Note: This short fiction piece was originally published in Behemoth Magazine. No AI was used in the writing of this short story.

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Monday, 10:04 AM
Bob rearranged the foil candy wrappers into a neat stack on his desk for the second time. On his computer monitor, an AI chatbot wrote an email response that Bob would copy and paste into a draft saved in his inbox. When the script finished, Bob quickly scanned the text for any glaring errors, then pasted it into an email draft with the subject line: Please upload this to CMS. When Bob clicked send, the email fired off halfway around the world to an ever-expanding part-time office in the Philippines. 

After confirming that the email was sent, Bob pulled out his smartphone and scrolled social media. A sweating man with a bulging vein ranted about a kids movie at the top of his feed. Beneath that, Bob’s aunt posted an awkward photo of her standing in front of a mirror at the gym. This was followed by an inflammatory article about the potential risks tortilla chips pose for dental health. Bob opened his camera, switched to selfie mode, and rooted around in his mouth with an unwashed index finger. His yellow, coffee-stained teeth looked the same as they did six months ago, and his gums also appeared unchanged since he last rubbed a grimy finger over them. 

Satisfied, Bob opened the drawer on his office desk and rummaged through a sea of empty chip bags. His hand returned empty. Looking to the left, then the right, Bob stood up from his worn office chair. The smell of ass sweat wafted from the seat, and Bob carefully slid his legs out in order to air out. On the TV across the room, a ticker tape ran below the newsfeed that read: Both candidates call for cooler political rhetoric and national unity. 

Bob stretched his arms over his head, gave his bulbous-eyed, blonde colleague with the gopher teeth a nod, and then followed the sewer brown carpet toward the front of the office. Most of the cubes stood empty, faded memories of coworkers whose jobs had been shipped overseas. A crinkled agenda lingered here. A pink motivational post-it note still stood firmly there. 

“I want a donut,” Bob announced to no one in particular. 

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