Business was booming for the toy marble industry and there had never been a more exciting time to be alive. Or so Marb Corp wanted everyone to think. In reality, the year was 2020 and all interest in marbles had vanished twenty years ago, just like pogs. Today’s children have never even heard of marbles, and craft shops had stopped selling them due to an uproar in the ‘90s that shed light on the strain that marble manufacturing had on natural resources. Indeed, the bones of activists can still be found chained outside quartz mines all around the world. To some, these bones are sacred. To others, they’re merely chew toys for pets, like pig ears found at the local feed store. But to Marb Corp, these environmental advocate corpses are nothing but an annoyance constantly threatening the company’s bottom line.
Eustace Hinkle walked shakily up the stairwell in the shopping mall, careful to balance the enormous bin of marbles in his arms and to keep himself from falling and being crushed by the load. Something similar had happened many years ago in a different mall, Eustace recalled, and his sphincter had given way to a soaked surge, like a giant tube of brown toothpaste beneath the stomp of a boot. The memory of the experience, along with the reaction of those that had been in the splash zone, still gave him chills. But that was in the past, and it’s best to not dwell on such things. Eustace’s ninetieth birthday was just days away, after all, and he needed to do what he could to keep his spirits up, what with his family being too busy to call him for the past twelve years.
It was true, Eustace’s grandchildren were a very busy bunch, but that was hardly Eustace’s fault. Eustace had built Marb Corp from the ground up until it had become a corporate behemoth. And though it was now only a shadow of what it once was, Marb Corp remained a large company with many moving parts that required much attention. And in the time that the grandkids had been running the company, they’d shown that their business strategies paled in comparison to the flawless way they’d managed to usurp Grandfather Eustace and take full control of the company. Marb Corp had been in steady financial decline since Eustace’s fall from leadership.
As Eustace climbed the last stair, he set the bin of marbles down as gracefully as he could, which wasn’t saying much, given how spent his frail body was. He rested on his knees to catch his breath, but only for a few seconds before a tubby security guard approached from across the mall sprinting and blowing at a whistle around his jiggling neck.
“There’s no loitering in the mall, old man. Get moving.”
“Not again,” Eustace muttered, sneering at the man. “Do we really need to have this conversation again? You see me every day. You know what I’m doing here. Does it look like I’m loitering to you?”
“Rules are rules. No one is above the law in my mall.”
“My mall,” Eustace scoffed as his fury boiled over. He’d gone through these useless power trip motions long enough. “My mall? Really? You’re a security guard, for Christ’s sake! I don’t care what your employer tells you, you have no authority here. Stop lying to yourself and go get a job that matters.”
Tubby unlatched something from his belt and began fiddling with it in his hand. “You use the elevator lately, old man?”
“You know I haven’t, not since you forbade me from using it. Don’t ask questions for which you already know the answer.”
“That’s correct. And don’t you ever forget whose authority keeps you from using it.”
Eustace blurted out an involuntary laugh. “Watch me, you fatty,” he cackled. But as he neared the elevator, Tubby pressed a button on the gadget he’d been fiddling with. A tile immediately opened up from the ceiling thirty feet above the men and a steel arm descended with a leather whip that lashed across Eustace’s back with great force. Eustace gave a shriek and fell to the ground in intense pain, groping unsuccessfully at the part of his whipped back he couldn’t reach.
“Go ahead, give it another try, old man. I beg you.”
No words came from the shattered elder as he slowly stood and shuffled back to the marble bin. Once Tubby confirmed that Eustace was ready to comply, he pressed another button on the gadget and the metal arm disappeared back into the ceiling within seconds.
“I believe your drop off is right this way,” Tubby stated in a courteous voice as he motioned toward a marble store. Eustace sighed, lifted the heavy bin, and lumbered toward the store in pain. As he passed the guard, the guard whispered, “You can thank your grandson for that one.”
Eustace moaned, but kept his eyes straight ahead so as to not dignify the man’s foul comment with even a glance. The guard’s words weren’t easily dismissed in Eustace’s mind, however. He knew that he was no longer loved by his grandchildren. He’d learned that long ago when he’d stopped sending them their usual birthday money. “The checks stop coming once you turn eighteen,” he had told each of his grandkids once they entered adulthood, and they’d despised him for it. And it was probably what drove them to run Eustace out of his company and stop reaching out to him on his own birthdays, now that he thought about it.
Having spite for someone is not synonymous with being evil. But this security guard was an evil man, and evil attracts evil, Eustace knew. “Maybe I’ve underestimated my grandson all this time. Maybe he’s an evil man as well,” Eustace wondered.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“What? Oh, sincerest apologies. Just lost in my own head, that’s all,” Eustace told the store employee, embarrassed. He’d made it to his destination without even realizing it.
“You just said that you think your grandson is an evil man,” the employee responded.
“Did I say that out loud? Oh, shucks. Guess my mind slips sometimes. Old age and all.”
“I must say, I don’t envy you, Mr. Hinkle,” she said, “but I suppose we’ll all reach that point eventually. You know, old age and all.”
That last statement seemed to have a hint of malicious sarcasm in it, but Eustace let it go. “Can I ask how you know my name?”
“Why, we know all of your grandson’s deliverymen,” the employee stated kindly as she dug her hand into her pocket and retrieved a remote, just like the one Tubby had used just minutes prior.
“No, please! I haven’t done anything!” Eustace screamed upon seeing the big red button on the remote.
The employee pushed the button and Eustace looked at the ceiling in a panic, positive that he was going to see some sort of weapon heading his way.
“Relax, Mr. Hinkle! It’s nothing to worry about. Just sending a recording of our conversation to your grandson, that’s all. I’m required to do so any time anything out of the ordinary happens.”
“You WHAT? Why would you do that? That’s so much worse than weapons appearing from the sky! Don’t send it, please! Nothing out of the ordinary even happened!”
“In your old age, you accidentally told me that you think your grandson is evil. That is a bit unusual, wouldn’t you agree? And if nothing out of the ordinary happened, why wouldn’t you want me to send it?”
“I meant…it’s just…oh, what have you done!” Eustace was beside himself now, shaking from the trek to the store with the enormous bin of marbles, but also with an added heat and trembling that only comes from fear.
Out of an abundance of indifference, the employee radioed in another employee from the back of the store. “The old man’s here with the delivery. Requesting to ready the package for return delivery back to Marb Corp first thing tomorrow.”
Eustace frowned at the woman. “Ready the package…Marb Corp…what…what is going on here? This shipment just came from Marb Corp, why is it being returned?”
The employee shrugged, “Same reason they all get shipped back to Marb Corp, I guess. But you’d have to ask your grandson, I just carry out the orders. I suspect you two will have quite a few things to talk about,” she finished with ice in her voice.
Eustace was dumbfounded and didn’t know what to say or do. He placed his entire hand on his nine-inch long nose and gave it a squeeze, the same way someone would do to the back of their neck to alleviate stress. On its own, the nose weighed over six pounds, but that didn’t lend Eustace any support in this situation. He resolved that he would have to speak with his grandson about this shipment fiasco, and perhaps also about certain comments that were made on a certain audio recording.
Eustace entered the ever so familiar Marp Corp Palace for what seemed like the millionth time over the course of his life and decided without hesitation to use the stairs due to his sudden fear of elevators. Stairs were stairs, as they always are, and they become tiresome after ascending so many of them, but without a five hundred pound bin weighing him down, and only three flights to climb, Eustace seemed to fly.
He stopped on the third floor where his office used to be before his transition from power, but learned immediately that his grandson had decided not to use the same office. No one could tell Eustace where the new office was, but a few had heard a rumor that his grandson thought the old one was ‘too near to the ground’ for someone of his importance. Eustace rolled his eyes and had a sudden suspicion that he knew exactly where the new office was located.
Sixty flights of stairs and several shredded tendons later, Eustace’s ninety-year old body was ready to be given back to the earth. He contemplated how much he’d prefer an eternal rest in a cool, dark, secluded place over the conversation he was about to have, but he moved forward nonetheless. He opened the door to what appeared to be the only office on the very top floor of the building. Looking inside, he grew horrified at the sight of a colossal demon with three pointed tongues and five arms with barbed claws only outmatched in sharpness by the demon’s long serrated teeth.
The beast learned of Eustace’s presence and looked toward the old man who always seemed to be trembling from something, this time from the sight of his monstrous grandson. “Tren…Trent…Trenton,” Eustace fearfully stuttered, and at that the beast changed form until he was nothing but a measly human being.
“You’ll address me simply as Grandson from now on, with a capital G.”
“Very well, Grandson. I take it you’ve received the audio recording your mush brain employee sent your way?”
“I did indeed.” Grandson’s voice was abnormally deep and malevolent. “You’re correct in your assumption. That particular employee does have a mush brain. Also, I have become evil,” he said nonchalantly, “and I’ve grown tired of masking it with false benevolence and kindness. The recording is of no value to me. What else did you come here for? What’s been taxing your wilting mind, Grandfather?”
Eustace cut right to the chase. “Why are my deliveries being returned?”
“The question of the decade, and the very same I’ve been asking since I had you displaced.”
“Are you saying you don’t know?”
“I am saying I know exactly why, but I disagree with the decisions of your other worthless grandchildren. The only reason you’re still even on payroll at my company is because they wanted to grant you health insurance benefits. I’ve done everything in my power to terminate your relationship with this place, but the blessed board of directors continue to outvote me at every turn.”
Eustace stood in the middle of the office with not a word coming to mind in response to the villain speaking before him. There was no light within his grandson, it was only darkness.
Grandson lashed out, as if a deep bitterness had uncontrollably bubbled up, “Do you know how many years it’s been since I received any birthday cash from you? All that money that should’ve been mine but remained in your ancient pockets? And here you are now, alive, and enjoying the benefits of my hard work.”
Eustace simply stared, realizing that this could’ve all been avoided if he’d just kept sending his grandkids their birthday checks.
“But I won’t go down without a fight, Grandfather. You’ll maintain your beloved health insurance, but believe me, it’ll cost you everything. I believe you’ve already met Tubby, my security guard?”
“His name’s actually Tubby?” Eustace asked, his first question in several minutes.
Grandson began snapping his fingers at Eustace.“Stay focused you fading dust bag, that’s beside the point! The whip that met your back when you doubted Tubby’s authority? His authority is my authority, don’t you ever forget that. I have things in store for you that will make you beg for the whip instead.”
Grandson was now speaking with such fury that Eustace couldn’t get a single word in. Grandson began throwing his hands around with air quotes as if his life depended on it. “That ‘store’ you make your ‘important deliveries’ to? It’s a throwaway company, Grandfather. A useless location I can use to schedule daily deliveries, just to have them sent right back and done all over again. I’m losing heavy sums, but it’s all worth it to watch that crooked back of yours deteriorate as you climb those stairs every day.”
The question “Why?” formed on Eustace’s lips, but he withdrew from asking it because he knew his grandson was too far gone to give a civil answer. Realizing that the conversation could make no more progress, Eustace turned his back to Grandson, even as he was still releasing his hatred. He closed the door tight behind him, but not before hearing a final multi-voiced dragon roar and a shattered window.
Eustace mulled over the conversation with his grandson well into the night. Though irrational and completely insane, Grandson had gotten one thing right: he needed the health insurance. And so Eustace awoke the next morning and drove to the Marb Corp warehouse to retrieve the daily marble bin.
Tubby was waiting outside the shopping mall when Eustace arrived. “Welcome back, Mr. Hinkle! So good to see you, sir,” he said as enthusiastically as possible, and Eustace knew that he was in for something particularly sinister today.
Eustace approached the stairwell and issued a sigh as he lifted himself warily onto the first step. He did the same with the second and the third and every other step until he was near the top and an ear-splitting shriek came from the mall’s speaker, followed by the words “Happy Birthday, Grandfather.”
Eustace, startled from the shriek, lost balance and fell backward. As if in slow motion, he was mentally taken to a sealed box six feet underground and began salivating at the thought. Then he was ripped from there and taken to the memory of the last time this had happened and all he could see in his mind’s eye were the faces of those he’d covered in excrement.
He hit the ground hard and opened his eyes just before the bin of marbles crushed him. His eyes exploded at the force and the passersby were once again covered in brown, but this time it was mixed with splashes of red. Eustace’s body lay flattened and lifeless, surrounded by millions of marbles dancing on the ground in all directions. Children ran over to begin playing with these glass spheres they’d never seen before, and a single maintenance employee watched from a distance, knowing that he was the one who’d have to clean it all up.
For many of these children, it was the most fun they’d ever had, and Grandson stood at the top of the stairwell as he watched the children play. Unbeknownst to the children, every moment of their fun was breathing life back into a dying industry and cramming Grandson’s pockets full of cash.
Grandson’s eyes moved to his grandfather after a while, and in his vulnerability he gave sincere thanks. “Thank you, Grandfather. Because of you, Marb Corp will live to fight another day.”
