hereyougopeanutbutter

[hereyougopeanutbutter]

Winners

Winners

 Pony stays in the other section of the building. She said it was a different Panda division but when I asked her what it looked like she texted back ‘worktables with beds, there are about 24 others and no one talks’

The same as in my section. There are 20 of us. And about 50 writing tables. I’m in the front on the left, close to the door. The walls are covered with brown wooden panels dating back to the previous century I believe, in the corner long rectangle speakers and on the front wall two ShunSha LED screens which tell us the weather and switch to the Panda statement, our commitment to Panda and the recognition we will get if we get through. I turn my eyes away. I better focus on what I need to do.

In the morning, they serve breakfast on the side of the room, on large tables. White and brown bread with marmalade, peanut butter, and chocolate sprinkles with butter on shelves. Slices of cheese and bacon in plastic containers. Same at noon. For supper, big pans of stew are rolled in, with whitebread and spoons.

We are not allowed to go to the sleeping section after 8.30 am. In the evenings, everybody crashes on their beds, grabs their cell phones, some bottles of alcohol or other drinks, some smoke cigarettes from the windows in the toilets. I don’t pay attention to them, most of the time I’m in bed right after  8 pm.

 In the morning I eat my sandwich, I like the marmalade and I eat a sandwich while I prepare a peanut butter and gelly one for while I’m working. It’s not allowed but they let me. I also keep my phone with me while working.

“Reached 40,000” Pony texted, “revision going well?”

“Edited up to six chapters, think I’m going to make it.”

“Good. Good. Think of you, go go go Pigtails, love you”

“Need help?”

But Ponytail doesn’t answer. 40,000 words and only 3 more weeks to go.

   In the morning the fear that filled my heart the evening before comes up almost instantly when I wake up. I dreamt about her, how we were swimming in the roaring waters of the Mississippi. “M-I-S-S-I-S-S-P-P-I,” she said as water gulped in her mouth. “Pony, you need to swim, cut the crap” I shouted. “M-I-S-S…” but she didn’t get any further, the part of the river was loud and I had a hard time pulling her up above the water and keeping alive myself.

My little sister, Justine, the tiny baby born when I was four. Her body frame stayed small and frail. When she was young she started calling me Pigtails instead of Amanda. I liked pigtails in my hair. Tamara became Pinky, Tamara loved her pink leggings. She asked Justine how we should call her and Justine fluttered the peaking hair on her head. Mom had tried to created ponytails on either side of her head. “Ponytails!” And from that moment on we were there, ponytails, pigtails and pinky, later Pony, Pig and Pinky.  

“You’ll get it done?” I text. The ward comes in slamming the bell and just to avoid the noise everybody walks to their working tables to start up their word processors, ugly old Dynamics. Mine hums during the day, I listen to it as the clicking of my keys moves along.

“Get started sunshines, poop out the books and go for the million!” the ward shouted as loud as he could over the bell. “People are anxious for your books, com’on, we’re halfway there, three more weeks!”

My phone buzzes “I might”.

 On the wall the screen turns on, bright white, two of them showing one image, the table with the chair, cut in half by the black plastic borders of the SunShu. But we know. Fear sets in the group, we all look around and count. We are still with 20. It must be from the other group. I look at my phone but the ward is still close and he might see me. My fingers slowly tick on the screen ‘y-o-u 0-k-a-y?’ and press send. Pony sends back a ‘y’

The Panda declaration about how we signed up for writing the next bestseller comes up. How we committed to a good sellable story and how the first draft was due in 6 weeks with at least 100,000 words. Panda would help us. Panda guarantees sales of 50,000 copies to all Panda members around the world and oh just so you know Panda has 31,000 active daily accounts. Daily

“We will change your life” it then said. One sentence. “And you agreed we could have it if you fail”

 I don’t recognize the person. She fights the two men who hold her upper arms, we hear ‘No, no!’ but the men guide her to a table where her head is pushed down on the table. A third person behind the chair walks up and pushes the muzzle again the back of her neck. I close my eyes and try not to hear the echoing bang.

 My editing work goes in trembling episodes that day. The killings. The killing is a condition. Panda’s idea of motivating. I think of my mother. I think of Pinkytail and Ponytail, Pinky who went into options trading, and Pony who said she could write a winning Panda book but said last week she was struggling, I can’t worry about her because I need to get my book done.

 This is my second run. I got through the first run and went home. They all hugged me. The money, Panda’s money was in my bank account already, 99,000 dollars. Pinky hugged me and we both cried. We didn’t tell Pony but let her tag along when we picked up mom’s wheelchair, the three of us in the truck, singing and laughing. Pony cried when I paid for the wheelchair in the store, asking ‘where did you get the money, where did you get it?’ and I said I finished a Panda session. Pony burst out in crying. Couldn’t stop. Even in the car home she kept saying ‘That’s where you were, I was wondering what happened. You could have been killed Pigs, don’t ever do that again!” But I hugged her and we both cried. We bought cranberries at the farm store and we ate ice cream on the bench, we overlooked the land and the sun shone, we looked at each other and there was nothing more than love and gratitude. They didn’t know I had already signed up to go back. The edited version – once approved by Panda – would pay me $499,999.-.

Enough to buy mom and all of us a new future. We could move.

 The next day, I wake up refreshed. I am not sure what has caused this but I decide to take the sweep of energy and get to work at my desk. The others complain and wipe their eyes, two of them pout about not hitting their targets but I block it out. Two double sandwiches, one with cheese and bacon, the other a peanut butter and gelly sit on my desk. I work through two chapters stringently blocking out the ward with the bell, blocking out my hunger and my tea getting cold. I read the words and weigh them in my head, re-create sentences and my muse works in the background, it’s just him and me. When I take a sip of my tea I notice it’s cold. I take a bite of my sandwich, afraid I will lose the zone I’m in if I eat more. I write like I did when I was younger, pumping out words that came to mind, the movie continued endlessly and went as fast as my fingers could keep up. For my mom. My mom, I see her at her sewing machine, winding a bobbin and working on my favorite blouse.

Before lunch I have 8 chapters done. They bring in the lunch, the bread, the bacon, and the cheese. I ate my breakfast about an hour ago but I’m hungry again.

“They brought me in,” Pony’s text says.

My hands tremble. Pony got her warning. “How far are you?”

“40k”

I look at my phone. She was at 40k yesterday, she was supposed to be at at least 50,000 words.

“You said you could do it”

“I’m scared Pigs”

Fear fills my gut. I panic. They read her work last night, they always do. Based on their algorithms they have determined Pony is in the danger zone and she needs to make up at least 50%. There is one next warning. I think of Pinky and the story I was writing on at home.

 I looked to the others in my room. Some are comfortable. With headphones in and others biting their nails as they write, some panic, some pound out the words. I text Pony but she doesn’t answer back.

 I eat lunch. My brain is on overdrive. I walk around the room, it’s air-conditioned but the weather outside is warm. Then Pinky texts me. I cannot look at my phone at the lunch table when the staff is there so I need to get to my desk. I chew quickly and glob down some tea. I try to make it look casual as I walk to my desk and start to type a document so it seems I’m back to work.

Pinky says: “I sent you the story, does Pony know how to decrypt? If they find out…” I see the paperclip friendly blinking in a corner. I only have to resend it to Pony. But then the door opens and Simone steps in, she looks at me with an iron smile saying ‘Come with me please’. I freeze. The others are silent and I don’t know what’s wrong. I go into the office where I signed my contract with Panda, I remember sitting here, the pen on a chain is still there.

“We are following your progress, Amanda. You are doing very well and we wondering if you’d be done by next week at this pace?”

I look up to Simone. There must have been a beautiful woman at one point I guess. Now she turned older. And less caring.

“Don’t I have 2 more weeks?”

“You do, you do. But we can get in print quicker if you want”, Amanda twists her pencil, “there could be a bonus.”

I’m silent.

“You’ll get 50,000 more”

I overthink the situation. Suddenly I don’t care about the money anymore and grab all my courage “How much does it cost me to get Pony out?”

“And your work is done?”

Is she going to say they’d take my book and we both walk? I would agree. But no matter how hard it is to stay quiet, I say nothing.

Simone doesn’t need to talk this over, she makes the decisions herself. I wonder if she is maybe the manager of Panda Books herself. She says, “Finish her story as well?”

I do the math. Two weeks and some days to finish the story. They read Pony’s story so I have to go with that, I can’t change it. I think.

Panda publishes the “Dead Man’s Anthology”, the stories from the killed authors. Unfinished stories. It sells like crazy, sometimes better than the books of the winners. Panda is in for the money. The killing is a marketing tool for them. They are the only ones with a license from the government on the condition that Panda pays the family of the writers 30%.

If I can’t produce 30,000 words per week I’ll die. With Pony. While we came here to save our mother. Get a better life. If we were to stay over the weekend I���d have to finish my book and write another 5000 words on Pony’s story. My answer not only determines the rest of my life. Pony’s as well.  And the rest of the family.

Then Simone looks up. “It looks like you don’t have to decide Amanda, your sister has committed to finishing the story, I just got the message.”

“Committed?”

“She is at work right now and their ward says she’s doing good.”

I leave. Get back to my desk, the others look at me. I was never aware Pony was there until she texted me on the first day, four weeks ago. I was shocked. She said she had hoped she would in my group but Panda put her in the other group. Panda made publishers aware that they had two of the Peterson sisters writing stories and there were betting games on who would sell the best books. But Pony wasn’t a writer. Pinky read hers once and said it was fluff. She wouldn’t survive Panda’s One Million Dollar Writing Camp. But on the first day already had 30 million viewers per day. Sales skyrocketed. Said Pinky.

 ‘Why are you here?” I asked

“I want to help you. Do what you do”

“You’ll get yourself killed”

“You didn’t get killed.”

And I almost wanted to write ‘I can write’ but I didn’t. I didn’t sleep that first night. My sister Ponytails was here too, I tried not to get sick but it cost me 2 days to stop thinking about Pony.

 Pony didn’t answer my texts after my meeting with Simone. I finished my book four days early and Pinky kept me in the loop about the contest on the outside. Bidding was way up in my favor.

 I make the last revisions to my story. The bright white screen comes on every day but I ignore it. I push the ear-thing inside my ear every time so I can block it out. I block out the ward in the morning as I revise my story.

Pinky tells me Pony and I are tied. I block that out as well, this is madness, I will never sign up for a Panda writing if we make it out alive.

On the last day, the screen comes on but now it’s black.

We look at each other, 17 left from our group.

From the screen in high definition I can hear Pony ‘I couldn’t make it. Go Pigtails, go’ and the click is silent but deafening. I scream, I cry, They killed Pony? They killed my sister! We were tied!

 My book sells well.

Pony’s sells better. It was the only one sold as a separate book. Pony’s share floats into our bank account.

Panda’s show brings in millions.

My family moves. We do get a better house, and my mother gets better. We bury Pony, Pony gave us a better life. Pony outsmarted us all.