Syrup by Maxx Barry Page B

sofa.
    “Oh, boy,” Letterman says, rolling his eyes. “He’s disappearing into the sofa, now. Can’t he even sit on the sofa?”
    “I’m still on the sofa, Dave,” Pamela says, smiling up at him.
    “What amazing buoyancy,” Letterman says. “Okay! What’s next? ”
    “ Dave . ”Pamela giggles.
    The floor is starting to dissolve underneath me and now I’m really panicking. “Dave? Can I get some help here? I need something to hold on to.”
    “Something real, maybe?”
    “ Dave! ” I scream, and the floor actually lets me go and I’m falling into a deep, thick, cloying blackness. I flail my arms wildly but there’s absolutely nothing to grab on to, and just as I’m sure I’m going to die, something bright and solid opens above my head and

the intangibility paradox
    6 is leaning over me, dizzyingly close. My world is framed by her jet-black hair.
    “6?” My voice is thick with sleep. 6 starts a little, a strange expression flitting across her face. I am suddenly sure that she has been watching me for a while. “6?”
    Abruptly she stands and walks away. She doesn’t even look at me when she says, “Tomorrow we go to Coke. I’ll wake you.”
    She steps out of the room, closing the door behind her.

morning breaks
    I’m woken by a dozen furious, hissing snakes crawling all over my body. I desperately grab at them for a few seconds before realizing that there are, in fact, no snakes, unless 6 is cooking them along with the bacon.
    “Morning,” I say, sitting up.
    “Bacon and eggs?” 6 asks.
    “You’re cooking for me?”
    6 sighs. She’s wearing dark red silk pajamas that are just a little too sheer for me at this time of the morning, and her hair is hidden under a huge towel. “Why shouldn’t I?”
    I struggle out of the sofa and wander into the kitchen for a glass of water. “6, don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate it. It’s just I thought that you being ... well, you, you wouldn’t subscribe to stereotypical roles like cooking for a man.”
    6 stares at me from under her towel. “The sad thing is right now you think you’re being nonsexist. You think if you just do everything the opposite of traditional gender stereotypes, you’re progressive and sensitive. Right?”
    I haven’t been awake long enough to be having this conversation. “Uh, well, yeah, I guess.”
    “Reversing gender stereotypes doesn’t eliminate them,” 6 says, tossing the bacon. “You just create a whole new set of prejudices. The fact is, if you weren’t sexist it wouldn’t matter whether a man or a woman cooked you breakfast.”
    I try to think of a reply, but everything that springs to mind is inflammatory. While I stand there dumbly, 6 eyes me, waiting for my next conversational blunder.
    “Can I make you a coffee?” I say.

a window
    While I’m in the shower, I look out the tiny window and watch people going to work. It’s fun and somehow liberating to be able to stand there naked and stare at people. I watch for about ten minutes, and then I realize that in their cars and business suits, everyone looks pretty much the same.

inside coke
    6 signs me in at Coke and I get a special CONTRACTOR badge. I spend most of the trip to the 14th trying to work out how to pin the badge onto my shirt before realizing it’s meant to clip on to my tie.
    The doors open and I’m hugely pleased to see that the first thing to greet me is a Coke machine. Around it, giant framed Coke ads litter the walls, so densely packed that some eager but misguided executive must have once said, “I want to see every ad we’ve ever done up there.”
    6 leads me down a corridor (red carpet) to a small dark office. It’s bare apart from a desk, an ergonomic chair and a computer with a pile of instructions. I study it for a second, then look back at 6, who is standing in the doorway like a gunfighter surveying a saloon. “Good luck, Scat.”
    “Thanks, kid,” I say, and if she hadn’t closed the door so fast, I would have