Prep Time

The next morning after breakfast, while I sat at the computer trying to envision the kinds of revisions Hortensia Naranja might require I make on Utomepia, I couldn't get past the nagging feeling that there was something bothering me--something, that is, in addition to my ongoing incarceration and the physical abuse to which I had recently been subjected.  For the life of me, though, I could not put my finger on it.  So I had just determined it would distract me from my task not a second longer when the cell door opened.  Before turning I tried to savor momentarily the satisfied look of accomplishment I expected to find on the face of the lovely Nanime, who surely was justifiably proud of both me and herself.  But when I pirouetted in my office chair I was startled to discover a man standing there.

"Hello," he said.

He was a young man, perhaps in his mid-thirties, an unkempt splash of ebony hair smudged across his broad, white forehead, Wooly Bear Caterpillar eyebrows arched over iris-less bituminous eyes, a five-o'clock shadow as coarse as macrogrit sandpaper, and a lopsided smile that revealed a crooked canine badly in need of a seeing-eyetooth.

I said, "Who are you?"

"Max Prompter.  Hortensia asked me to make you my special project."

"I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

He laughed, an outburst that crossed the line from snort to guffaw.

I said, "Where's Nanime?"

"Last I heard they had transferred her to the federal facility at Remainderland."

"I've never heard of that place.  Where is it?"

"The north of Finland.  Does it matter?"

"She did a lot for me.  I'd like to think she's okay."

He nodded his understanding, waited just long enough for a respectful moment to pass, then said, "We've got things to do.  I'm going to give you recommendations and suggestions--some stronger than others--about how you should proceed to polish this work.  Hortensia sees real promise here--and believe me, where the Queen of Agents finds merit it exists.  So we need to be diligent.  First up:  you need to tone the sex scenes down.  Any future sexual encounters mustn't even hint at the lewd or lascivious.  You've already accomplished your purpose with your prior sexual scenes, and you've set the audience up perfectly.  Finding 'tamer' trysts will convince readers that more explicit relations await them in future chapters, forcing them to read on eagerly."

He fixed his lump-of-coal eyes on me in a look whose message was clear:  do you understand the instruction?

I nodded my understanding.

"Additionally," he said, "we need more action.  The opening of the book is brilliant, and you keep the reader's eyes riveted to the pages.  But it's bogged down a bit after the capture and incarceration.  No physical violence, though; that will come later in the denouement.  Agreed?"

"Agreed."

He said, "Also, we need to begin preparations for your coming out."

"Coming out?  I'm going to reveal that I'm really gay?"

"Don't be absurd," he said, struggling not to burst out laughing.  "Your 'coming out' at the literary ball."

"Will I be required to wear a tuxedo?"

"Most likely," he said, quickly dismissing that particular comedic track.  "The kind of preparation I'm talking about revolves around you writing reviews of other people's books in your spare time.  You'll visit all the social media sites, whether they're dedicated to writers or not, and you'll click on as many links to their books as is physically and psychologically possible.  Most will take you to the world's largest online bookseller--Ambargutenpress.glo--where you'll leave your reviews.  Each review you deposit is like money in the World Bank, accruing interest until that moment in the near future when it's time to cash in your chips."

Max Prompter was a highly-motivated young man, and I couldn't help but admire his intellect.  He and Hortensia Naranja had--for whatever reason--high hopes for me, and I wanted to make sure I did everything in my power not to let them down.

When he left a few minutes later, he said, "You're going to get back to work, right?"

"Absolutely."

And I did.  I edited and revised right until dinnertime, and afterwards I began writing reviews of other people's books.  Some could only be described as "pure crap," but I sucked it up and lied my ass off about the relative merits of each and every one.

Later, as I lay in my bunk, the nagging sensation of an unidentifiable worry returned.  This time the object of my concern was a little clearer.  It had to do with Hortensia Naranja.  But what?  Naranja.  The disquieting feeling seemed to revolve around her last name.  Naranja.  It was a word in Spanish.  I had studied a little Spanish as an undergraduate, and the word naranja existed somewhere in the Dictionary of Foreign Words and Expressions located on the bottom shelf in the lower level of the library buried deep inside my mind.  But I couldn't find the volume.

I thought about Max Prompter and what he had called her:  "The Queen of Agents."

I grew drowsy as the words that had been knocking around inside my head transmogrified into a tiny flock of sparrows that twittered around the base of a tree whose trunk was painted white a third of the way up.  The birds lifted off the ground all at once, flew in a tight spiral around the green crown of the tree, then disappeared inside the leaves, except for one who landed on a globular fruit of the tree and began pecking at the thick rind.

My eyes opened and I stared at the dark ceiling of my cell.  "Naranja," I said aloud.  "Orange."

I sat up, flipping my legs over the side of the bunk, planting my feet firmly on the tile floor.  I said, more boldly, "The Queen of Agents."

Standing, I walked into the bathroom, switched the light on and stared at myself in the tiny mirror.  I watched as my reflection mouthed the words that had suddenly sprung to mind:  "AgentOrange."