Surveys With A Hint Of Murder

T'was an ominous winter's evening. The interviewers filed into the phone room at 5pm like the walking corpses that they were, bracing themselves for the next four hours of haggling strangers for their travel patterns.

The shift commenced normally enough. Calls were made, introductions read out, asinine small talk was shared. Bobby Bad Boy was contemplating yet another alibi for his latest triple homicide. Broyce Lewton was in the throes of protein-powder withdrawal. Little did they know, their evening was doomed.

Suddenly, the lights went out, plunging the phone room into darkness. The interviewers stumbled around in the darkness, bumping into chairs and tripping over wires like foolish sheep. A few used the opportunity to carry out some long-awaited colleague-groping. Before anyone could fetch the candles, the lights flicked back on. Everything seemed back to normal, or so they thought.

The short-lived serenity was broken by a girl's piercing scream, emanating from the break room. Supervisors and interviewers alike ran to the kitchen to investigate. There they found Nolliver, standing in shocked silence over Broyce Lewton's bloodied corpse.

"Oh my god! Somebody killed Broyce," said an interviewer.

"And Nollie screams like a girl," said another.

"Are you really that surprised?" asked a third.

"Shut up," squealed Nollie.

Assistant-Supervisor Gladys Wyesoglad quickly performed a short funeral rite over Broyce's carcass, covered him with a fire blanket, and sprinked some Proflex™ protein powder over him.

The supervisors ushered everyone back into the phone room. The interviewers exchanged frightened glances. The gropers exchanged phone numbers. Nollie fainted from the stress. Everyone laughed at him.

"I'm locking you motherfuckers in," said Head Supervisor Travis Bickle, as he stood atop a desk.

A brutal murder had taken place. But even worse than that, they were dangerously behind quota. He couldn't just let everyone go home.

"You bitches will be safe in here," he said as he attached giant padlocks to both exits.

"The murderer is long gone, and no one can get in here," he added reassuringly as he swallowed the key.

"Or get out," whispered Bobby Bad Boy.

"Who said that?!" shouted Bickle as his eyes scanned the room.

"Did he just call us bitches?" asked Nollie, to which Bickle replied with a flying drop-kick to his face.

Nollie collapsed, blood spurting out his nose. Everyone cheered.


Just as peace was settling back over the phone room, the lights flicked off again. Interviewers panicked and ran for the locked doors, screaming and banging on them, begging to be let out. In an instant, the power switched back on and the phone room was bathed in fluorescence.

Interviewer Ann-Sue Yea was slumped over in her chair, unconscious. Blood was trickling down her face, dripping off her chin and leaving a dark red stain on the blue carpet. The source of the injury was a battle axe lodged deep in her skull.

"What the ffff!" ejaculated Duke Lewton.

Everyone was piss scared and shitting bricks. Two murders and it wasn't even six o' clock! The supervisors were even more panicked. They were nowhere near quota and now manpower was down by two. If this carried on, there would be hell to pay (and no bonus).

With no time to waste, a Supervisor Bickle grabbed Ann-Sue Ya's corpse, and threw it into the waste paper basket in the corner. Seeing as the receptacle had been designed to store a few crumpled up papers and the odd styrofoam cup, it broke under the weight of a human corpse.

Bickle rushed over, covered her mangled corpse with a raincoat, crossed himself and ran back to the supervisor's desk.

"Okay so it seems the murderer might be someone in this room," said Bickle to audible gasps.

"Oops," he added, with a shrug of his shoulders.

Some interviewers begged for permission to go home early, or at least call the police. They made a strong case, what with the double homicide and all.

"Never!" boomed supervisor Travis Bickle as he applied a tight backhand slap to the face of Nollie, who, in all fairness, had been bleeding quietly in a corner.

"We're getting these motherfucking surveys off this motherfucking plane...of low rates," he said grimly.

With great reluctance, the interviewers carried on interviewing. Some were visibly shaken, others, stirred. Nollie buckled under the stress and burst into tears. On witnessing that, Bobby Bad Boy burst into evil laughter. On hearing that, Supervisor Bickle burst onto the scene.

"Fuck's going on here?!" he inquired.

But before anyone could reply, Bellanor Sonatzi burst into flames, right there and then, at cubicle number 7. She lit up like a kerosene soaked wooden torch.

"That's hot," remarked Lisa Re: Haute Coutre, and all about her agreed.

Bellanor, now a ball of fire, stumbled about the room, looking for a fireblanket. Alas! It was in the kitchen, beyond the locked doors.

"This is truly inconvenient," she thought, as huge flames flowed off her head and licked the ceiling, leaving black curls of soot.

You could actually hear her skin crackling. A mouth-watering scent of barbeque permeated the air. As the raging inferno that once used to be Bellanor stumbled about the room, waving its hands and screaming, Duke Lewton's mobile phone went off.

He was red with embarrassment, but not because he forgot to turn his phone off before the shift. It just so happened that his ring tone was a particularly marvelous song by that maestro of ja-riddim, Sean Paul, namely, 'We Be Burnin'.

All who gathered heard of the song and realizing the irony, were filled with joy and erupted into loud, hearty laughter. Hugs were shared. Kisses were planted. Hands were joined and joyous songs of friendship were sung.

By this time, Bellanor's charred remains were dripping all over cubicle 7.

Supervisor Bickle, feigning concern, rushed over to tend to Bellanor, as if he hadn't bene laughing and hugging everyone in sight during the last moments of Bellanor's life.

"Oh my word, what's happened here then?!" he asked, overacting like a child in a kindergarten play.

He gently placed two fingers against Bellanor's neck. After a few moments, he declared that she had no pulse. How he was able to determine the location of her neck, let alone her carotid artery, was a mystery to all. Looking at the black, charred, guey lump of shit that was her badly burnt remainds, you couldn't tell if it used to be human, animal or vegetable; or for that matter, if it was just a pile of black sludge dredged up from the horrid depths of Beelzebub's asshole.

Whatever that lump of black fuck was, it was dead.

Supervisor Bickle bowed his head, sighed heavily and shed a single tear.

"Dear Bellanor has gone gentle into that good night. The candle of her life, extinguished too soon. Bereft of life, the vessel that is her body here lies, bids adieu to her immortal soul t'was its captain, as it transcends this mortail coil and floats away into the hereafter, becoming one with eternity: the earth, the sea, the meadows and their flowers, the eternal sunshine that dapples a lonely, tree-lined mountain pass. We see her in the smile on a previous baby's face. we feel her in the gentle flapping of a butterfuily's delicate wings, the beam of light from a distant lighthouse that shines on lost ships at sea, the stars that sqeuin a desert's night sky, the spring rains that awaken creatures and unfurl blooms of colourful flowers. Her soul, as fleeting as a half-remembered scent on a sea breeze, as beautiful as the colours that bend and dance in the swirl of crystal goblet, gone, forever, into the gentle embrace of the ever after. Gone gentle, into that good night," he said, choking on tears (and cock).

"In other words, she is god damned dead," he concluded.

WHENCE this sudden outpouring of utter poetry came from, no one knew or dare dream.

"Alright, everyone gets an extra 15 minutes of break," he announced with uncharacteristic kindness.

The interviewers went absolutely bananas. They cheered with reckless abandon, except Nollie, who just flicked his unwashed fringe and flashed a grin underneath his tragically hip stubble.

"Wait! Let me finish, you bastards," he continued.

Everyone heaved a sigh of disappointment.

"The extra time is for us to clean up this mess," he said, pointing to a black heap of tar and hair that used to be Bellanor.

There were moans, groans and much gnashing of teeth.

"Man, I should have just called in sick," said Bobby Bad Boy.

"When don't you?" asked Nollie, very bitchily.

Little did he know that those terribly chosen words were to be his last. Had he known, he might have quoted some folk-rock band that nobody gives a shit about.

"Alright break it up," said Supervisor Bickle as he handed out mops, rags and cleaning products.

"Let's get cracking," he said.

So began the clean-up of the site of a double homicide and a spontaneous human combustion. It seemed like a mammoth task. Luckily, they had 'Easy Off Bam'. It was simply a matter of BAM, and the stain was gone. That was the scientific explanation.

15 minutes later, everything was spick and span, smelling pleasantly of artificial pine fragrance, which reminded Nisa Rio of the four dozen pine-scented air fresheners in her car.

"Good work guys," commended Supervisor Bickle as everyone gave each other a pat on the back and showered flattery and praise on each other's remarkable cleansing abilities in a kind of reciprocal masturbatory ritual. There were tears of joy and many emotional speeches.

Someone noticed that Nollie was nowhere to be seen. Someone suggested that perhaps he was at an obscure indie band gig. Another suggested he was at a vintage clothes shop, while another thought he was at a vegan food co-op.

But the doors were still locked.

"Holy fucking mother of my best friend from high school!" ejaculated Rohn Kurtiz.

"Nollie's in the bathroom...and dead," he added.

"He's in the bathroom?!!" everyone asked in chorus.

The caring supervisor ran into the women's bathroom but amazingly, Nollie wasn't there.

"He uses the male bathroom?!" everyone asked in shock.

The caring supervisor ran into the men's bathroom. After chucking a quick piss, he opened the cubicle door and puked, right onto Nollie's corpse.

Larry Joel pushed through the curious rabble and was greeted with a sight more digusting than the trailer for '2 girls 1 cup'. He witnessed Nollie's dismembered corspse...with puke on it.

He could contain himself no longer. He projectile vomited all over Nollie's corpse.

In fact, every person who went into the cubicle was more disgusted than the last, and let rip a sturdy jet of vomit right onto Nollie's still warm, dismembered carcass. Some cheeky bugger (Duke Lewton) even took a fat shit on him.

By now, the scene of Nollie's murder was so fucking gross it made Bellanor's lump of guey black fuck remains look like a bouquet of roses by comparison.

"Please Travis," cried Larry Joel, "For fuck's sake let us go home."

"It's a god damn massacre in here," added Duke Lewton while using Nollie's hip lumberjack shirt to wipe his asshole.

"And we have no idea who's doing this," said Bobby, wiping blood from his axe.

"I've told you motherfuckers once and I will say it again..." said Supervisor Bickle.

"We are so behind quota," he said gravely, "That if quota is the present day, then we're all buying cheap wooden tables from this eccentric new carpenter chappy named Jesus."

"Nobody's leaving this fucker until he hit quota, now get your dirty mouths back on those phones and get me some surveys bitches!!" he exclaimed as he rode out of the bathroom on a wave of his own glory.

So it came to pass, that after 3 murders and a human immolation, the traumatized interviewers sat their bitch-asses back down and tried to do surveys.

It wasn't working. There was now only an hour left and still hundreds of surveys to fill. Two more employees had been murdered.

The interviewers tried everything to be allowed to leave. They tried calling the police, but Supervisor Bickle blocked the number. They feigned sickness, hunger or a need to smoke but Bickle would not let them out. Bobby's shirt was soaked in blood and he needed a fresh change of clothes but still, 'Bickle the Bitch' (as they were now calling him) would not relent.

Finally, Duke Lewton figured it out. It hit him like the axe that hit Ann-Sue Yea's skull. He turned his mobile phone on, turned the ringer volume up to 11 and let that motherfucker ring. The phone room was stunned into silence. Everyone was amazed at his ingenuity.

Supervisor Bickle walked over to Duke.

"No mobile phones in the phone room," he said through gritted teeth, rage burning in his eyes.

"Fill in your time sheet, you're going home," he added.

Duke had to use every inch of restraint not to burst into mad celebration. He packed his shit, said smell ya later to the rest of the phone room, and fucked off into the beautiful freedom of the night.

Needless to say, one by one, every interviewer's phone started ringing and one by one, every fucker got sent home, much to his and her relief.

Strangely enough, only two interviewers did not get sent home. Nisa Rio forgot to charge her phone that morning and it was as dead as disco by the time the shift started. Bobby Bad Boy's phone, on the other hand, was at full battery power, but for some odd reason, he never used the phone-ringing ruse to escape.

Sadly, 5 minutes before the end of the shift, Nisa Rio was found dead in the female bathroom. She had very sadly, accidentally, brutally cut off her head while combing her hair. Alas, no one witnessed the accident at the time, as Bickle was in the phone room and Bobby had gone to the break room, to make himself a killer meal.

On the plus side, they just managed to make quota. So everyone lived happily ever after. Except the ones who were brutally murdered. Still, every cloud has a silver lining.

Bobby's Quotes

If you don't already know, Bobby Bad Boy is the most dashing debonair this side of the Irrawaddy.
Here are some of his quotes:



"For me, casual wear entails a calf-length frock coat and vest (double-breasted of course), pantaloons, four-in-hand necktie and riding boots. Formal wear begs the addition of a top hat and cane."



"I believe in simple things - the monarchy, serfdom, the extension of slavery to anyone without a knighthood, and shooting poor people - you know, basic Christian mores."



"A gentleman without a top hat is neither gentle nor a man."



"Only ruffians would vulgarize a Martini by shaking it. A true Martini is an elegant thing, to be massaged only by the most delicate of stirs, and drunk with a garnish of sophistication."



"The black umbrella is an essential accessory of a gentleman's uniform. It is used for pointing or hailing a coach. It must never be employed in so base a vocation as mere shelter. When it does rain, a gentleman is indoors, nursing a brandy."



"A gentleman must smell as luxurious in the privacy of his bedchamber, as he does in the sun-room of the maiden who's heart he courts."



"I do not sully my hands with rough peasant work. My brief time on this earth is spent in contemplation, prayer, letter-writing, holding lavish balls at my country estate, and fathering a vast herd of bastards with my indentured slaves."



"Many vagrants ask of me, 'Sir, you are so very wealthy, and so kind. Spare a farthing for a young urchin?' It brings a tear to my eye. I always cry before I murder children."



"A woman is not worthy of my affections unless she is draped in a cloud of delicate perfume, something borne upon the breeze, that smells as if a passing fairy had hiccuped and had previously been to a wine-vault."