casual friday

Below you will find the beginning of a story, titled Casual Friday. Your job is to add to that story, chapter by chapter, by filling out the form at the bottom of this page. Chapter 1 has been written by clear and obvious, but the rest will be written by you, the reader.

Guidelines

• Don’t kill off any central characters

• Don’t dramatically alter the timeline of the narrative, ie. your chapter should pick up where the previous chapter left off

• Stick to the tone and tense of the story so far

• Feel free to introduce new characters or story threads, but stick to the plot and main cast

• Avoid details that contradict any previously established character traits

• The story should follow the headings in the bulleted list from chapter 1*

• The final chapter must culminate with the events leading up the scene described in the prologue

(clear and obvious maintains editorial control)

Prologue

The man opened his eyes and loosened his grip on the Daffy Duck necktie that was fastened tightly around his male victim’s throat. He looked down at his hands, blackened and bloodied, then at the victim’s wide but unseeing gaze. The man’s Adidas Gazelle sneakers were also bloodstained, and the strap of his smartwatch had been pulled away forcibly from his wrist, leaving a friction burn.

The victim’s lifeless body lay face up on the nylon office carpet that lined the floor. His sizeable midriff was exposed; the buttons that once held together his sky-blue shirt scattered to all four corners of the room. The man – who was of a far slighter build, but wiry and strong – sat astride the victim’s broad chest, his knees pressed firmly into the ground.

The man felt foggy and nauseous as though he had suffered a concussion. As he lifted up his right leg and rolled away from the victim’s body, he noticed his iPhone’s cracked screen had lit up on the floor. It was evening time, after hours, and the incoming phone call was now the office’s only source of brightness.

With every vibration the phone edged further away from the man, who by this point was lying flat on his back.


He leaned across to grab it before it rang out.

“Rick” the screen read, along with a photo the man had taken with his best friend on their trip to Corfu in 2016.

“Slide to answer.”

Instead the man opted to decline the call.

He held down the home button.

“Hey Siri, how to make a body completely disappear,” he muttered, barely coherent.

“I’m not sure I understand,” came the reply.

The man raised his voice, his faculties failing him as he grew more and more faint.

“How to disappear a body completely.”

“Playing How to Disappear Completely by Radiohead.”

The phone slipped out of the man’s hand. He began to drift in and out of consciousness as the lyrics played:

“I’m not here… this isn’t happening… I’m not here… I’m not here…”

Chapter one: Conversation with Chloe

12 hours earlier

Lou’s was an ordinary coffee shop; busy only early in the day when its second-hand furniture and barstools were occupied by office workers getting their caffeine fix and students looking for a discount americano and a place to charge their phone.

Rick bit down on a half-price almond croissant left over from the day before.

“Shoot me in the head if I have to spend another day working on this,” he said, spitting crumbs on the laptop he had open on the low coffee table in front of him.

Rick was a scriptwriter. Between jobs, he had taken to offering his services as an editor on Craiglist to service his considerable debt and keep his landlord at bay.

“Have you considered OnlyFans? There’s a big market for whiny men who spit croissant flakes at each other.” Tony, Rick’s best friend, was sat back in his chair, scrolling with one hand and flicking pastry shrapnel off his thighs with the other.

“I just wish I could write what I want to write,” Rick sighed, “rather than sifting through other people’s bullshit all day.”

“You could write my life for me,” Tony replied.

Rick scoffed.

“No seriously, think about it,” Tony put his phone down on the arm of the chair and leaned forward. “I haven’t been on a date in months,” he started counting on his fingers, “I haven’t had a promotion in years, I still live in the same shithole I lived in through college… How about you script my life instead and who knows, maybe things will turn around.”

Rick laughed. “Act one: Tony tells his boss to go to hell.”

“Ha! OK let’s not start with that.” Tony downed the dregs of his flat white. “Anyway, that data isn’t going to analyse itself.”

Tony pushed his chair back to stand up, sending his phone crashing to the tiled floor below. He held up the cracked screen to show Rick.

“See, this is the kind of shit you can make sure doesn’t happen.”

Tony left for work.

––––––

Vanitas was an IT consulting firm that specialised in location-based machine learning. Tony worked as data quality analyst at the company. His LinkedIn profile described him as a “highly motivated, detail-oriented data enthusiast who is skilled in Python, SQL, machine learning and data visualisation, with experience in report analytics, dashboard creation and maintenance”. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Tony stood in the office kitchen, staring into the middle distance as the hand-me-down Krups coffee machine spat out his second cup of the day.

“Hiya.” Tony’s colleague Chloe walked in. Chloe worked in HR, was about Tony’s age, with sandy brown hair and a soft smile. “I hear that machine going and it makes me crave coffee.”

Tony stiffened up as he laughed. “Like Pavlov’s dogs,” he quipped.

“What do you mean?”

Tony’s palms were now sweating and his nervous laughter grew in intensity. “Nothing, just this Russian scientist who would ring a bell whenever he fed his dogs and over time they would expect to be fed every time they heard a bell ring.”

Megan, whose role at the company was a mystery to everyone, arrived in time to save Tony from further explanation. “How are we, guys?”

“All good – Tony was just telling me how I reminded him of a dog.”

Tony liked Chloe, and had done since meeting her during his initiation day at the company. He looked forward to their interactions, but never had the courage to take things beyond idle small talk in the break room.

Chloe wasn’t offended by Tony’s Pavlovian tangent, in fact she knew all about Ivan Pavlov’s research in classical conditioning from her time studying psychology in university. She was only teasing, but Tony took this barb as his opportunity to leave and return to his desk.

It was a Friday, which meant the employees of Vanitas had pizza to look forward to for lunch. It also meant the company’s smart dress code was relaxed for the day. More senior members of the company would keep to their formal wear but adorn their outfit with a wacky shirt or colourful blouse. On this casual Friday, Tony wore a deep red t-shirt, a checkered overshirt, washed-out blue jeans and a pair of white and green Adidas Gazelles.

Just as Tony narrowed his focus on his tasks for the morning, his smartwatch buzzed. It was a message from Rick.

“Check out the first draft.”

Tony opened the message on his phone to find a hastily written script of the day ahead under the following headings:*

• Conversation with Chloe

• Lunchtime

• A productive afternoon

• Dealing with Fergus

• Disposing of the body

Tony laughed and closed the phone just as his boss arrived by his deskside.

“Snowed under I see!”

“Hi Fergus, yeah I’m expecting news from my parents so I thought I had better check.”

“Nothing serious I hope! Listen, I know I said next week was fine for getting the visualisation graphs over to me, but I actually need them for a meeting first thing Monday, so if you could stay late today to wrap that up it would be mucho appreciado.”

Mr Harte was head of operations but sat at a desk on the same level as his subordinates and insisted they call him by his first name. ‘Servant leadership’ he called it. Tony called it ‘being a massive fucking bellend’.

“No worries, I’ll get that done,” Tony replied with a level of enthusiasm not consistent with that of a highly motivated, detail-oriented data enthusiast.

“Perfecto, I owe you one!” Fergus swivelled to turn away before spinning back around and holding out his necktie for Tony to look at.

“What do you think?”

“Daffy Duck, nice.”

Tony put is head down and made a start on the graphs.