Masks for Sale

***Author's note:** This is a fictional story and any similarity to recent events is unintentional.*

After cashing the checks, money orders, and such, I return to the office to get down to business. I’ve made quite a profit selling gas masks and protective gear. Business is good. After putting part of the money in the safe and in the cashbox, I look over the stacks of orders. There are two orders in what I call “the exempt pile”. One order included an explanatory message saying that the customer thought it might be prudent to get a mask because there had been a couple of disasters near where she lived. I can sympathize. The other is from a guy saying he didn’t care about any special features; he just wanted a cool mask to wear to an upcoming party. That’s fine by me. It even strikes me as a little amusing for some reason. I take care of those orders first, carefully packaging the masks and making sure to set them apart from the others. After that’s done I tally the number of orders in the other stack, what I call “the special orders pile”. Once I’m sure of how many masks I’ll need to prepare, I fetch the required number and bring them into the back room to begin the process.

Safety is the primary thing. First I inspect my gloves and apron, and finding no flaws I put them on. Then I don my best gas mask and make sure it’s working as it should. With everything in order, I take one of the masks from its container, grab one of the jars from off the shelf, and get to work. I pride myself on the thoroughness with which I work. By the time I’m done working on a mask, it’s like the poison is bonded to the rubber, plastic, filters, etc. at the molecular level. Most customers wear the masks at least once. After all, the first thing most people do, when they get a mask, is try it on to make sure it fits properly. When they do, they inhale the poison with every breath, and every inch of skin in contact with the rest of the mask absorbs poison through the sweat glands. Even if the customer doesn’t wear the mask - he or she just keeps it in storage in the house - the poison can still take effect. The poison is very strong, and I take the liberty of poking tiny, nearly imperceptible holes in the bags I place the masks in before wrapping and packaging them. Poisonous fumes escape the bag and seep into the house, so chances are good the customer will still be poisoned to some extent. If the customer has ordered a complete hazmat suit, I hedge my bets by contaminating that too.

Once the customers have sufficient amounts of the poison in their systems, they begin to succumb to paranoia and death. Some suffer cardiac arrest and/or respiratory failure. Others are driven to commit murder-suicide due to paranoia. It’s easy for me to find obituaries, police blotters, and news articles, so it’s simple to find the fates of the majority of my customers. There was a report from a nearby town of a man who went insane and shot his family members to death before taking a fatal dose of pills and booze. There was also an incident in another city of a woman who was shot to death by police after she took a gun and wandered through the streets raving and making violent threats – a case of unintentional suicide by cop. I checked my customer list against the police blotters and news reports. Sure enough, they were both on the “special orders pile” list. Sometimes I can tell beforehand that the poison is doing its work. For instance, there was a customer who, a couple weeks after receiving his mask, requested five more masks, making all sorts of claims about why he needed them. I could tell from the bizarre claims he made that he was deep into the paranoia stage. I told him not to worry, that I would send him the new shipment of masks expedited delivery at no extra cost since he was such a good customer, and please let me know when the shipment arrived. Two days after he contacted me to let me know it had arrived, I read his obituary. They speculated that it was stress that had caused his fatal heart attack. Funny stuff.

The more people die, the more fear is generated. The more fearful and paranoid people come, the greater my sales. After the guy who ordered five additional masks had his heart attack, several of his friends and relatives ordered masks from me. This thing had them shaken, they said, and they would feel safer with something which could provide them with a little extra security, because you never know what might happen in life. I told them I understood completely, and that I would give them the exact same service I gave him. After the news reports of the woman who was shot by police, and of the man who killed his family, I searched and found the advertising offices for the newspapers in those cities. I placed an ad in each one, and after that my sales in those cities took off like a rocket. Many of the customers I gained from those three incidents have already died and more are on their way there. The cycle continues as the process constantly replicates itself. Yep, business is good.

## Narrations

*Written by Raidra

Content is available under CC BY-SA*