Scattered Like Body Parts in the Shower after the Phone Rang

The News Reporter forgot his name, just like all the Scattered Ones. He soon forgot all the names of his family and friends. He only knew the button immediately before him, which he pushed with a fanatical devotion, only occasionally stopping when his joints seized up. This gave him time to consider his surroundings.

He was in a brick cell no larger than a phone booth.

He remembered a time when he wasn't in this cell. There was light and food and trees, but then he went to the Other Man's house and fell through the ceiling to join the ones who made electricity by pushing the buttons and wishing they were being impersonated.

He pushed the button, and the top of the cell opened and in to it fell a piece of spinach, which he devoured eagerly. This was the daily allowance of food allowed to him by the Other Man, to reward him for pushing the button.

The News Reporter was in the dark cell eating the spinach. "I will do this until I die," he said, "I will spend my entire life in this cell pushing this button to provide generated electricity for another man's washer-dryer, stove, and electric toothbrush."

He wondered what it would be like to touch another human being.

Sometimes the sound of a telephone would come to him in his dreams, and he'd wake up oozing.