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Thieves of Joy

It wasn’t until Tallis tried REM for the first time that he realized he wasn’t happy.

     The average person might stop sometimes to smell the flowers, but Tallis was the kind of person who would even admire the weeds. To him, life itself was beautiful. While anyone else would see the city of Neuvale as dirty and chaotic, Tallis adored the buzz of life and the stunning sights around every corner. He was content, even though his love life was complicated, his professional life had plateaued, and his personal life would put just about anyone to sleep.

     Desperate to make something of his life, he goes chasing love, success, and excitement. Along the way, he meets a mysterious and electrifying woman by the name of O. When she introduces him to REM, a drug that lets you customize your hallucinations, he finds himself unable to resist the temptation. REM seems to give him the excitement missing from his life, but it comes at a cost, and Tallis has to decide if it’s worth losing himself. 

Praise for Thieves of Joy

Thieves of Joy is recommended for ages 16+. It contains dark themes, drug use, and sexual themes (but takes a more “fade to black” approach).

Chapter One of Thieves of Joy

          “She’s up there!” A man with a camera pointed up at the top of a nearby skyscraper, just as a figure in a bright green spandex bodysuit launched itself over the edge.

          The man sprinted toward the base of the building, another man with a camera taking off down the street.

          Had the second man not bumped into Tallis, he likely wouldn’t have noticed the commotion on his walk to work—after all, none of the other passersby seemed concerned.

          Tallis watched the man for a second, following his gaze over to the figure in the spandex bodysuit as it was plummeting to the ground.

          “What the hell!” Tallis yelled at the man, who was steadying his camera on the airborne figure. The man simply grumbled and shot him a sharp look before quickly returning his attention to his camera.

          The figure was getting dangerously close to colliding with asphalt, and Tallis couldn’t understand why nobody around him seemed concerned. If anything, most people still didn’t seem to notice.

          “Somebody help them!” he yelled, pointing at the blur of green.

          He stared in horror, his paralyzing dread only beginning to dissipate when the figure’s fall gradually slowed until it was at a complete halt, hovering about ten feet off the ground. He ran over just as the first cameraman stood from his post. When he stepped closer to them, he could hear giggling.

          “Did you get it?” a woman’s voice asked, as the person in the green bodysuit pulled back her face covering to reveal her smiling face. Upon closer inspection, Tallis could see an expensive-looking bottle of perfume attached to her green chest.

          “How?” Tallis muttered aloud. He kept staring, taking a moment to realize the thin, clear cables keeping the figure suspended safely.

          “I think so. We’ll have to see how it looks in post, but I think we finally did it this time!”

          “Excuse me,” Tallis pried, keeping his voice soft.

          The cameraman from across the street returned to his buddies, shouting something about a badass lens flare. When he realized Tallis was talking to them, he stopped mid-sentence.

          “Sorry for bothering you,” Tallis said, “but I was just wondering… you’re Creative Anchors… right? What exactly are you guys working on?”

          “We’re not allowed to disclose that information at the moment,” the CA in the bodysuit answered promptly.

          “It’s okay. I work for Ms. Iris, too. I’ll probably be logging data for this footage later in the week anyways. Just wanted to get the inside scoop.”

          The CAs processed for a moment, clearly not recognizing him from the office. It didn’t really surprise Tallis that they had no clue who he was, after all, he usually stayed hidden behind his computer, just doing data entry.

          “It’s just a perfume ad for Lorenzi Co.” The CA in the bodysuit pointed to the perfume attached to her. “We’re trying something new to see if we can make it look like it’s falling from heaven.”

          Tallis’s face lit up. He wanted to ask a million more questions, but he bit his tongue. The last thing he wanted was for Ms. Iris to find out he was distracting her precious CAs.

          “That’s awesome!” Tallis said, nearly vibrating with excitement. “Man, you guys literally have the coolest job. Just saying.”

          “Hell yeah, we do,” she said. “I wanted to be a CA ever since I was little. I can’t imagine sitting on my ass all day every day at a desk.”

          When she looked back over at Tallis, she threw in a quick “no offense.”

          “None taken,” he said. “I better let you guys get back to it. Good luck. Can’t wait to see the final ad.”

          “Thanks, man,” one of the cameramen said with a nod, turning his attention to the woman, showing her the camera screen.

          Tallis continued on his way, struggling more than usual to stay focused. It wasn’t every day he saw someone jump off the side of a building. He was relieved the woman was okay, but he wondered what it would be like to have a job like that—a job that makes you truly feel alive.

          His focus kept bouncing between thoughts of his morning and expectations for his day, his mind only silencing when he stopped along his usual route to gaze at a reflection in a puddle. It had just rained the night before, as it often did in the city of Neuvale. While he was on his way to Bru—the local café—the colorful pool caught his attention. A pink neon light reflected in its mirrored surface. Water droplets tumbled from the overhang of a nearby shop, landing in the puddle with little splishes, rippling the reflection into brilliant pink waves.

          Something about the reflection of lights on the surface was hypnotic to him. Tallis appreciated everything life had to offer—the natural and the manmade. There was just something extra stunning about the combination of the two.

          Tallis stood for a moment longer until the droplets seemed to stop, pulling him from his trance. He looked up at the source of the light—a simple sign for a tech repair shop called Buzz’s Electrosuite. Reminding himself of the task at hand, his attention snapped back into focus and he hurried on his way.

          The pat-pat of his flat soles grew louder in his ears with every step as he began to walk to the beat of a song in his head. Eventually, the concrete sidewalk turned to steppingstones in soft grass as he neared the entrance of Bru.

          Contrasting sharply with the glass, neon lights, and cement of the city, the café was an unremarkable building of stone and wood.

          As he tugged on the solid wood door, a wave of warm coffee-scented air hit him like heat from an open oven. He got in line behind some strangers in a short line to place his order.

          “Next!”

          A few steps forward.

          Outside, the sun was beginning to rise, but inside, you could never quite tell what time it was. The coffee shop’s thick, amber-tinted windows reminded Tallis of honey. As he stared at the long menu, he wondered how honey would taste in coffee.

          “Next!”

          Of course, Tallis already knew what he was going to order. Ms. Iris always ordered the same thing. He knew better than to forget her order.

          “Next!”

          Tallis shuffled forward in line. He looked over toward a small table with the milk, sugar, and straws, watching as a man in a wool coat poured a little purple vial into his coffee, giving it a stir.

          “Next!”

          A petite blonde woman ordered some soy-mocha-mega-something.

          He reached into his pocket to fish out his card in advance. He hated holding up lines. Pulling his hand back out, he felt a hangnail tug. He held his finger up in the dim light to get a better look. Picking at the tiny piece of skin, a shudder rippled over him as he imagined how horrific it would be if he pulled a hangnail and it just kept going, unraveling him like a fleshy mummy.

          “Sir!” a woman behind the counter crowed.

          Tallis peered past his finger at her.

          People were glaring at him, looks of dismay and disgust painted on their faces. When he realized which finger was up, he shot his hand down into his pocket, as if the finger itself was embarrassed for him.

          “Whaddya want?” she asked, eyebrow cocked.

          “Medium iced coffee. Two pumps of lavender with a splash of cream,” Tallis said, almost robotically.

          She huffed, turning her attention to the register.

          “Please,” Tallis added.

          The barista rang up his order and shooed him aside from where he stood, hands in his pockets. Several of the tables in Bru were low to the ground with cushions on the floor as seats. A group of students sat clustered around a corner table. Several of the students were leaning over the tables while they talked, and everyone seemed to be chattering at once. Tallis began to wonder how many people there were in the world. He realized how each person out there was uniquely different, each one made up of thousands of little life moments—no two the same. He wondered what variable made some people cling together while rejecting others. In fact, it must have been a miracle that everything in the universe lined up for these students to have even met each other.

          While Tallis wondered about the students, the barista was shouting his order, glaring directly at Tallis in his daze.

          “Sir, I think that’s your drink,” a young woman said, tapping his shoulder.

          Tallis turned to the woman and back to the counter with a clumsy smile, picking up his order from the counter before making his way to work.

          Opulence Incorporated was one of the largest industries in Neuvale. Every successful news piece, advertisement, or song to hit the public came through Opulence first. Tallis saw the company as a complicated circuit board. Each component had an important role, even if some of those roles may not seem as exciting. At least, that’s what he told himself.

          Junior Assistant. Tallis thought his title seemed rather vague, but he appreciated the amount of variety in his day-to-day routine. Sometimes, Ms. Iris would have him clean the breakroom, and other times, she’d have him watch commercials and take notes about the footage for the company’s historical log. More often than not, she made him compile information into the databases for the CAs. He loved seeing what the CAs were up to—those were his favorite days. The only thing he could think of that could be better would be living life as a CA himself.

          Tallis held his palm to the security scanner outside the towering office building shaped like a huge glass shard. The scanner hummed and let out a sharp chirp as a digital image of Tallis looked back at him. Dark lashes surrounded the grey eyes that stared blankly on the screen as the door slid open, welcoming him with stale air that smelled of pleather and perfumes.

          On the fourth floor, Tallis scurried to his supervisor’s office with her coffee.

          “Ma’am,” Tallis said as soon as he stepped into the room. “I was thinking… I’d like to talk to you about applying for that open Creative Anchor position.”

          His boss held out her hand for the coffee, not even looking up from her computer as she stood. Tallis handed her the cup. She removed the lid and took a swig, letting coffee tumble from her open mouth down her double chin and back into the cup almost as soon as it touched her tongue. “Pebbermint?” her voice garbled through the liquid.

          “Ma’am?” Tallis asked.

          Ms. Iris held out her cup, the lip of it tickling Tallis’s nose. Tallis stared back over the cup at her, eyebrow cocked.

          “Sniff,” she said.

          An awkward pause, then an audible sniff.

          “I’m sorry,” Tallis said. “I can run and get a new one.”

          “You’ve already wasted enough time. You were late today; did you know that?”

          Tallis looked at his watch. 7:03.

          “Of course you didn’t.”

          “Three min—”

          “Jorden’s people turned in another batch of holos. I need you to process the paperwork for me.”

          Tallis opened his mouth to speak but was met with Ms. Iris’s hand as she hushed him, waddling around him in her stubby patent leather heels and out the door into the communal office space.

          “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, taking a purposeful inhale through his nose. A cool exhale. He turned and scooped up the weighty folder on Ms. Iris’s desk, making his way to his workstation.

          Tallis rationalized that perhaps she’s had a rough morning. She always looked forward to her coffee, and for all he knew, she might have been having the kind of morning where everything seemed to go wrong. To him, it wasn’t her fault.

          Tallis’s cubicle was as antiquated as they came. Opulence loved to provide employees with the latest and greatest, but why would the Junior Assistant need a chroma screen, right? Instead, Tallis sat around waiting for his desktop to wake with a hum. His desk phone was practically an ancient relic, with its raised plastic buttons and its spiraled cord. “You don’t get phone calls,” Ms. Iris had said when he asked for a cheap earpiece instead.

          Tallis explained away the issue, assuming perhaps the department just didn’t have the budget for it at the moment.

          Even though Tallis had to be at work before everyone else in order to get Ms. Iris her coffee on time, he didn’t mind the quiet time at the beginning of his day. Because her office was far away on the other side of his department, he felt like he had the entire area to himself. Technically, many of the desks in the area belonged to the CAs, but they rarely—if ever—did desk work. So, like most days, the office was rather lifeless.

          Thumbing through the pages while he waited for his computer to boot up, Tallis reached for the day-old cup of water on his desk, taking a sip and accidentally swallowing a gnat.

          His desk phone started ringing like a shrill alarm, breaking the silence of the empty office.

          Tallis picked up the phone and hit the speaker button before setting the phone back on the receiver and leaning back in his chair.

          “Hey, Big Daddy,” a deep, velvet voice oozed over the speaker. “You looking for some fun?”

          Tallis went cold and nearly flew from his seat as he turned the speaker off and snatched the phone up.

          “Wrong number,” Tallis said, projecting his voice in case Ms. Iris could hear the call from her office.

          “Dude,” the voice over the phone dropped several octaves. “It’s just Chris.”

          “Why’d you call my work phone?”

          “You don’t usually check your personal at work. I know better than that. Anyways, I’m thinking about doing Xavier’s bachelor party this Friday. You down?”

          “Sure,” Tallis said, keeping his voice low. “You decide where to host it yet?”

          “Yup!”

          “Where?”

           “We’ll pick you up. Just be downstairs and ready to go at nine.”

          “Alright.”

          “And bring something kinky,” Chris said, as if it were a common request.

          “What?”

          “A sex toy, Tal, bring something for sex.”

          “What the hell kind of party do you have planned?”

          “A bachelor party. We’re not going for teatime and a ballet.”

          “Is it like… a present?” Tallis managed.

          “No, I thought we’d all go back to my place and—YES, you dipshit. It’s for Xavier and Vanessa. Get ‘em something fun. Not that complicated, bro. Just be ready by nine. B—”

          “Wait,” Tallis stopped him. “What do I wear?”

~~~

          The workday went as Tallis expected. He made his way through the folder of papers from Ms. Iris, he spent a while reading through new articles from Opulence News, and he watched and sorted footage from the Creative Anchors. While he was going through footage, he saw a piece from one of the CAs for a new music video. The singers were on top of one of the thousands of skyscrapers in Neuvale, and the camera hovered over them, drifting up and away through the course of the video until the band looked like nothing but a small cluster of pixels on Tallis’s monitor.

          “Go home,” Ms. Iris said, flopping her coat over her arm and locking up her office door. “Everyone else is gone, and I’m not paying you overtime.”

          “Yes, ma’am,” he said, closing out of the video and shutting down his computer.

          Ms. Iris was halfway down the hall when Tallis scurried after her clumsily. He marveled at how fast she booked it down the hall. The fact that she walked at all was a miracle with how pigeon toed she stood in heels.

          “I’m sorry again about your coffee this morning,” Tallis said, his toe catching on the carpet, causing him to lurch, tripping and catching himself before falling.

          “It’s fine,” Ms. Iris said flatly, reaching the end of the hall and summoning the elevator. “It was admittedly nice to break out of routine. The lavender gets a little old. I just think peppermint tastes like I’m drinking toothpaste. Get me a caramel latte tomorrow.”

          “Of course,” he said as the elevator doors encapsulated them in the moving glass pod.

          Outside the doors of Opulence, Ms. Iris and Tallis parted ways without a word. Ms. Iris lived in a nearby complex, so she was able to return to work at a moment’s notice. Tallis, on the other hand, lived in Sector 8, but Opulence was in Sector 12. Walking four sectors back and forth every day would take far too long, especially with how crowded the walkways in the city got. Fortunately, each sector of Neuvale had its own subway terminal, and Opulence paid for Tallis’s subway pass. He almost never took one of the overpriced taxis, and he felt like it was unnecessary to spend money on a car when the subway was never far—and always free.

          Just like every other day, Tallis took the lower walkway from Opulence to the Sector 12 terminal—about a 10-minute walk for a normal person, at least 15 minutes for someone like Tallis.

          Along the way, he brushed shoulders with endless strangers. He could have noticed the striking facial tattoo of the gentleman who bumped into him, or perhaps the woman who looked him up and down hungrily with her brown baby doll eyes. Instead, Tallis was standing curbside, watching a particularly mangey pigeon picking at a smooshed french fry. A nearby crow fixated its beady eyes on the starchy mess. It swooped down, snatching the fry in its beak and disappearing, leaving the daft pigeon confused.

          He trotted down the slick tile steps of the station, the echoic rumbles of the subway drowning out the sounds of the people and digital advertisements around him. A holographic advertisement for hotdogs and grilled brats flickered and rotated in place across from the bathrooms. Mindlessly, he stepped through the lights of the hologram on his way toward the approaching subway.

          The ride to Sector 8 was packed. Tallis stood with bodies plastered to every bit of him. Gripping the handhold hanging from the ceiling, he watched the blurred stonework and zipping lights pass through the windows of the racing subway. With each stop, a hoard of people would scramble off, only to be replaced by another. When the screen above the sliding doors displayed a vivid “8,” Tallis wormed his way through the masses, wiggling until he got off the subway and could make his way out of the station and aboveground.

          As he walked toward the entrance of his apartment building, Tallis was busy daydreaming about what it would be like to put wheels on a subway and drive it around like a streetcar. He smiled to himself as he imagined the ridiculousness, but his glee dissipated as soon as he heard his phone chime. He rotated his wrist, checking the message on his watch.

          He realized he forgot to get Xavier’s gift, even though he was hoping to do it today while he was in Sector 12. Tomorrow would have to be the day. He wasn’t even sure what kind of thing to look for, but he knew there was an adult store a couple blocks away from Opulence. He’d seen it on his way to the cleaner to pick up Ms. Iris’s clothes once.

          In his apartment, Tallis took off his shoes and dropped them near his front door. His TV chirped a catchy tune as it turned on and immediately pulled up his favorite show, which he disregarded on his way to the bathroom. He ran the sink for a moment so it could warm up before running his hands under the water and then his wet hands over his face. He looked up at the vanity, the dark circles under his eyes slightly masked by his faint freckles coating his entire face. Hands still wet, he ran his fingers through his dark hair, a section of longer hair that hung in his face moments ago now slicked back.

          Tallis grabbed a slice of leftover pizza from his fridge and flopped back on his cushy black sofa. His mind began to wander to all the possibilities for the weekend and where Chris might be hosting the bachelor party. This string of thoughts eventually brought him back to his upcoming task: find a present for Xavier.

          Tallis wondered what kind of things adult stores even sold. He didn’t want to buy lingerie for his best friend’s fiancée—something about that felt strange to him. He didn’t even know what size Vanessa was, and he didn’t want to get in trouble for misjudging.

          Tallis tapped the screen of his watch. “I wanna shop,” he announced. His TV changed the display from his favorite show to the shopping menu.

          “What are you shopping for?” a soft, feminine voice asked through the speakers.

          “Umm,” Tallis hesitated. “Sex toys.”

          The screen changed again, this time displaying a screen with a list of products. He sat, skimming through the list of categories and filters, not even knowing where to start. He thought it was an odd request for presents, but he didn’t want to be the only one at the party who didn’t follow instructions.

          “Can I help you?” The shopping assistant bot appeared on the screen.

          “Yes,” Tallis said, prompting the bot.

          “How can I help?”

          “What’s a penis ring?”