Because of this disaster, the union organized an emergency meeting, voting that Mad Ted equip all of the workers with mandatory snorkels, hoping that this would prevent any repeat occurrences. That day became known as “one hot mess.”
All of their uniforms were coded in different colors. The discrepancy in color was for identification purposes, so that each member could be identified within each division that that member was working in. Blue was for the brewing division, yellow was for the packaging division, and green was for the shipping division. All of this coding and categorizing allowed Mad Ted to keep track of the work efficiency from a visual perspective from his eagle’s nest office.
The eagle’s nest was Mad Ted’s office. The office protruded directly from the perfect center of the ceiling of the warehouse, hanging like an ornamental glass eye, watching over the workforce. The outside was constructed of mega-reflective, two-sided glass fun mirrors, that prevented anyone from the floor to look inside, allowing Mad Ted to secretly watch the work floor from above, like the inhabitant of a celestial body. The workers would never look up at the eagle’s nest, as it was coated in fearful images of their own humility. The reflective image of the fun mirrors would only offer the worker an atrocious view of their own subjugation, dressed in the persecuting uniform that was mandatory. One worker had attempted to stare up at the eagle’s nest, in moments of questioning. But immediately, the worker’s joints locked, stone-cold, as he remained trapped in the visual ascent of his own demise.
He was ashamed to see what he had transformed into, becoming too depressed to allow himself to work, as he then broke free from his locked-joints, removing himself from the warehouse by his own inner ambitions. He went home that day, unable to embrace his family. He entered into a dark hallway closet, locking the door, entrapping his humility in the closet, where he still remains, guarding his humility from ever escaping. The eagle’s nest was a fear dispensary, dripping in fear like a celestial utter, dangling above the workforce, installing suppressive remorse, rather than upward guidance, for all that entered onto the work floor.
During work hours, Mad Ted resided in the eagle’s nest that hung directly over top all of the work force. There was no elevator, stairs, or rope attached to the office that hung above the heads of the workers. No one was exactly sure how Mad Ted entered into the office, but everyone knew that he was inside. Periodically, through an omniscient intercom, Mad Ted’s voice could be heard. It was always hoped by the work force that he was just offering a daily announcement. But sometimes, his announcement would be directed towards a specific individual that was being monitored. The monitored individual was noticed for lacking the necessary care to efficiently execute his or her specific duty with the company. The omniscient voice would boom like a stoic deity, monotone, enraptured with ennui. It was emotionless, smooth, and powerful.
Mad Ted would administer the corrective discipline through the intercom as if he was communicating with the individual directly in a private office, speaking of personal information of the careless worker at his discretion, to enforce the discipline. Justice was served appropriately, as it appeared to Mad Ted that a worker with no care should be treated in the same manor. Mad Ted was cold and mechanical, lacking care or compassion, just as the careless worker. Medical, family, and criminal history were all revealed, humiliating the careless worker in front of the entire work force. The fear of humility installed by Mad Ted would enforce Mad Ted’s efficient environment, as everyone kept up the productive pace so not to have personal information revealed over a correction of inefficiency.
The hot sauce warehouse was such a national marvel because of its unprecedented, efficiency production, that it was routinely visited. Visitors and outsiders would enter, anticipating strict, traditional organization, with shelves, single-filed lines, cabinets, and routine labor checks, accordingly to specific times. However, the visitors would be overwhelmed with confusion and perturbation, as they were mentally limited from comprehending the organization that Mad Ted found to be effortlessly clear. The workers were not moving in single file, or straight lines, or anything else that would visually resemble order and structure to a common mind. It resembled mass chaos, similar to an evacuating building caused by a fire. Blue uniforms were mixing with yellow, as green uniforms were mixing with the blue. No one was in their designated location. The visitors would quickly leave, fearing the chaos, thinking that there was actually a fire.
But regardless of the floor’s perspective, the chaotic appearance was actually well organized with meaning and purpose. It originated from a formula that was so perplexing and complicated that it existed beyond the realm of language. The only realm that it existed in was inside the mind of Mad Ted. Mad Ted’s physiology lacked the required physical structures that were needed to utter the necessary noises to express the formula in a decipherable language. Not only was it impossible for Mad Ted to express the details of the formula, it was also impossible for the formula to be understood by another human being, as human beings lacked the physical properties required to interpret the formula. Mad Ted would forever be the only being with this complex knowledge of organization and efficiency because Mad Ted could never emit the sounds required for expressing the knowledge, nor could any being translate the emitted sounds because of insufficient biological receptors. All of these facts were assumed by the media.
Mad Ted deployed the moniker, “mad,” to his product when searching for a name to entitle his creation. The name took deeper meaning with Awful, Ohio, as the media and journalists were perplexed with unexplainable and inexplicable moments of success from a simple hot sauce recipe. Mad Ted would never share details of his operations or actions, which the media assumed was because of the complexity of the assumed formula, rendering him helplessly innocent from sharing his knowledge. However, this assumed information was too insipid to publish in the newspapers. The media and journalists never found innocence or helplessness as an intriguing and exciting story line, so they would pigeonhole Mad Ted as a shell-shocked hermit and a prodigious businessman, bearing great knowledge and unpredictable dynamism, all a while bearing impotent social skills.
The media desperately wanted to discover more information on the complexity of Mad Ted. He was renown for his efficiency, yielding great profit from very little input. It was a dream story for any journalist to uncover, considering that an article revealing the secrets of Mad Ted’s success would be read worldwide, rewarding the journalist with the monetary value sought by all Awful, Ohio individuals. But, information was difficult to retrieve.
A lot of the media publications had ventured away from the story, fearing that their credibility as journalists would be destroyed, as Mad Ted was becoming widely known as a clandestine. Printed articles would quickly be launched into the tabloids, as reputable newspapers were rejecting all articles. Printing any articles with Mad Ted as the subject was risky business. But one journalist by the name of Wilsie McHickoryboob knew that perseverance was much more eminent in achieving one’s destiny than feasibility. She devoted her life to acquiring information on the origins of Mad Ted, with intentions of sharing this information worldwide, securing the fame and integral recognition that she sought, so that she may receive a healthy portion of the Awful, Ohio currency.
Wilsie McHickoryboob was a petite woman, slightly larger than a homunculus. Her whiskey colored hair was always restrained into a pony tail, tucked behind her large ears that folded dexterously like a struggling mackerel flopping out of water. She was a journalist for the Awful Gazette, making a career out of exposing the unknown, revealing true mysteries that the population of Awful, Ohio sought to uncover. She searched hard to find these mysteries, often making most of them up.
Her first published article exposed the Awful, Ohio fire department as a secret society of pyromaniacs. Her writings detailed her personal observations of their nuanced intuition to simultaneously be in the exact location that fires were in. Wilsie, thus, concluded that the fire department wa
s being dictated by interior motives, feeding their own subjective desires to fulfill their flaming urges, proven by their presence at every inferno. The article was widely circulated, and not necessarily because of its journalistic integrity.
Wilsie had also believed that she revealed the truth behind the postal system, expressing the structure’s surreal hoax of distant relatives and family members with another published article. She hypothesized her skepticism that the post office never receives or delivers mail, but instead, uses underground scribes to manufacture artificial mail, that then gets sent, randomly, to receivers, impressing a belief of distant relatives and family members onto the population. She developed this theory when she received mail from a grandmother that wasn’t hers, which was actually the result of a missent package.
When the success of Mad Ted started to gain more notoriety, she had found it to be her journalistic duty to reveal the secrets behind this success, regardless of the threat to her credibility as an investigative journalist. This duty gusted within her like a guiding wind, directing Wilsie to the hot sauce production warehouse, where she would scout the scenery, hoping to discover any news or facts that she could report.
One day, she executed an undercover operation, disguising herself as a disgruntled worker, entering into the hot sauce warehouse. She followed the crowd of workers, which led her into the locker room of the warehouse. It was mostly men. Wilsie was hesitant, not wanting to get too far in the middle of everything, so she took a passive stance, remaining in the back of the locker room. Her observations were very detailed, as she took note of everything that was structuring the room that the men were swarming towards. There were no showers, nor lockers, nor towels. The locker room was relatively dry, compared to conventional locker rooms, with the exception of moisture emitted from the toilet bowls. There were no walls separating the toilet bowls, as she watched some of the workers sitting on the open toilets like park benches, sharing conversations and daily news. The men that weren’t using the toilets were entering into long, cylindrical tubes that coated the walls of the locker room, which Wilsie discovered to be called “changing chutes.”
Wilsie was watching all of the men enter separate changing chutes in their daily clothes, only to exit exactly four seconds later in their work galoshes, goggles, jump suites, hair nets, and snorkels. Wilsie managed to ask some questions, discovering that the experience of a changing chute was so alluring that it was the ultimate reason why the workers were able to enter the work force every day. It was even considered by the employees as a benefit.
“Every day, it becomes the single greatest moment of my life,” recited one star-gazing worker, excited to enter into the changing chute.
All of the workers would exit the changing chutes, sighing with griefless pleasure. A deep haze would exhaust from their mouths, through their snorkels, and float to the ceiling of the locker room like hot steam. According to one source, Wilsie found out that Mad Ted would never have to worry about running out of employees, because applications would fill up every day, with hopes of someday experiencing the changing chute.
Wilsie McHickoryboob used all of this information to publish an article the following day, describing the changing chutes lining all of the locker room walls, and how all of the workers would enter into the changing chutes. She was unable to describe personal experience of entering the changing chute, as she was not sure how to get her clothes back after being rearranged in a work uniform. So, like all successful journalists, she was forced to fabricate some details of the changing chutes, so that the vacant slots of readers’ unanswered questions had the facts to inject into the equation.
Wilsie described the interior as a gelatin mold that would shape the subject’s body, after the subject entered into the changing chute. The gelatin interior, as she assumed, would then make an impression of the subject’s body into the mold, as the chamber door would slide over the entrance, sealing the individual into the mold. She concluded that the member would be in complete darkness, perfect comfort, and eternal peace.
This information was publishing in an article that was printed in the Awful Gazette, making it the most highly circulated newspaper in the nation. Wilsie was recognized with great innovation and perseverance for finding the information that she was able to locate, to better inform the minimal reading public of Awful, Ohio who exactly Mad Ted was. Wilsie adored the admiration that she was praised with, and wished to continue receiving it. Mad Ted’s secrecy did not dissuade Wilsie, as she continued assuming more and more facts about Mad Ted.
Wilsie McHickoryboob continued writing articles on Mad Ted, going into great detail, suggesting that he was a great foreigner, bearing vast knowledge of unknowable depths, deduced from a perplexing upbringing. However, her fictional nonfiction stories were too heavily endowed with information to fit into small articles printed in the Awful Gazette. So soon enough, she transformed all of her efforts into a larger publication. Wilsie McHickoryboob postulated all of her conclusions and assumptions into a book that offered reasoning and explanations to all of the questions that surrounded the success and origins of Mad Ted. She focused on the assumed facts that he was a shell-shocked hermit, separated from society, concluding that this life style was the result of something installed from his child hood. Her assumptions started from the beginning of his life, offering the following origins:
“As an infant, Mad Ted was discovered by two adults, a male and female. They discovered him lofted in the cusp of a great oak tree, perched at the top of a gentle emerald hill, glistening in the spotlight, lodged in the wild. Mad Ted was wrapped in soft cashmere that grew from the innards of the great oak tree, cradling him gently like a fetus. The male and female removed the infant from the securing grip of the tree, usurping power over Mad Ted’s life, entitling themselves as his parents. They quickly adopted Mad Ted into their home, attempting to meld him with the other children that both parents had already conceived.
“However, Mad Ted was endowed with great efficiency that disallowed a smooth merger. By altering his perception, he was capable of surrounding himself with the appropriate influences to alter his learning experience, as he ignored the siblings that inefficiently entered into his life. His parents recognized the insular behavior, reacting sympathetically, concerned of the trauma that Mad Ted may have been induced with. So they raised Mad Ted as a single child, building his own private quarters in the home, with a separate entrance, so that he would never have to interact with the other children.
“Mad Ted was very selective with which moments in time he would interact with his parents, as he wished to remain anonymous to his siblings. To Mad Ted, from a young age, these interventions with his parents were never interventions, but forms of business negotiations. Even if the subject of the conversations were something as mundane as buying a new pair of sneakers, he could never allow potential competitors to be present. His brother and sister could never be allowed in the same room while these negotiations were going on, as negotiations were meant to remain private.
“Chores were his only forms of currency at a young age. ‘Hours’ were the labels of measurement for his chores, and his parents would exchange one hour of chores for $3. Mad Ted considered this to be a highly inefficient system, which he quickly corrected.
“Mad Ted had learned the inefficient system so well that at the age of thirteen, he had finally envisioned a more efficient method, which gave him reason to learn his siblings’ names. He was in search for employees, and his siblings were the best individuals he could find for the openings. $3 for one hour of chores was not worth the effort. Mad Ted realized that he needed to use his time to make more money. But at the same time, he needed to keep making the money that he was already making. So Mad Ted hired his brother to do his chores for $1.25 an hour, leaving Mad Ted with the difference of $1.75, and having all twenty-four hours in his day to make more money. Eventually, he became so accomplished, that he had then hired his sister to run his clerical needs. The benefits that M
ad Ted offered his siblings were incomparable to what his parents offered them. His parents could no longer compete with Mad Ted’s wages, and by the age of sixteen, he had delivered them an offer to buy them out. They were highly offended.
“Their reaction was very unprofessional. They yelled and screamed and kicked and displayed hundreds of thousands of other emotions that Mad Ted had never seen emitted from either of these beings. The displays were highly inefficient, exhausting energy with no return, and Mad Ted began to reconsider his offer, wondering why anyone would want to do business with beings baring unstable emotions. He reviewed his offer, wondering what it was that may have upset them. Everything that he offered was extremely reasonable. The offer was honest and fair, explaining every detail to them in the contract, to assure his parents that they were receiving a golden opportunity. He remained firm with the offer. But instead they remained appalled. His sobbing mother buried her face into his father’s shoulders, as his father scolded Mad Ted once more. His parents were attempting to upbring a loving family, sharing wholesome values and intentions, but instead, Mad Ted had transformed it into a factory. His parents permanently excused his existence from the property, and asked that he never return again. Mad Ted willingly left the property, no longer wishing to do business with those individuals, as he thoroughly believed that their rejection was a testimony to their incompetent business model.”
It was a revealing speculation on the origins of Mad Ted. Wilsie had suggested that her assumptions were true, all deduced from the information that was unavailable. The population of Awful, Ohio was highly engaged with the book, as it was the only material available on Mad Ted. Wilsie’s writing continued from his upbringing, ascending into the start of his hot sauce dynasty, exposing more of his beginning.
“But, because of Mad Ted’s unorthodox efficiency, he was able to utilize this opportunity. Being exiled didn’t hurt Mad Ted. It liberated him. Mad Ted was now able to utilize his efficiency on human beings in the working world. He wanted to get started immediately. He needed a product, and thus, created a basic hot sauce recipe. There wasn’t anything new or any type of special ingredient in Mad Ted’s hot sauce. It simply did what it was supposed to do; to be hot. What propelled it to the stature that it received was that Mad Ted bull-rushed all of the advertisements. Rather than spend money on large billboards or commercials, he would just fly to major cities, and post 1000 stickers, 1000 posters, and 1000 t-shirts on anything that he could fit the items on.
“The t-shirts were mostly given to the homeless, as they were the ones most willing to wear the t-shirts. And when Mad Ted ran out of t-shirts, the homeless would grab the stickers and cover their bodies in stickers as well. Mad Ted’s hot sauce received national recognition, not for its divine flavor, but for being one of the world’s most humane entrepreneurs. Mad Ted’s concerns weren’t where the advertisements were, just as long as they could be easily read. His advertisements were read easily, and spread through word-of-mouth, which worked efficiently and brilliantly.
“Theodore collected his earnings and erected a warehouse in Awful, Ohio. He employed a large fragment of the population, and remained the most successful business owner in thriving Awful, Ohio.”
Wilsie McHickoryboob’s book continued with the assumed allegations that scripted the origins of Mad Ted. The book was a best seller in Awful, Ohio. The population had read the book, finding the assumptions of Wilsie’s work to be very revealing and honest. The public adored the knowledge offered by Wilsie, as they had all believed that it was their privilege to know something about the person that erected the most successful business in Awful, Ohio.
Of all the population that had read the book and articles on Mad Ted, the biggest adorer was Theodore Sphinctor. Theodore Sphinctor was Mad Ted. It was unknown by everyone in Awful, Ohio that Mad Ted’s real name was Theodore Sphinctor. His disposition within Awful, Ohio as the mad, corporate executive, had disallowed any probability of being recognized as an average citizen, concluding to Awful, Ohio that it was impossible for him to have a common name, such as Theodore Sphinctor.
Theodore found the writings of the book to be enlightening as it brought forth information to him that he had dismissed from his memory. As a man of great efficiency, he determined that storing profitless memories were useless. So, Theodore had erased all of his memories that dictated his genesis, as they harbored no profitability. It was unknown by Theodore if the information in Wilsie’s book contained any truth of his origins. However, truthful or not, Theodore, just as the rest of Awful, Ohio, had read every word of that book with great validity.
The birth within a great oak tree provided Theodore with reason for his long limbs, as Theodore Sphinctor was a tall and lanky man, thin with a skeletal frame pluming from beneath his translucent skin. This made Theodore easy to notice. He was always the tallest human in the room by at least half a foot. The shape of his head resembled an exotic bird, as the back of his head was very elongated, while his nose stuck out from his face like a beak of a toucan with a cold. Theodore often had a difficult time finding shirts with appropriate sized neck holes.
Theodore may very well have been all of these things that Wilsie’s book and her articles wanted to depict him as. However, as a man of great efficiency, he had found this information of his past to be very inefficient, as it denigrated his hot sauce empire. Theodore Sphinctor needed to rebuild his reputation before it would collapse his company.
To rebuild his reputation, Theodore tried to display familiarity with society, so to diffuse any hypothesis that suggested he was a shell-shocked hermit baring impotent social skills. He would wander through the streets of Awful, Ohio, hoping to be witnessed by all of the public, displaying average actions similar to regular Awful, Ohio citizens. But regardless of his efforts to rebuild his reputation, these media-induced accusations, true or false, were already known by everyone in Awful, Ohio as true.
Awful, Ohio’s knowledge of Theodore as a shell-shocked foreigner, baring great knowledge, endowed a mysterious appeal to his presence. Average citizens would fancy over his abnormal, physical appearance, watching him with anticipation like a resurrected prophet, rather than ignore him like a regular citizen. No one would ever approach him, greet him, or acknowledge him. Instead, the entire population would guffaw and stare, wondering in bewilderment, what forms of efficiency the giant, bough-limbed man would display next upon Awful, Ohio.
Once he was photographed holding open a door, while sipping from a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Dual-activity” and “simultaneous-actions” and “multitasking” filled newspapers and journals, claiming the event to be a majestical gift that beheld the earth. His efficiently mechanical actions through Awful, Ohio were spellbound throughout the newspapers, as media and journalists feverishly consumed all the visual mechanics that Theodore displayed, building more on the idea that he was a shell-shocked hermit from a foreign land. Theodore had attempted to remove these accusations, but was never able to succeed, as he had never displayed enough emotions to suggest any type of pride over his success. Acting humbly was more efficient than acting arrogantly. But emotional reactions were what the media sought. His attempts to restore his reputation for the sake of his company were done in vain, as the media only used his public appearances to reinforce the denigrating truths that they had already assumed, that he was a shell-shocked hermit, baring impotent social skills. He had lost ownership of his history, as it was now controlled by Awful, Ohio.
But, in a final effort to regain control of his own history, Theodore held a press conference on the property of his compound. Media and journalists and photographers gathered around, surrounding the entire facility, patiently waiting for the information that Theodore had to offer. Theodore stood in front of a podium, ready to speak into a microphone that was made from a hot sauce bottle. This was his moment to recapture his history. He was ready to tell his story, but Theodore had no history to offer. His madness had erased everything away. There was nothing for him to say
, and there was no way for him to regain control of his history. He stood before the recording masses, unable to make an attempt to rectify his image. His body remained on stage, gangly and silent, until one member from the media masses decided to take advantage of the opportunity by speaking up, “how did you manage to become so efficient?”
Theodore remained stoic. He wanted to offer some truth to the media that came from his work, so that he would be able to restore his image that correlated with the company’s. It was highly inefficient to share company secrets with the public, but it was also inefficient to allow the public to assume drastic truths that could potentially repress the future of his company. Theodore took a deep breath and leaned towards the microphone. The subtle wind exhaling through his large nostrils could be heard through the speakers. Theodore paused, parching his lips, as his fluid tongue rippled inside of his mouth, emitting a soundly response of “the colors.”
The media and journalists didn’t understand. “The colors” didn’t offer any insight to their question, nor did it answer any questions regarding his efficiency. They were all anticipating a complex answer, an answer that was so large that it would require them to fill every page of their note pad. But instead, they all remained standing on the facility, without anything to answer their questions. They had all left the facility that day, disappointed, condemning the fault to Mad Ted’s shell-shocked ways, only to continue publishing fabricated articles about Mad Ted, as a shell-shocked hermit, who was too foreign to offer any insight to the public about his efficiency. However, no matter how perplexing, mechanical, and mystic everyone had made Theodore out to be, he had always recognized his understanding of efficiency as normal.
Theodore Sphinctor surrendered his history to the media of Awful, Ohio, as well as the company’s reputation. He never again attempted to communicate with the media, making the growing success of his company his primary concern. Theodore entered into his eagle’s nest office for permanent seclusion, where he would watch over his creation, making sure that nothing would attempt to take it away from him. He sat back in the chair at his desk, supervising the work floor, always making sure that there was a bluish hue color radiating from the floor.
The colors that Theodore had mentioned to the media were the colors that his employees were wearing. Blue, green, and yellow were intentional. When the employees would move at just the right pace, produce just the right amount of product, and exalt just the right amount of energy, a bluish hue would hover off of the work floor, and surround Mad Ted in his eagle’s nest office. Mad Ted would never look at the floor, unless the hue grew too green or too yellow. Blue was the equivalent of perfect efficiency. And as long as Theodore was surrounded by a sea of blue, he would float haplessly in his eagle’s nest towards which ever direction his empire would sail him in.
Chapter 4
We are here,
because we live in fear,
and being in here
brings us
peace and cheer.