Paul Kohler - The Borrowed Souls, A Novel

Strangely enough, what the old man was telling me sounded logical. I simply nodded and then once again flipped the coin over between my fingers.

After a short ride up the elevator, I was sitting behind my faux mahogany desk ready to dive into my day. There were a few voice messages, each one from my boss, Mr. Pearlman. Listening to each message in succession, Pearlman’s voice grew more irate, yet it was still not far from his normal communication level.

After listening to his final message, all I wanted to do was lock my office door and hide until the end of the day. I knew that wasn’t going to be an option when Gwen, Pearlman’s personal assistant, walked in.

“Good morning, Mr. Duffy. Mr. Pearlman needs to see you right away. Shall I tell him you’re on your way up?” she asked, sounding friendly despite working for the asshat of the department.

Even though he was originally in a middle management position below my own, Julio Pearlman was promoted to department chief six months ago. Now he’s my freakin’ boss. Please, just kill me.

“Uh, yeah. I’ll be up in a few minutes. Let me get settled in, it’s been a crazy morning.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Duffy. I’ll tell him you are on your way up,” Gwen said, changing my words.

Not being too eager to meet with the man, I took my time sorting my desk to start the day. After several minutes of mindlessly pushing piles of paper from one side of the desk to the other, I took a deep breath and headed for the elevator. As the elevator was mindless of my impending agony, the ride up was mercilessly short and the doors opened directly into Pearlman’s lobby. I stepped out and headed toward his office. As I was about to knock, Gwen opened the door and glided out of the office, leaving the door open.

Having known Pearlman since before his promotion, I’d never seen him smile. Not once. Even now he looked particularly unhappy. It was as if he was making a concerted effort to sneer at me. I knew this meeting wasn’t going to go well.

“Mr. Duffy, how nice of you to make it in today. You know you’re more than an hour late this morning?” Pearlman started off. I stood in silence for a moment, contemplating the best reason to give for my late arrival.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself? Why were you late? Again, I might add.”

“There was—”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses!” Pearlman barked. “You’re a substandard employee doing a substandard job. If I had my way, you would have been let go a long time ago. And frankly, I’m trying to find a reason why my predecessor even hired you in the first place. This morning’s irresponsible action only illustrates my point. Do you think you belong up here with all the other hard-working people of the company?”

Wishing for a rock to either crawl under or crack over Pearlman’s head, my tongue was frozen to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t speak to save my life. And honestly, I’m not sure words would have benefited me in any way. Thankfully, Pearlman paused his chastisement long enough to catch his breath.

“I hope you realize, Mr. Duffy, that you are by no means irreplaceable. Your employment here at the company makes no difference to me or to anyone else for that matter. So I believe the choice is yours. You’re either here at your desk on time, or you can find another job. Do I make myself clear?”

I decided to stay silent. I knew it would be pointless to argue. Since my morning was deteriorating rapidly, I took the high road. Besides, if I were to point out that the last time I was late was because the parking garage was locked, it would have only prolonged the lecture.

Once Pearlman realized that I wasn’t going to give him the rope to hang me with, he barked loudly, “Get out!”

I happily obliged and retreated past Gwen’s desk and back down the elevator to my office. I unceremoniously deleted Pearlman’s voice messages before digging into my work.

While my PC booted up, I pulled the latest spreadsheet from the mergers and acquisitions project folder and laid it out next to the keyboard. Although an entire team was working on the merger, it was my responsibility to quantify this particular acquisition with hard numbers. Really, it was just busywork, as all the data had been assembled by others. I just needed to find the correct solution to a few key points and send it up the ladder for approval.

The task at hand was to review sales numbers from the target company over the past decade and compare their reaction to world events, religious activities, and technological advancements in the stated period. Even though the work was tedious, I tried my best to stay on task. But I knew that even after spending days on end evaluating the data, it would all end up stuffed in some file folder, never to be seen again. Busywork or not, my professional pride prevented me from treating it as such. The entire report hinged on this one final solution, and despite the speed and accuracy of the modern-day computer, it could not calculate that outcome without the required data.

The morning passed quietly as I stared at various flow charts and spreadsheets. As I switched back and forth between two key charts, I could sense a rhythm in the numbers that I had failed to notice before. As I homed in on a certain string, the answer would dance off the screen, causing me to flip to another document. The drifting of numbers was maddening, but I knew I was close. I stuck with it. I also knew that I couldn’t force it, because heading down that rabbit hole was a CLM that I couldn’t afford to take.

Pushing the thought of Career Limiting Moves out of my mind, I caught sight of something on the third spreadsheet. Could it be? I quickly shot back to the original document and then back to the modified version. Yes! There it was. The solution was coming into focus. I initiated a few test computations, and although I was certain it would come back green, my pulse rose slightly. As I intently watched the screen for the solution to appear, I was startled by the sound of the phone. Jumping slightly, my hand twitched on the mouse just enough to click the cancel button on the screen.

“God dammit!” I yelled. The computation was gone. The elusive solution was now a whisper in the wind, and I knew I would have to try to retrace the path again.

“How unfortunate, the timing of that phone call. And you lost all your work up to that point,” said Wilson.

“Hmm. It looks like I did,” I replied, as I thought about what I had just recited to him. “It’s weird. I don’t remember any of this stuff happening to me, but as I go through the memories and tell them aloud, I know they are my memories. Why is that? I mean, why are they foreign to me until I tell them out loud?”

Wilson nodded his head as he listened to my question. He sat silent for a few moments before replying. “I am certain the memories are all there inside your head, but there must have been a critical event that caused you to block them from your conscious mind.”

“What kind of critical event are we talking about?” I asked.

“Oh, it could be anything from a pet dying to witnessing something disturbing. It quite often varies from person to person, depending on how intense their personal life is. Let’s continue,” said Wilson as he glanced at his watch.

The phone rang again and again. In my disgust, I snatched up the receiver and barked, “Duffy.”

“Mr. Pearlman needs to see you right away,” Gwen said on the other end of the line.

“Can it wait until after lunch? I’m at a critical—”

“I’m sorry, Jack, but he said immediately,” Gwen said before disconnecting the line.