinks as he watches you fucking grubs squirm and squish* The green brow on its flat face burrows downward, meditating a wonder of its own.
And for its trouble, the Goblin’s hand finds its most plentiful bounty of the night, unfeeling of the grub’s screams.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now Gabriel Gallant is a read made right, thinks Elijah, having successfully buried the disappointment from before. Another group discussion, with the boss at the meeting table’s end, only confirmed it. After weeks of discussion, the idea solidified, and Gallant’s new character went ever closer to being real. The trio and Abbey spoke of deepening the nostalgic aesthetic. Putting down something that would fit in with the Fantasy world as it is now. All Elijah offered was the unheard pithy quip and jab, but the boss gave something much greater in his rejection of the others. An actual imagination.
The meeting ended with half being sent to their tasks while the other half, including Elijah, went on to break. It had to be midday at that point. Elijah never checked the underground clock.
Gallant exits the room with a collection of papers under his arm, and Elijah follows him. To start their new conversation on the right foot, he appeals to the boss’s vision, his desire to reach the future. No need to be silent or physically articulate the matters. This old man, refined beyond his years, would never be impressed by that.
“I really admired what you said back there, Mr. Gallant, as well as how hard you put your foot down on exactly what this character project would be. You’ve clearly had this johnny in mind for a long time, believe in it in fact, and I already have things in mind to add to that belief. So many characteristics and looks we can explore with all the folklore and stories to make something special, uniquely Gallant.”
The boss nodded along to Elijah’s words, clearly attuned to what Elijah put down. An excellent state to be in.
“I also just love the idea of it in general and the possibilities it has for all the cartoon characters.” Elijah avoids going into specifics. He has not remembered any of the characters’ names. “The character concept ties in with the whole idea of Fantasy but it is so different enough to give a real shock to the ones who see it. A shock, I say, that can drum up real interest in just how the world and the little guy meld or clash.”
Satisfied with the talk’s set dressing, Elijah ends his appeal with a question. One filled with implied purpose.
“As excited as I am to see this thing with my own two eyes, I need to inquire: Out of the possibilities of Fantasy, why do you want to make a goblin as a leading character?”
If Elijah was right about his reading on old Gallant, he would be prized with a long denied pleasure: a real conversation. With what he said, it would start with a look at Gallant’s mind, how he forms up his ideas, and then it could lead deeper, into his past, his childhood memories and heartbreak. The things that made him the cartoon king of Britain and the world. After that, real juicy details can be gleaned about his family and business practices. The more they can manage to talk, the darker and more harrowing the secrets will hopefully get. All that for something real. Something Elijah can actually use.
Gabriel Gallant, with a momentary smile, began.
“For my parks and cartoons, I wanted to add a goblin character due to a rather simple reason. Adaptation.”
Elijah nodded to the word. He could relate to that, always adapting. It is what got him here, buried underground.
“Any fool can see the world is changing, and I don’t just mean the world of entertainment and those just utterly addicted to it. I am talking about everything outside of that. Matters of who is coming up and how the tastes of all at large are changing, where the real money is made. Money that in recent times, I must be honest, has become elusive, no matter the caliber or virtue of what we offer. Instead of a cultural icon like our English own Grail the Gallant, their attentions are turned to more… trashy stories and delights. Made by the inexperienced and art-deficient, which would have never seen the light of day while I was coming up. Not even my rivals would have stooped that low. Like real men, they competed with us on our terms, trying . Failed spectacularly of course, but besides the point.
“Right now, Gallant Entertainment is failing because the world has changed to let degeneracy flourish and get praised for being lowly, eclipsing the hard work my colleagues and I execute.”
Elijah’s head held still. He carefully followed Gallant deeper into his world.
“I needed to make a new character to fit this new world dynamic, and I knew it would need to be a Goblin. The image of it, with its unkempt skin, stubby stature and leering goat-eyes… It aligns so well with everything outside, how all at large feel and desire from Fantasy. But I could never make such a thing on my own. I’m from that old world after all, the one with… higher standards. So old Gallant needed to bring on co-workers. Co-creators from this lower new world to make it more authentic, with all the vices that entails.”
Gallant sighs with an indescribable pleasure. Something more than satisfaction with his plan and his reading of the world at large.
“And you, along with your colleagues, fulfill that aspect so incredibly.”
Elijah, his expression neutral, not sure how to react, merely gave a cheeky stink eye. “Can’t say I agree,” he starts, lightly. “I graduated as the best in my field at Oxford.”
“Oh you are no doubt the best. The best the new world has to offer. In my day, you would be stuck bussing tables or cleaning streets or whatever the worst of Southwark do to get by. You could not even set foot in the park, just a ferris wheel and two kid coasters at that time.”
Gallant gently places his thin hand, blue veins in full view, on Elijah’s shoulder, and, leaning in, the two holding each other’s gazes, ends the conversation just as softly, if not brutally.
“How else would someone like you make it this far,” he asked, rhetorically. With a final sneer he shuffled away to his office, leaving Elijah with the weight of his words.
Within and without, the compound feels dead still.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Goblin, sensing no other subjects in the area, went about its idle functions. Gallant and the team decided that it would dance and sing without shame when no one was around. That way its joints remained loose and active during the park’s closing hours, preventing rust and burnout. Elijah, being the coder, inscribed what it would sing and how it would move into its being.
It began with minutes of instrumental humming, a flatline of robotic static. It knocked down all the empty armors before entering its first verse. An absolute mess, about to be made worse, as was designed.
*A Goblin’s achievements may not always be sung, that is why one must sing them himself*
Arms out perpendicular, the Goblin spins through the rooms, causing even more damage. The second verse followed. Essentially a victory spiral.
*Magicka Rica that b-b-bitch! Hope to never see her again!* It intones, echoes traveling through all floors of the Fantasy House, floors both above and below, with none to hear.
The Goblin continues, beginning his third verse in the faux kitchen, where a cauldron now lies shattered alongside broomsticks and other hocus pocus baubles.
*The Sinister Sir Scott with that treacherous pet Tomas!*zzzz*Now in the gallows of hell to chase their own tails*
It pushes its hands onto the flat screen it calls a face. Sensors noticed a slipping motion on the surface. It holds its new mask in place, having always hated for things to fall off the face, whether it is war-paint or a crown made of twigs. Confirming the mask remains in place, the Goblin sings again.
*But who cares about them, there is more time to spend*zzzzz*on the way to the kingdom I just know I belong, w-w-why would a thing like me suddenly be*
Lyrical. Rhetorical. It went on without an answer. Throughout its cycle, the Goblin diligently avoided the stairs. Not prepared to traverse something so complex. What else to do but sing?
*And the abbey I love, the abbey I came from, its spirit always with me in the dirt I dig and the rocks I smash*
Abiding by the lyrics, he stomps on the ground, hard, and punches the chairs and cabinets still left standing. Any large, oblong objects, it would translate into rocks.
*And finally that git Grail Gallant, Gabby Gall I like to say*zzzz*Sits alone on that old white throne, too broken to think where all his friends now go*
His voice grew to a great boom. The house shuttered at every syllable. The Goblin, having destroyed all the chairs, tables and other furniture, finds itself in a large room. The kind for large gatherings at a party or an open house, not that it knew what either of those things were. It faced the farthest wall, undisturbed by its rampage. It raises both arms and draws his fingers into fists. The green eyes on its face sharpen into triangles, the shape of determination.
With uncomplicated cheer, without rhythm it shouts.
*Look at me, great God! I defeated them all!*
His stance lengthens. Its knees bend. And its voice rings out, the clearest it has ever been.
*Just me! Just me! All set for a Gallant to be!*
The Goblin charges toward the wall, but this time, it braces itself, folding its arms across its chest and leaning his upper body down. Like a football player. American. A complicated posture, but possible with its flexible joints and constant learning. Its metal casing provided great protection from probable failures as well. It can afford to take action. With a mask it can face anything, it reasons.
So the westward wall of Gabriel Gallant’s Fantasy house bent and then broke apart as the hulking metal mass exploded to the outside world. The ferris wheel still spun. Few screams rose from the distant coaster, but they were nonetheless there. Oh did the Goblin have so much to share.
*Stories and lore galore* It says.
Step by step, the Goblin walks into Gallant Park, its mask left behind, unnoticed.
Through the dance, the spins and vibrations, that flat, eyeless flesh on its black screen hung on for all its worth, only to get caught by a stray piece of jagged wood.
The first and the last remains of the Goblin’s last victim stinks in the open air. The flaps of his mouth agape in a state of clear shock. The empty socket space on his right side, covered by just a thin piece of black skin.
