Chatter by Lucas Hubbard

You really want to know? Then I need another beer.

Here’s the thing: You’re new here, so please know I never talk about this stuff, never behind people’s backs.

Like I said, you’re new here, and I wanted to be nice.

Anyway, Wade was smart. Smart as hell. Already with the questions.

No, go ahead.

You’ve seen the numbers? You’re right, he doesn’t appear on the leaderboard. But those rankings aren’t everything.

Ah, it’s misogyny that I think Wade was smart? Technically, I never said Wade was a man or woman.

OK, yes. I did say “he.” But he was one of a kind. In meetings, he loved to get as close as possible to accepting a project and then, at the last second, when we’d all be on the brink of standing up and heading for the break room, he’d ask: are we sure about this? Immediately back to square one, whole morning wasted. Brilliant.

No, never asked it outright. Or without, uh, preamble. Wade had a face, and a voice, that just commanded attention. Is that also misogyny? My man could simply sit with a puzzled look and know that his opinion would be sought.

You don’t need to know Wade’s race; legally, I can’t tell you. But since you guessed it already, you’re right. Of course, he fit in with the Communicators. You know: that inequity the Company will always be working towards fixing.

What you need to know is that people liked Wade. We liked Wade. Did we see him outside work? Only by accident. Did we follow him on social media? Never. Ever hear him talk about a family, or a pet, or a hobby? He wouldn’t volunteer much. Wasn’t his style. Could talk for days about sports, but ask him a personal question and he’d practically sprint to the toilet.

The longest I spoke with him? About six months ago.

Yeah, before the Quiet Time. I said, Hey man, how do you get away with doing so little, don’t you feel bad about it. You know, questions I’d never ask now.

This isn’t for me, he said. This is for you guys. To show what you can strive for.

Maybe that’s why he suggested the Quiet Time. He didn’t care about any of those tragedies, about the importance of going quiet for a day on social. There were so many of these things, you can’t even imagine. But Wade, genius that he was, saw a path for us to slalom through and avoid any work.

Indefinite online silence. Like I said, brilliant.

What?

Sorry for laughing. No, I don’t think he was going to any protests.

This was his politics. Making sure nobody did anything more than necessary to get paid.

Loved that guy. Even though I had better engagement numbers, I looked up to Wade. Never told him that, though.

There just wasn’t time with us not posting, we all had to look busy nonstop. It was important we didn’t post, but if we looked bored when we were doing nothing, they’d fire us, right? Do you want anything? I don’t want to drink alone.

I’ll start crying, that’s why. And I don’t want to scare you off in your first month.

You’re not uncomfortable, right?

Hell, I’m confused too. I obviously wasn’t in the last meeting, so I can’t say what went down. And the boss is hush-hush about it. We all heard the rumors, of course.

The C-suite? Almost impossible to convince. A month in they were looking at the stats on social and reamed us out. Of course, the whole staff had already downshifted to doing nothing. Once you’ve tasted not working, you can’t just hit the reset button, right? People aren’t gonna give up a good thing that easily. But you can’t just fire and replace a whole department overnight.

Yup, Wade to the rescue—again. Sent this mammoth email outlining the whole plan and then ended it with a quote—probably from some weird blog he was following, but it got people fired up. If no one does anything to protect us, we have to go on the attack.

Oh, it destroyed. Crawling into the comments, asking competitors stuff like why they thought it was ok to post about labor day deals in this particular climate. And then, these companies gave ground, started copying us, doing Quiet Times themselves.

Like a celebrity. You think I’m kidding, but no—guy was a literal business hero.

Well, that’s the million dollar question, right?

No, no. But I bet the company wishes it were that low.

In hindsight, sure. Could’ve stayed in the shadows forever. But no one anticipated this. So instead he became—what’s the term—a Thought Leader. They wanted him to go on lecture circuits, talk on a stage with one of those cheek microphones. Spread the gospel of Quiet Time across the globe.

God, Wade hated the idea. They managed to get him up on stage once, in Des Moines of all places, and—look, we’ve all seen the video—the guy has pit stains like no other. Talks for three minutes and then just wanders off.

Right after that. We’re all at our desks, diligently doing nothing, then boom: Wade storms out of the conference room. Boss wouldn’t say anything, just told us to take a long lunch. Later we looked in Wade’s desk for clues, but someone must’ve come in and cleaned out everything. That was that.

Dunno if that’s the right word. But it’s sure not a leave of absence.

Handle? What do you mean handle him?

Well, you can’t reply to anything Wade writes about the company. That’s obvious from the job description: tracking, not posting.

Pretty much every day. Just keeping up takes forty hours a week.

You’re gonna get me in trouble. Unofficially?

Unofficially, absolutely. He makes great points.

Sometimes I feel like a coward. But then I think, if Wade were in my shoes, what would he do?

Exactly.

Artist’s Statement

In my writing, I like to explore the absurdity, and absurd injustices, of modern life.

Lucas Hubbard is a North Carolina-based writer whose work has appeared in Microfiction Monday Magazine, INDY Week, Defector, Paste, and other outlets.